1 in 7 have feelings for someone who isn't their partner: here's what counts as cheating in 2026

However, recognizing cheating doesn’t mean respondents are always innocent of it themselves.

According to the results, one in ten Americans admit they’re guilty of deleting messages so their partner doesn’t see, while eight percent have secretly met up with someone one-on-one.

Another eight percent have had a secret friendship their partner didn’t know about, and another eight percent have even kept ongoing flirtatious text conversations going with someone else.

Six percent of those polled also admit to keeping someone in their phone under a fake name so their partner couldn’t see who they were talking to.

“Most people do not wake up planning to test a boundary. It builds slowly, one small unmet need at a time,” says Kay Phongsan, Mindfulness Coach at Plant Medicine Thailand. “Someone stops feeling seen at home, and a flirtatious text thread starts to feel like proof they still matter to somebody. I see this pattern often. They can often name exactly what they are missing, without having said it to their partner directly. The boundary-testing act becomes the workaround. That avoidance is the actual root, not the text thread itself.

“I had a client once who kept a years-old conversation going with someone from college, just steady late-night texting. Nearly four in ten people count this as cheating, yet the person doing it rarely names it that way to themselves. Instead of asking their partner for more attention, they quietly build a smaller relationship where that need already gets met.”

These small acts of micro-cheating aren’t the only reasons people walk away from a relationship, as the survey also uncovered some of the truly bizarre reasons people have called it quits in the past.

Eating pizza with a fork, having bad breath, and chewing cereal too loudly were all cited reasons Americans have ended things with a romantic interest.

One survey-taker reportedly broke up with somebody because they disagreed about whether pineapple belonged on a pizza.

Another ended a relationship over the way their partner smacked their gum, and a different respondent cited “their new haircut” as the final straw.

According to Dr. Sal Raichbach, PsyD, LCSW, CFSW, Chief Clinical Officer at The Haven Detox Group, there is something more complex happening.

“The stated reason for terminating a relationship may not accurately reflect why the relationship actually ended,” said Raichbach. “In many cases, the ‘small’ issue becomes symbolic of a much deeper incompatibility – differences in etiquette, values, lifestyle, attraction, or perceived respect for one another. At times the actual trigger that prompts the termination of a relationship is indeed the ‘odd reason.’ The actual reason for ending the relationship was due to dissatisfaction beneath that specific behavior.”