Is jerking off cheating?

Your boyfriend or husband jerks off regularly. He enjoys it and says it relaxes him, but you’re worried about its impact on your relationship. If he is taking care of his needs on his own, will he need you? Does it mean that you don’t satisfy him? Can jerking off really be a part of a healthy, loving, committed relationship? How much is too much? 

Let’s start with the facts. Masturbation is not the same thing as a physical affair, but it is a sexual act. It’s normal to wonder about how solo sexual acts may impact the sex shared between you and your partner. While jerking off isn’t cheating, it can often be a confusing part of relationships, and many people avoid the subject. 

The truth is that masturbation is a normal and healthy behavior in many relationships, but it can also include secrecy, pornography, and sexual redirection, which violates the committed nature of most romantic relationships. 

We’re going to break down in this blog:

Or maybe: It’s time to break down: 

• What counts as cheating

• When masturbation crosses the line

• How secrecy changes everything

• How it affects the brain and intimacy

• And what you should do next

What Actually Makes Something “Cheating”?

Different couples have different rules around their relationships, including what qualifies as “cheating.” And herein lies the potential problem with jerking off. 

Cheating isn’t about what feels bad in the moment or what makes your partner feel bad. 

It’s not even about whether or not you have an emotional or physical connection with another person. 

It’s about whether a boundary that defines the relationship has been crossed. 

At its core, cheating involves three things:

• A breach of exclusivity

• A redirection of sexual or romantic focus outside the relationship

• Secrecy or concealment 

Physical affairs are the most obvious example. There’s contact. There’s intention. There’s deception. This is cheating. 

Emotional affairs follow a similar pattern. Even without sex, when someone invests romantic energy or sexual tension into another person, something shifts. Attention and desire may move outside of the relationship as that emotional closeness, laced with that romantic energy or sexual tension, deepens. 

So when people ask whether something “counts” as cheating, what they really should be asking is… Did sexual focus move outside the relationship in a way that violates the agreement between partners? 

Marriage and committed relationships are built on more than physical restraint. They are built on directed attention. When you commit to someone, you are promising that your sexual energy, desire, and pursuit belong inside the relationship. 

That’s why secrecy changes everything. 

If a behavior has to be hidden, it means that something about it conflicts with the partner’s expectation of the relationship. Secrecy is often the first sign that a boundary has already been crossed. 

Now bring that back to masturbation. 

If masturbation happens privately, without secrecy, without pornography, and without replacing intimacy with a partner, many couples do not define it as cheating. 

But when masturbation involves repeated sexual focus on other people through pornography, when it becomes a substitute for intimacy, or when it is hidden despite a partner’s clear boundaries, it moves closer to the same dynamics that define betrayal. 

Is Jerking Off the Same as an Affair? 

No. 

Jerking off is not the same thing as sleeping with another person. It’s not an affair. An affair requires pursuit. It requires interaction and intentional investment in someone outside the relationship. 

Masturbation, on its face, is a solo act. 

If someone is alone, without pornography, without fantasizing about a specific person, and without withdrawing from their partner, many couples wouldn’t define jerking off as cheating. 

But introduce pornography. 

Introduce repeated sexual focus on other people. 

Introduce the habit of turning away from  your partner instead of toward them. 

Introduce secrecy.

Now, while still not being categorized as an “affair,” jerking off becomes a form of betrayal. 

Deliberately Kept Secret: A Thought Experiment 

Imagine that you and your partner have an incredible sex life. You’re both engaged and passionate, and you both are proactive in finding time for one another. You openly communicate what you want and don’t want in the bedroom, and you have fun together. Your relationship isn’t perfect, but you’re both happy. 

Now, imagine you walk in on your partner jerking off in the shower. If you know that he enjoys jerking off here and there when he’s horny, and you’re in the mood or when he’s stressed from work and wants a stress reliever, do you care? No. You expect that he’ll masturbate from time to time, and that’s fine. 

Now, imagine you walk in on your partner jerking off in the shower, but you’ve never seen him jerk off before. You thought masturbation wasn’t part of your relationship, and you’re confused. You have questions. How long has he been jerking off? How often does he jerk off? Would he prefer to jerk off rather than have sex with you? 

It changes the dynamic completely when the sexual intimacy within a relationship is threatened, and that’s what secrecy does surrounding sex. 

Remove the Screen: A Thought Experiment 

Let’s take it up a notch. 

Imagine you walk in on your husband jerking off in bed while locked into his phone screen. 

He tells you it’s fine and that you don't need to worry. He just had a long day and wanted to enjoy himself. You weren’t in the mood, so he just decided to do it alone. 

But he’s not completely alone. He’s on his phone. And he’s watching a woman who doesn’t look anything like you. Maybe he’s watching fetishized porn with activities that you’ve never done with him. 

The usual defense from men in this situation is: 

“It’s just a screen.” 

“She’s not real to me.”

“It doesn’t mean anything.”

So, let’s remove the screen. 

Imagine instead that he’s in a private room watching a woman perform sexually for him. There’s no physical contact, no conversation, and no emotional connection. He watches. He becomes aroused. He finishes. Then he leaves. 

Would that feel different? 

Most people would say yes… but what has really changed? 

Not the sexual redirection. Not the intention. Not the outcome.

The only thing that changed was proximity. 

The screen creates distance and makes the experience anonymous, but it doesn’t erase direction. His sexual attention is still being aimed somewhere outside the marriage. His arousal is still being built around someone else’s body. 

So the real question becomes: Is this okay within your relationship? If the jerking off comes with pornography use, is it still okay? 

Why Some People Don’t Consider it Cheating 

Most people are exposed to sexually explicit material between the ages of 11 and 13, according to Peter & Valkenburg’s Adolescents and Porn: A Review and Analysis of Research. Studies also show that most children encounter porn before formal sex education. This early exposure affects how sexual scripts are formed, and exists entirely outside of relational context. What this does is it conditions men to use screens for jerking off long before they enter adulthood. By the time many men are in serious relationships — or marriage — pornography has already been part of their sexual development for a decade or more. It doesn’t feel foreign. It feels normal.

Then, there are the cultural norms. 

A study by Hald, Malamuth & Yuen (2010) on Pornography and Attitudes Towards Sex found that frequent exposure to porn is associated with greater acceptance of porn use and more permissive sexual beliefs. In other words, the more common something becomes, the more it feels harmless. It takes what once felt taboo and turns it into background noise. 

Add time ot that equation, and you get habit formation. 

Longitudinal research has shown that repeated pornography use can become a patterned behavior over time. What starts as curiosity becomes routine. Routine becomes automatic. The brain builds reinforcement loops around stress relief, novelty, and convenience. For many men, masturbation isn’t seen as a relational act at all. It feels compartmentalized and completely separate from their relationship with their partner. 

How Masturbation and Porn Affect the Brain

To understand why this has become such a heated debate in relationships, you have to understand what is happening neurologically. 

Sexual stimulation activates the brain’s reward system. Dopamine spikes. The brain marks the experience as rewarding. The more intense the stimulus, the stronger the reinforcement. 

Pornography amplifies that process. 

Unlike real-life intimacy, which requires communication, patience, vulnerability, and mutual engagement, pornography offers unlimited novelty. 

Different bodies.

Different scenarios. 

Different fantasies. 

All available 24/7. 

The brain reacts strongly to novelty, and repeated exposure to pornography can condition arousal to become tied to variety and screen-based simulation rather than relational closeness. 

Research supports this. A 2014 study by Kuhn and Gallinant found that the more someone uses pornography, the more changes they had in their brain associated with reward processing. In other words, the more habitual the use, the more the brain adapts. 

Another study by Voon (2014) looked at people with compulsive sexual behaviors and found that their brains showed heightened reactivity to sexual cues. It was similar to patterns seen with other addictions like alcohol or drugs. The cue-response loop became more closely connected, and it made it more difficult for people to limit or stop porn use once they had started. 

Now bring that back to relationships. 

When sexual arousal is built around a screen, the brain begins to associate pleasure with control, speed, novelty, and self-direction. Real intimacy is different. It involves another person’s pace, preferences, moods, and boundaries. 

For someone who has reinforced solo time jerking off, real intimacy can feel slower, less stimulating, or possibly more demanding. This is especially true if porn has been part of the jerking off equation. 

What To Do If You Feel Betrayed 

If you find out your partner is jerking off and feel betrayed, you’re not alone. Many women are unaware of how much their husband or boyfriend jerks off and may feel uncomfortable when they realize it’s more often than they thought. Even if it’s not a classic case of “cheating,” it’s still a betrayal if you didn’t know about it. 

Before you speak with your partner, it’s important to understand why you feel betrayed and hurt. 

Was it the act itself?

Was it because pornography was involved?

Was it because he was secretive about masturbating? 

Was it because you already discussed jerking off and he said he wouldn’t, but now he is? 

If you can’t articulate what feels wrong to you, you’ll end up arguing about the technicalities instead of the real issue. 

Once you know why you feel betrayed, it’s time for an honest conversation. 

When It’s Not Cheating, But Still Requires Boundaries

Let’s say you’re comfortable with jerking off and masturbation. It still requires having a conversation and setting boundaries with your partner. 

Where do you draw the line as a couple? 

Some couples agree that solo sexual behavior is acceptable. Some draw the line only at physical contact with another person, while others feel masturbation is fine, but pornography is not. 

If both partners genuinely agree, and there is no secrecy, no replacement of intimacy, and no violation of agreed-upon and stated boundaries, then masturbation can have a place within a healthy relationship. 

What If Your Partner Refuses to Stop?

For some people, it’s not okay, and they don’t want their partner to jerk off at any time. But what if you want your partner to stop jerking off and he refuses to stop? What can you do? 

Unfortunately, there isn’t much you can do to change someone’s mind when they’ve decided that they want something different from what you do. But if your partner doesn’t want to stop something that you find damaging to your relationship, you have the option to leave the relationship. Sometimes, people find out that they are incompatible with one another over issues like masturbation or pornography use. 

The best thing that you can do is have a clarifying conversation with your partner around jerking off and pornography use, and what is and isn’t acceptable for you in a relationship. Hopefully, you can come to an agreement on how to move forward with your relationship. If you can’t, then it may be time to separate and look for a relationship with someone who shares the same values and vision as you do. 

What Happens Next

What happens next really comes down to the two of you. You can brush it off and let quiet frustration build in the background, or you can sit down and talk honestly about what intimacy and exclusivity actually mean in your relationship.  

Difficult conversations won’t weaken a partnership, but avoidance will. Whether this becomes a dealbreaker or a healing opportunity depends on what happens during your conversation. Show up transparently and make decisions for your relationship, together.