The assumption that romantic feelings for someone else disappear the moment a relationship gets serious does not hold up in new survey data. A Talker Research survey released Aug. 18, 2026 found that 15% of married or partnered American adults admit to currently having romantic feelings for someone outside their relationship, a share that jumps to 31% among partnered Gen Z respondents.
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The survey, based on responses from 2,000 U.S. adults collected between July 1 and 6, 2026, found the gap narrows but does not disappear with age. Twenty-one percent of partnered millennials reported the same kind of lingering attraction, and men were noticeably more likely than women to admit it, 19% compared with 12%.
Feelings alone were not the only thing respondents copped to. The research tracked a range of behaviors sometimes described as “micro-cheating”: 10% said they had deleted messages so a partner would not see them, 8% had secretly met someone else one-on-one, 8% maintained a hidden friendship, another 8% kept up flirtatious texting with someone outside the relationship, and 6% had saved a contact under a false name.
Respondents were also asked where they personally draw the line on infidelity. Ongoing flirtatious texting topped the list of behaviors people consider cheating at 41%, followed by keeping an active dating app profile while partnered at 37%. Deleting messages and staying in contact with an ex also ranked high on the list.
The findings sit inside a broader body of research on what’s often called “micro-cheating,” low-grade boundary violations that fall short of physical infidelity but still chip away at trust over time. Where a couple draws that line, this survey suggests, seems to shift more by generation and gender than by any single fixed standard. That the youngest partnered adults in the survey were also the most likely to admit outside feelings hints that comfort naming an attraction, rather than the attraction itself, may be what’s actually changing.
Key Points
- 15% of married or partnered adults admit current romantic feelings for someone outside the relationship
- 31% of partnered Gen Z say the same, the highest share of any generation
- 41% consider ongoing flirtatious texting with someone else to be cheating
The persistence of outside feelings across every age group complicates the common assumption that a wandering eye only shows up in unhappy relationships. Based on this data, what actually separates a passing feeling from a breach of trust has less to do with whether the feeling exists and more to do with what someone chooses to do about it.
