Is Emotional Infidelity More Damaging than Physical Cheating?

A question from Kajol and Twinkle Khanna’s chat show, Two Much, has now become a point: “What’s worse, emotional infidelity or physical cheating?” The episode that featured Karan Johar and Janhvi Kapoor saw a baffled Janhvi when the question first came up, and what followed it has now spread like wildfire over the internet.

While Janhvi Kapoor responded, saying, ““They are both bad, how can one type of cheating be worse than the other?”, the other three agreed that emotional cheating is worse.

With snippets from the episode where Phrases like “raat gayi, baat gayi” and “thand lag jaati hai” were among the justifications that were offered and have gone viral, the question has sparked a debate about what hits harder, emotional cheating or physical cheating in modern Indian marriages and relationships and which one of these is a greater sin.

In a day and age where texting and constant connectivity have begun to blur the lines of intimacy, this question has become a point of discussion. Many people believe that while physical infidelity may involve a single act, emotional betrayal often unfolds quietly. They believe it is built on shared conversations, secrets and growing emotional dependence on someone outside the relationship and is the biggest form of betrayal in a relationship.

When Emotional Cheating Hurts More Than Physical Cheating

Life and Relationship Coach Chetna Chakravarthy believes that this kind of betrayal cuts rather deeper than physical cheating because it challenges something more fundamental, which is emotional trust. She states that the pain often lies in knowing that your partner chose to connect with someone else while you were right there. She explains how emotional infidelity is more complex and how it differs from physical cheating.

“Because it makes you feel inadequate,” says Chetna Chakravarthy when asked why emotional cheating often feels more painful than physical infidelity. “Your partner reached out to somebody else emotionally connected to them while you were still present in their life. Why didn’t they turn to you? Why was that not enough? What is missing in your relationship? What is lacking in your relationship?”

She explains that while both types of cheating can stir feelings of failure and self-doubt, the difference lies in the perception of intent. “With physical infidelity, there is a slight thing or a levy of it being a heat-of-the-moment thing, a mistake, something that happened just one time. But when it’s emotional infidelity, you know that it has been happening for a long time. They’re finding it easier to converse with somebody else rather than you, and again that’s a huge piece saying ‘why not me'.”

Why Honesty and Transparency Matter The Most

According to Chetna, two key elements that are essential in every relationship—honesty and transparency. “They are two very different things. Honesty is saying I’m going out for dinner, transparency is saying I’m going out for dinner with the boys, and one of them is bringing one of the girls he met on a dating app. We don’t know how we’ve never met her, and she’s going to be there, right? That’s transparency.”

She adds that many people pride themselves on being honest but forget about being transparent. “When somebody is not being transparent about a person in their life, you know that it is not just a close friendship. There is a risk of something more happening over there.”

However, she also points out that possessiveness can complicate things. “If partners can’t have a life outside of the relationship, that’s a whole different story. However, if one partner stops revealing or keeping one so-called friend out of the circle and continues to hang out with them without their partner's knowledge or does things behind their partner’s back, transparency is lost. That’s when a close friendship is leaning towards emotional infidelity.”

Pondering over which hurts more and leaves longer-lasting damage in a relationship, emotional cheating or physical cheating, Chetna believes it isn’t a one-size-fits-all answer. “I don’t think you can differentiate or pinpoint and say emotional has caused or will cause far more damage than physical in general, because it depends on relationship to relationship. It depends on the value system. It depends on the person’s belief.”

She elaborates that reactions differ between individuals. “A lot of women can forgive physical infidelity—they cannot forgive emotional infidelity. A lot of men can let go of emotional infidelity but they cannot let go of physical infidelity. So it’s a relationship-to-relationship thing and it also depends on that person’s individual personality, baggage, value system, and beliefs.”

The Blurred Line Between Emotional and Physical

Chetna explains that emotional cheating often coexists with physical attraction. “Emotional cheating cannot exist without any physical attraction. Whether you are physically attracted to a person and hence you get emotionally connected to them because that is easier and conducive with online texting—or whether you are emotionally connected and then you start finding the person physically attractive—either way physical attraction will be present in the same room as emotional connection.”

She adds that in the digital age, emotional cheating has become easier to justify. “Going forward and letting somebody into your life emotionally is often the easier way out these days because you can’t physically go and meet somebody, so you’d rather at least chat with them, and this feels less like cheating through the person who is actually doing the chatting.”

She presses that while to one person it may not seem like a big deal, it still holds value to the other, and that is what makes it count as cheating. “You were going there for an emotional connection to be seen, to be heard, in a way that your partner was not doing for you or giving you or in a way that you wanted, but you hadn’t expressed it to your partner.”

Why Emotional Affairs Are Harder to End

Talking about why some people view physical cheating as a one-time mistake but emotional cheating as a deeper form of disloyalty, Chetna explains that the difference, actually, lies in duration and repetition. “If you have slept with somebody or had sex with somebody only once and never been in touch with them again, then that is one time—it’s finite, there’s a full stop, it’s over. Whereas with emotional infidelity, there is a repetition of the behaviour, and the person is reaching out over and over again. And having conversations that they should have otherwise been having with their partner.”

She adds that this creates a pattern of secrecy. “They’re shutting their partner out and letting somebody else in—or they’re giving their partner part of the information but giving the rest of it to somebody else. Something is being shared that the partner did not agree to share.”

When asked if a relationship can survive physical cheating, Chetna agrees. “Yes,” she says, “but only if the partner who has cheated makes amends—and not just with words and apologising but with absolute action.”

Can a Relationship Survive Cheating?

Going further into how couples can work on rebuilding trust after discovering emotional infidelity, Chetna highlights that the person should be removed from their life. “If it is a work colleague, then the person should change their job or change teams at least—they cannot make an excuse of ‘oh I’m getting a promotion.’ If they met this person on social media, they need to block the person—ideally, be blocked anywhere on all forms of communication.”

She stresses that rebuilding trust takes both partners. “There has to be an effort made by both partners to realign their relationship, to understand why this happened, and make the changes that need to be made.”

Communication, or the Lack of It, is the Root of Emotional Affairs

She stresses that communication plays a major role in leading someone to cheat emotionally. “If there is a lack of communication, then emotional cheating is inevitable,” Chetna warns. “We all want to be seen, we all want to be heard, we all want our partner to witness our life and cheer for us, validate us, take care of us, and be proud of us. And if there is no communication or expression of these pieces, then you are going to feel ignored, left out, unloved—and you are then going to look towards somebody else to give you that attention and validation.”

Finally, while concluding Chetna draws a clear boundary and highlighting how online connections count as cheating, she says, “If you are constantly texting and sharing intimate details with somebody who is not your partner, you are cheating on your partner—unless your partner knows about this and they are okay with it, then you have a whole different dynamic which is fine. But if your partner doesn’t know about it and you are sharing intimate details of your emotional and mental life, you have to ask yourself why.” She stresses that you must introspect about why you are not sharing those details with your partner and why your partner does not know about another person in your life.