We grow up believing that romantic relationships are black and white. We learn that if two people love each other, then they must have a healthy relationship, and we learn that if two people are together, then they never have feelings for anyone outside of that relationship.

However, relationships are much more complex and oftentimes more painful than the simple rules above. Most people know the pain behind resenting someone that you simultaneously love, and others know the confusion of having feelings for two people at once.

The truth is that romantic love has the potential to be messy, and it is oftentimes. This is why I’ve come to the conclusion that faithfulness is more of a spectrum than a “he cheated” or “he didn’t cheat”.

I was the girl with the boyfriend for all 4 years of high school. Now, this was a wonderful experience that taught me a lot about what it means to be a friend and how to navigate the twisting roads of caring deeply for another person. However, it also taught me the harsh reality of what it means to be faithful to another person: there are a lot of ways you can be unfaithful to someone that don’t necessarily involve cheating.

Everyone has a different definition of cheating that ranges from intention to full on sexual intercourse. And while these definitions are twisted to validate some relationships and destroy others, I think the universal truth about cheating is this: if the victim feels betrayed, you were being unfaithful because you weren’t following their guidelines of what it means to be faithful to them.

Everyone has their own line in the sand when it comes to being faithful. When you care about another person, you need to evaluate whether or not you can honor their boundary before promising that you will always be faithful to them.

I think the reality of any kind of relationship is that it’s going to hurt when your partner makes you feel betrayed. Humans are emotional creatures; we overreact and we feel threatened easily when we feel that love is on the line. After being with someone for 4 years, I can say with certainty that there were times I made my first boyfriend feel betrayed without meaning to. Hugging, joking around, texting friends of the opposite sex: these actions are totally socially acceptable, but they can still hurt your partner because nobody likes the idea of the person they care about being with somebody new.

I think the easiest way to protect ourselves from feeling betrayed is to have realistic expectations of the people that we care about. Whether your honey is just your best friend, someone you have monongymors sex with, or your fiancé, we all need to understand that our partners are rarely going to be unfaithful to us with the intention of hurting us. And if you can’t trust that your partner doesn’t have ill intentions, then you probably shouldn’t be in any sort of relationship with that person.

A part of this expectation is understanding that being young makes complete faithfulness close to impossible. At an age where we are constantly interacting with our peers at school, at parties, or just walking down our residence halls, it’s hard to maintain a romantic relationship with someone and never cause that person a little doubt or a little jealousy. But that’s where the trust comes in. When you trust that your partner doesn’t intend to hurt you, your spectrum of faithfulness adjusts to match that trust.

The next easiest step to take is obvious: communication. Communicate! It sounds so simple but so many people mess it up! Establish boundaries with your partner about what makes you feel comfortable and what makes you feel uncomfortable. Make your own definition of what cheating is, of what’s acceptable, and of what’s not. If your partner truly cares about you, odds are they will respect your boundaries while expecting you to maintain them as well.

Understanding the relativity of faithfulness helps ease the potential for pain that comes with being in a relationship with someone. I think there are very few “sadistic cheaters”, people who maliciously convince their partner that they love them while betraying them behind their back, and more likely a lot of people who feel a relationship is coming to a close and then seek that fulfillment elsewhere before completely cutting ties with the first person.

We all know couples who are “girlfriend and boyfriend” but resent each other, and we all know two best friends who aren’t “in a relationship” but always have a smile on their faces when they’re together. Being faithful to another person isn’t about labels and who said what to whom. Faithfulness is about committing yourself to another person, not just as a sexual partner, but also as a human being and as a best friend.