Emotional Infidelity vs. Actual Cheating

Sticking with the topic of infidelity since it's obviously such a controversial one, I have an interesting conundrum for you. Which is worse, emotional infidelity or actual cheating?

We all know what actual cheating is - sleeping with someone else, kissing, basically crossing whatever physical boundaries a couple have agreed in their relationship. Just so we're all on the same page as to what constitutes emotional infidelity, let me give you a little scenario. Ross and Rachel (sorry, those are the first names that came to mind) have been together about three years and there's no doubt for either of them that they're with the person they want to spend the rest of their lives with. Rachel has just had a promotion at work so she's working late and working weekends and when she's not working so hard, she's so exhausted that she either wants to stay at home and sleep or when she's with Ross, she's not much company. This has been going on for about a month and a half.

The company Ross works for is also going through some major changes and there's a lot of pressure on all the employees. One day after work, a bunch of them go to the pub and Ross spends a lot of time talking to a colleague called Hannah. He's always thought she was a nice woman but they'd never really spent any time together. For whatever reason, tonight they get talking and they spend the whole night venting their frustrations about the company and making fun of their colleagues. Over the next couple of weeks, they start going for lunch together and go out occasionally after work with other co-workers. They're always IMing at work, they have in jokes and soon they're sharing the details of their personal lives with each other. They cheer each other up after a particularly hard day at work and they can tell what the other is thinking simply by looking at their face. Rachel's work hours are becoming slightly more normal and she and Ross are spending more time together but when Ross's beloved Chelsea loses a game, the first person he thinks to tell is Hannah, not Rachel. And it's Hannah's opinion he asks for when he's thinking of changing his mortgage provider, and it's her he spends hours venting to when his parents decide to separate after 35 years of marriage. They're both attractive people so it's only a matter of time before they start to fancy each other and Ross starts to wonder if he's with the wrong person. In this particular scenario, nothing ever happens between them.

Is that worse than if Ross had gotten drunk one night and kissed/slept with his ex girlfriend/co-worker/random woman?

For me, emotional infidelity would be much more hurtful than if he had slept with someone else. Partly because I know that realistically at some point (in fact, several points) in a relationship, both parties will be attracted to other people, it's inevitable, people don't stop being attractive just because you're in love. But I believe that the things that would set me apart from the other women are our shared experiences, his feelings for me as a person and the relationship we've built. I guess I'm naive enough to believe that as long as he values all of those things, then I'll always be set apart from other women and it is this that will stop him from cheating on me. That's why it would hurt me so much more to know that he's shared newer, more fun experiences with someone else, and he finds her funnier or smarter or sweeter than me, and he feels something for her that is based on much deeper than just physical. Now here's the conundrum. Even though that would hurt me more, I'd forgive emotional infidelity and if he wanted to work on our relationship then I'd do everything in my power to work on it and make it right again. But I wouldn't forgive physical infidelity even though in some ways, it's the lesser of two evils for me. Does that make sense?

I think it’s because there is an innocence about emotional infidelity. It’s often one of those situations that you’re in before you even realise it. While as far as I’m concerned, whichever way I look at it, if a guy cheated on me, it means he put his needs before my feelings.

What do you guys think? Which would you find harder to forgive? Why?