Today I am so pleased to welcome Liam Livings to Joyfully Jay. Liam has come as part of our Friends & Enemies to Lovers Week to talk about his book And Then That Happened. Please join me in giving him a big welcome!
Is emotional cheating actually cheating?
Or, to put it another way, when is cheating not cheating? I think cheating is only cheating when it involves something physical happening by interacting with another person.
This debate came up because Gabe and Dominic, the two main characters in And Then That Happened, both have boyfriends when they meet. At first they are friends, but then as it becomes apparent there are a whole host of issues in their own relationships, they look to one another for emotional support and solace. Evidently, this is emotional cheating. Or is it?
If you read the reviews on Goodreads And Then That Happened really divided opinions. One reviewer said it was, ‘a beautifully rendered portrait of the death of a long-term relationship and the long, slow birth of a new one.’ Another review said, Dominic ‘was emotionally cheating on Luke the whole time, which in many ways is worse imo.’ Personally I’m happier to have made some strong reactions from the story than to have been faced with a sea of meh whatever reviews. Just to let you know, Dominic and Gabe end up together at the end of the story – it’s not a massive spoiler really is it, because it’s a gay romance, so a happy ending is expected. I’ll come back to the reaction it got from readers and why I think that is.
I think this concept of getting emotional support from someone other than your boyfriend isn’t cheating. I’m quite black and white about this; if something physical happens with another person that’s cheating. Going to someone for emotional support; discussing personal problems with someone other than your boyfriend; even beginning to fall for someone else emotionally – for me, none of these count as cheating.
At its most basic level, if your boyfriend falls in love with someone else you can’t stop that from happening. You can’t make people love you or fall in love with you; it just happens. In And Then That Happened, Dominic and Gabe realise the full feelings they have for one another gradually. So if your boyfriend’s fallen for someone else there are a few choices: you leave him to be with the other person – a sort of if you love him set him free approach. Or you fight for him to stay with you (and in my experience he’ll leave you anyway a few months later.) In short, once he’s fallen in love with someone else, the love in your relationship is on its way out the door, so you’re probably both better off out of that relationship. This applies to falling in love with someone, not physical cheating which is a whole different kettle of fish we don’t have time for here.
As for all the rest of the emotional ‘cheating’ this indicates for me that emotional support is lacking in your own relationship, so the partner can’t come to you for this, he turns to someone else. Or it may be that the emotional cheating is about your relationship, and that the partner has tried to talk to you about it, but you’re not interested in hearing it, so who can blame him for seeking emotional support from someone else? For me, this is definitely still NOT cheating. And if you do think it’s cheating, then I put it to you that you’re focussing on the wrong thing. Instead, how about trying to focus on why he’s discussing your failing relationship with someone else, or what’s gone wrong emotionally in your own relationship?
Same gender friendships
What struck me about the reaction to And Then That Happened on Goodreads was how some of the reviews were so black and white about this emotional cheating aspect. I’m going to try and unpack why I think that is. I can’t know this without actually talking to the people who left those reviews, but based on statistics in the gay romance genre, 70% or more of the readers will be women. I think what’s happened is these women may have imposed their ideas of emotional cheating from their straight relationship with a man into the gay friendship between Gabe and Dominic. (I know not all the female readers will be straight women, some may be bisexual and others may be lesbian, but again, based on the general readership of the genre, and the population overall, the majority tend to be women who identify as straight.)
And here’s the problem with imposing a straight set of values onto a gay friendship and gay relationship: most straight women tend to have close and sharing emotional relationships with other straight women and not straight men. Hence the likelihood of this emotional cheating happening between a straight women and her straight male friend are relatively low. However, most gay men tend to have this sort of emotional sharing and close relationship with either a straight woman or another gay man. (Again, this isn’t based on anything scientific, except my friendships, those of my friends, and others I know of. I’m not saying gay men aren’t friends with straight women, it’s that gay men’s friendships with other gay men that include emotional support are more common that straight women’s friendships with straight men that include emotional support.) And in the latter situation – two gay men being friends – unlike the former – two straight women being friends – there is the possibility of sexual physical cheating happening.
So what does all this mean? Just like Dominic and Gabe’s friendship in And Then That Happened, it is common for two gay men to have an emotionally supportive friendship where what could be viewed as emotional cheating takes place – but in many gay men’s support systems that is the only option they have for this sort of support, whatever it’s about. The fact the two gay men emotionally support one another behind their boyfriends’ backs is due to them having that close emotional bond (in the same way two straight women could be very close friends). And the fact that these two gay men could physically cheat on their boyfriends with each other, doesn’t mean that 1) they will and 2) that the emotional support is cheating or 3) that gay men shouldn’t look to one another for emotional support while being in a relationship.
That’s pretty complicated isn’t it, and only now having written it down do I realise how complex it is, although it’s something I’ve taken for granted my whole adult life as I’ve had many close friendships with other gay men, while we both often had boyfriends.
If I got funny about Himself having close gay male friends he wouldn’t have much of his close friendship group left. Many of these guys are his ex boyfriends anyway. Similarly, I’m still friends with quite a few of my ex boyfriends, because you know, people move on, relationships end, and gay men can be friends with other gay men before and after sleeping with each other, and it’s all fine.
If you think you’d like to read about two men starting as friends and ending as lovers in what I hope is a realistic portrayal of gay male relationships, I’d love you to try And Then That Happened.
Buy links
- Amazon.comÂ
- Amazon.co.uk
Blurb
Should you settle for a nearly perfect happiness or put your heart on the line for more?
It’s 1999 and 28-year-old Dominic’s carefully planned suburban life with his boyfriend Luke is perfect. His job as a nurse, his best friend Matt, his relationship with his parents, everything is just right. He and Luke have been together ten years, seen each other through friends’ deaths and their parents’ ups and downs, and even had a commitment ceremony.
Gabe isn’t happy with his boyfriend, but he stays with him, because, well it’s complicated.
Fate throws Gabe into Dominic’s life. And then that happened. Gabe’s open relationship, impulsive nature, enthusiasm for life and straight talking advice are fascinating to Dominic. They’re friends, they click over a shared love of Goldie Hawn and Gabe shows Dominic there can be more to life than planned and safe. So why can’t he take his own advice?
And Then That Happened is about finding a new kind of happiness, even when what you have is already perfect. And how sometimes perfect isn’t quite what it seems
Bio
Liam Livings lives where east London ends and becomes Essex. He shares his house with his boyfriend and cat. He enjoys baking, cooking, classic cars and socialising with friends. He escapes from real life with a guilty pleasure book, cries at a sad, funny and camp film – and he’s been known to watch an awful lot of Gilmore Girls in the name of writing ‘research’.
He has written since he was a teenager, started writing with the hope of publication in 2011. His writing focuses on friendships, British humour, romance with plenty of sparkle.
You can connect with Liam:
- Twitter @LiamLivings
- Facebook https://www.facebook.com/liam.livings
- Blog http://www.liamlivings.com/blog
- Website www.liamlivings.com
What a fascinating topic; thanks for sharing your thoughts, Liam. And Then That Happened sounds intriguing. Best wishes with your writing.
Hi Kareni,
thanks for your comment. Glad you enjoyed me sharing my thoughts and views. I’m really proud of ATTH, but it certainly is quite different from many other gay romance novels.
Best wishes, Liam
Very interesting! My husband was married for 22 years to first wife. We married and were married for 28 years. Major holidays, birthdays, graduations and the like were always done together. My friends just couldn’t understand all that. But you know you are right in the aspect of people change and move on. But my husband and 1st wife had 3 kids and then grand kids that we shared all things with all of them. There wasn’t 2 birthday party’s or 2 Christmas dinners. It was all done at each others houses and everyone got along. No big deal.
That seems like such a nice way to handle things!
Hi Julie Small, thanks for your comment. That sounds exactly how Bjorn and Benny from ABBA described how the Swedish do things. People get married, split up, and you carry on being friends because things change. No big deal – sums it up perfectly! Thanks, Liam 🙂
//I think cheating is only cheating when it involves something physical happening by interacting with another person.//
With respect, I think that’s a pretty narrow, and maybe even immature, definition of cheating. Cheating isn’t fucking someone else. Cheating is, at its base, a violation of trust. And where and how trust is violated varies from relationship to relationship. To say cheating is only something physical is also to dismiss an entire world of people who can’t or don’t have sex for a whole host of reasons. Sex is only one way to cheat on someone, not THE only.
//Going to someone for emotional support; discussing personal problems with someone other than your boyfriend; even beginning to fall for someone else emotionally – for me, none of these count as cheating.//
The key words here are FOR ME. By your definition, in your relationship, it’s not cheating. But for different people, in a different relationship, it would be cheating. Â I had a friend who was cheated on emotionally for months, didn’t know until the relationship was over that her girlfriend had just been texting and emailing another woman. That the girlfriend kept it secret, that she had a whole separate life she didn’t talk about, yeah, that’s cheating. My friend was crushed and hurt. By their definition of their relationship, her girlfriend had been cheating. The same thing happened to a former boss of mine – she found out her husband had been talking for months and months with another woman about problems, and she was devastated, because instead of coming to her about all these things bothering him her husband had been ignoring her and turning to someone else at an emotionally intimate level. They worked it out, but by their definition of their relationship, he had been cheating. In both cases, the people cheating agreed and knew they’d done something wrong. All relationships are different, and the rules vary with each, which is why to reduce cheating to “something physical” doesn’t remotely cover the scope of how complicated and brutal cheating can be.
//I think what’s happened is these women may have imposed their ideas of emotional cheating from their straight relationship with a man into the gay friendship between Gabe and Dominic. //
First of all, stop assuming all women involved in this genre and discussion are straight. I’m not straight, and having just read your summary and various comments and reviews, I’m convinced there was emotional cheating involved. It has nothing to do with women being straight or not being able to understand that gay men are different or anything else. Â To dismiss how women readers feel as them not being unable to understand that gay relationships are different from their assumed straight ones, I’m sorry, but that’s incredibly sexist. You’re essentially saying that women are too stupid to see differences, that we can’t handle our emotions, that we can’t tell the difference between different kinds of friendships and romantic relationships . You’re dismissing and belittling what women feel and think. What we think of the matter is one hundred percent valid, whether you agree with it or not. We’re not projecting straight relationships onto gay ones. We’re looking at a relationship with our own experiences and thoughts and feelings and saying that it comes off as cheating to us. We don’t deserve to be dismissed as ‘not understanding’. Because you’re right, cheating is complicated, and immediately dismissing women that way is an over-simplification and massively insulting.
Interesting and thought-provoking post, Liam. Personally, if I found out that my partner had fallen for someone else and was constantly attempting to keep that relationship alive (even without sharing physical intimacy), I would be far more devastated than if he just fucked someone behind my back. My partner and me both have gay friendships and talk to gay men for emotional support (even exs), but I do think there is a line between friendship and something more intimate. If I were to start feeling more for one of my gay male friends and pursued it knowing that I was starting to see our relationship as something more than a friendship, I would consider that emotional cheating. Also, I don’t believe this is a foreign concept to many straight women. I have several cisgender girlfriends who have male friends, some even ex-boyfriends, and they know the difference between asking that person for emotional support and sharing a deeper, more intimate and inappropriate connection with that person while they are in a relationship. But I wouldn’t consider just asking for emotional support to be emotional cheating. I think it has to cross the line into: A) I’m starting to feel something more, B) I know I’m feeling something more, and C) I’m refusing to do anything to stop it.
But in fiction, I can enjoy emotional cheating as a device to bring characters together. That’s just a personal preference, though.
Hi Devon, thanks for your comment. Glad you found it interesting and thought-provoking – that’s exactly what I hoped to achieve by sharing my views.
I think you hit the nail on the head, it’s a fine line between emotional support and starting to feel something more for someone else. Another good point you made is that although someone can feel something more they refuse to stop doing anything to stop it. In the story, the characters realise there is something more, and they decide to stop being friends – out of respect for their boyfriends. In fiction, cheating is a whole different ball game from what it’s like in real life. It can be used to bring characters together, or shine a light onto the character’s current relationship. Thanks for engaging in the discussion, best wishes, Liam 🙂
The key as to why emotional cheating is something some readers (such as myself) are incredibly averse to is the idea of two people going behind their partners’ back to gain support. Just like you mentioned in this post. It’s that secrecy/need to deceive that would set off all kinds of alarms.
The fact that it might lead to an actual relationship (such as it happens in this book) raises my hackles. Deep friendships between people of any orientation and gender are wonderful. IMHO, good friends would respect each other’s relationships.
Hi Luce, I absolutely take your point about going behind someone’s back, but what if you’d tried to discuss these issues with your partner and met a brick wall? What if you’d tried to fix the relationship, but it is over in all ways except the final splitting up? If two people are going through really difficult situations in their own relationship, which they’re struggling to resolve with their own partner, I personally don’t see anything wrong with support from someone else.
It did lead to a relationship in this book – because they were such good friends that shone a light onto their current relationships to realise they were essentially over. As sad as it is ending a relationship, it’s sadder to stay in one that’s dead in my view. Thanks for engaging in the discussion, and debate, Liam 🙂
Thanks everyone for sharing your thoughts, and Liam for stopping by. It has been really interesting reading everyone’s opinions on this issue.Â