This Is What Being Faithful Means Because It’s More Than Not Sleeping Around

Being faithful means more than keeping your hands to yourself. It means more than only sleeping with one person, only kissing one person, only being physically involved with one person.

Being faithful means that you delete your Tinder and any other dating apps on your phone, because you don’t need them anymore. Because you don’t need more booty calls or backup plans. Because you’re happy with the person that you’re dating and would never dream of cheating on them.

Being faithful means putting an end to any flirting that becomes too intense. It means telling the girl hitting on you at the bar that you’re in a relationship. It means making it clear that you aren’t interested in her instead of leading her on and enjoying the fact that someone other than your partner is attracted to you. 

Being faithful means keeping your wedding ring on or keeping your relationship status public so everyone knows you’re taken, instead of purposely trying to make other people think that you’re single so that they treat you differently. So that you still get checked out and receive miniature confidence boosts.

Being faithful means being honest with your person about the fact that you ran into your ex during your lunch break or that some girl at the bar asked you for your number. It means being open, even when the truth makes you uncomfortable, because you believe that your person deserves to know what really happened. 

Being faithful means knowing what your person is not okay with, what they would consider being disloyal, and never crossing that line.

You are allowed to text someone else. You are allowed to like someone else’s picture on Instagram. You are allowed to have friends of every gender.

But if you start hiding texts from your person, because you know that they would get upset if they found out about what you’ve been saying to some other girl — if you leave several inappropriate, sexual comments underneath another girl’s picture — if you treat your female friend exactly the same as your girlfriend, then something is seriously wrong.

Maybe you’re not technically cheating, but you’re coming close enough. Close enough for your girlfriend to worry. Close enough to hurt the person who loves you more than anything.

Remember, being faithful means more than never letting another person into your bed. It means never letting another person in your heart.

Being faithful means deciding that your love for this one person outweighs your desire to be with any other person on the planet. It means that you’ve decided you’ve found the person you’re meant to spend the rest of your life with and you aren’t going to do anything to mess it up.