How to Prevent Cheating: 5 Practical Steps to Strengthen Your Relationship
Understanding the Risk of Infidelity
Cheating often sneaks up on couples. Many affairs don’t start with the intent to cheat, but rather from blurred emotional boundaries and growing emotional distance between partners. In this post, we’ll explore how to prevent cheating in your relationship based on insights from relationship experts like Dr. Shirley Glass and John Gottman.
Learning how to prevent cheating in your relationship isn’t just about trust—it’s about building emotional boundaries, staying connected, and addressing disconnection before it becomes a problem.
Why Cheating Happens: The Emotional Affair Pathway
According to Dr. Shirley Glass, most affairs start as innocent friendships. Glass describes this process in her “Not Just Friends” model, where emotional boundaries are slowly crossed, creating an emotional closeness that eventually leads to an affair.
Key insights from Glass and Gottman:
• Affairs often begin emotionally, not physically. By sharing personal information or emotional struggles with someone outside the relationship, you gradually invest more in them than in your partner.
• Emotional disconnection within the relationship is a key vulnerability. When couples drift apart emotionally, they may unconsciously seek closeness elsewhere.
1. Build Emotional Boundaries
• Glass’s Window and Wall Concept: Glass uses the concept of a window and wall to explain emotional boundaries. In healthy relationships, there’s a window of openness between partners and a wall between them and outside people. When an affair happens, the window shifts to someone else, and a wall forms between partners.
Action Step:
• Discuss Emotional Boundaries: Have an open conversation with your partner about what’s acceptable in terms of emotional sharing with others. Define clear boundaries for cross-sex friendships to prevent emotional intimacy from forming.
2. Prioritize Emotional Connection
• John Gottman’s “Love Maps” Concept: Gottman’s research highlights that couples who consistently know each other’s emotional worlds—their fears, hopes, stresses—are less likely to experience infidelity. Daily emotional connection reduces the risk of emotional drift.
Action Step:
• Check-in Daily: Even if it’s just 10 minutes, make time each day to connect emotionally with your partner. Ask questions like, “How are you feeling today?” or “What’s something that’s been on your mind?”
3. Address Vulnerabilities Early
• Esther Perel’s Insight on Infidelity: Perel emphasizes that affairs often stem from unmet emotional needs within the relationship. If you’re feeling disconnected, it’s crucial to address this directly with your partner rather than letting that distance grow.
Action Step:
• Communicate Needs Early: If you feel emotionally neglected or distant, talk to your partner about it. Addressing these feelings early can prevent emotional withdrawal and protect your relationship from infidelity.
4. Transparency Over Secrecy
• Glass’s Research on Secrecy: Once emotional boundaries are crossed, secrecy often follows. Deleting texts, hiding messages, or lying about interactions outside the relationship are red flags for an impending affair.
Action Step:
• No Secrets Policy: Practice transparency by sharing communication with each other. If you feel the need to hide a text or downplay a relationship, take that as a signal to re-evaluate boundaries.
5. Nurture Your Relationship Through Small Gestures
• Gottman’s “Bids for Connection”: Gottman found that strong relationships are built through small daily gestures of connection. He calls these “bids for attention”—little moments when your partner seeks your engagement, whether through a smile, a question, or a comment. The more you “turn toward” these bids, the stronger your relationship becomes.
Action Step:
• Respond to Bids for Connection: When your partner makes a small request for attention—like sharing a thought or asking a question—respond with engagement. Consistent, positive responses build intimacy and prevent emotional drift.
Protecting Your Relationship from Infidelity
Preventing cheating in your relationship is about maintaining emotional closeness and setting clear boundaries. Through daily connection, openness, and addressing disconnection early, you can safeguard your relationship against the risks of infidelity. Remember, it’s the small, daily efforts that keep emotional walls from forming and prevent emotional drift.
