did i emotionally cheat?
this was a situation from years ago and i am no longer in contact with any of the guys i mentioned in the post, but i just recently thought about it and realized i might have emotionally cheated on my ex bf.
i was in a LDR with my ex bf for a little over a year, we lived in the same city but were long distance when we went back to college (so basically for the entirety of our relationship). during the last 3-4 months of our relationship, a guy in one of my classes caught my eye --- let's just call him x. i didn't find x super super attractive or anything, but he was cute, had good style, and just seemed to draw me in. we ended up clicking, and we became friends and started talking over insta + text not too long later. i sent my bf at the time screenshots of us talking, asking if he thought x was flirting with me, to which my bf said no, so i continued talking to x.
for some reason, i started having lots of romantic and sexual fantasies with x in my head. it honestly never made me feel guilty, but i just was confused and couldn't stop the thoughts or imagining myself being with x. i also thought about x all day, even if we didn't see each other, and we would text regularly (but not more in amount than any of my other friends, i'd say). we became closer during the semester, and we got meals / hung out one on one, but i never thought "wow i like x" or made a move on x physically. our friendship was also very bantery, and it seemed like all our texts or convos would just be us making fun of each other. it also seemed that i made lots of excuses to try to run into x/see x whenever i could, such as asking if he was studying nearby or if he wanted anything from a store i was going shopping at. btw, i typically have a decent number of guy friends, so this was normal for me/not crossing a boundary in my relationship at that time, but it was definitely a bit excessive to be seeing him that often for someone i wasn't so close with.
i eventually broke up with my ex bf due to the distance putting a strain on the relationship (and i was devastated to make that decision/still knew that i loved him a lot), but in the back of my mind i did also think a bit about how i was so strangely attracted to x (but never "liked" him?).
looking back on it now, it seems like i emotionally cheated, but i don't think i would've broken up with my bf at the time if this was the only issue (as in, distance was still the main reason we broke up). is this emotional cheating?? or is this something that could've been ignored/fixed (i guess i'm scared it might happen in a future relationship)?