No excuses – flirty texting is cheating

Last night, thanks to the wonder that is Sky+, we recorded The Brits and were able to fast forward through most of the dross and watch the most interesting moments. (This left us with about 20 minutes of TV.)

One thing I was interested to see, of course, was Cheryl Cole's performance, which wasn't great. To me she seemed lacklustre, like she'd lost her usual spark. Hardly surprising when you consider what she's been going through over the past week following the latest revelations about Ashley and his habit of texting other women.

Meanwhile, yesterday I was sent a copy of Tess Daly's new book, The Baby Diaries. It's a beautiful book, with lots of mentions of Vernon Kay, but it was written, of course, before it emerged that Vernon is a textaholic. I wonder if she would write a slightly different book now.

Of course, none of us can know what's going on behind closed doors. But in my book, when a man 'flirts' with another woman in secret, behind his partner's back, either by sending her text messages, facebooking her or emailing her, he is effectively virtually cheating. If a deep emotional connection has started to develop, it can be very dangerous. And personally I'd find it a little hard to forgive.

What do you think?

written by Liz Jarvis