I say it was not the kiss itself–but his silence after accepting it. Right then and there he “should” have said, “I’m very flattered by your kiss, but I’m in a committed relationship and I am not open to sexual contact outside of that relationship. Please respect this.” He should be willing to humiliate/embarrass Mia rather than risk his committed relationship.
Since to me, trust is at the heart of any solid marriage, I would say the first time he weakened that foundation by lying to his wife.
The first kid, which was initiated by the skank, can be chalked up to his surprise and an entirely human sensation of flattery and being tempted by something attractive.
Being tempted is not cheating.
Lying about it is.
Yeah, I’d say that the cheating began when the dishonesty began. The actions are unimportant. I selected Dec. 9th as the first point in the OP where it is definitively stated that he lied. Beofre that, it is only conjecture.
Wait, they had a kid now?
This does a far better job of articulating how I define cheating than my post did, I think. If Mia had been hit by a meteor right after they made out, I don’t think the phrase “Alan cheated on his wife with Mia” would be accurate, even though by that point Alan probably knew he was going to cheat on his wife with Mia.
It’s sort of just semantic nitpicking, but I dislike the co-opting of emotionally charged words to try to impart gravity. We don’t have to call all inappropriate relationship behavior cheating any more than we should describe all inappropriate sexual contact as rape. The actions are still inarguably wrong, they don’t need to be dressed up like that.
There’s the spirit of the cheat and the letter of the cheat.
The spirit of the cheat starts when he makes a note of the jewelry she likes. It gets compounded when he lies to his wife about her.
The letter of the cheat, for me, is when he grabs her and kisses her. Because that is a physical interaction perpetuated on his own power.
(for the record, assuming I was the wife, I would have packed my bags at the lie. Because if you can’t be honest with me - we have a problem.)
In my mind, “cheating” is more about the betrayal of trust than the actual deed. I vote that lying to his wife was the moment of first cheating.
When I first read this, I thought the GUY was walking around the Xmas party with mistletoe in hand. (I haven’t seen the movie.) If that were the case, the guy’s on a bad path from when our story begins. He was not cheating at that point, IMO, but he was looking to.
On second reading it looks like SkankyStalkerGirl is the one using the mistletoe to troll for guy(s) at the party. :rolleyes: In that case, IMO the guy starts cheating when he does not discourage SkankyStalkerGirl after she plays tonsil hockey and offers herself to him, and he does not tell his wife about it. He shuts his wife out of this important event. That’s the point where he greases his shoes, straps on a jet pack, and gets on the slippery slope.
Heck, I have told my wife when another woman gave me a cookie, with no other intent than to share processed sucrose. OK, it was a mint milano 
but it was a baked good, not a kiss with an explicit verbal promise of more. Nonetheless, when my wife called me a few minutes later I couldn’t wait to tell her about my “dalliance” with another woman. That way it was a big joke, and we shared a laugh together. We’re still married 18 years later - no cheating involved.
The proper married guy response to the kiss from SkankyStalkerGirl is to say “Um, no thanks, I’m married.” If not right then, the next day at work. The wife needs to be told immediately - before guy’s head hits the pillow that night. Wake up the wife if need be.
And since I know how to use a mirror, I’d also refer SkanyStalkerGirl for an eye exam.
I know the movie was set in the UK, but here in the US I would also write a statement describing the incident at the office party, and leave it in a sealed envelope with Human Resources. As a hedge against SkankyStalkerGirl causing problems, or whatever. If SkankyStalkerGirl could not behave, and did not want to leave, HR involvement and a lawsuit are probably inevitable. 
Yes, we are too litigious here in .us, so sue me!
The lying is a bigger sin to me than the kissing. The Dec. 2 kiss seemed to be a spur of the moment type of kiss and I don’t fault Alan for being beguiled by Mia. To an extent, I don’t fault him for not telling Emma either, since if it was an one-off thing, it can be construed as harmless flirtation and he could just enjoy it like the dirty old man he is. The moment when he lies to Emma is when it turns from heavy handed flirtation to cheating IMHO since that’s when he’s actively putting his own interest ahead of his family’s.
Up until he grabs her, he could still be in the tempted, but not intending camp. If he had gone out to drinks with her and gently explained that he was happily married but very flattered, it would have been no harm no foul.
On the lying thing, I guess it depends on the relationship. Some wives would be able to deal with the fact that their husband was pursued, and even that he was tempted. For others, it would have caused a lot of grief and heartache for both of them. Especially when there is a significant age difference and/or self esteem issues.
Jonathan
It’s not the act, it’s the cover-up. Cheating starts with intent, and the intent in this case starts with the lie to his wife.
Yeah, I’m torn on this part. He could have been (unknowingly?) lying to himself, figuring he would use going out for drinks as a way to prove to himself that he can deal with the situation/temptation, and lying to his wife as a “what she doesn’t know” defense. If we don’t get an internal dialogue it’s hard to say.
Noting her jewelry pick - eh, without knowing his thoughts you aren’t entirely sure if he’s thinking “oh hey, I’ll get her that when she’s my mistress, because I am definitely getting some from her” or “lovely jewelry, I bet that’d look good on her naked, drool” or “mm, bet that would look nice on her… hey, I could buy that for my wife, she’d love me for that, maybe that’ll help spark something.” Premeditation vs. pure fantasy vs. idle thoughts turned into a reason to think about the item. At the end of the story it looks like a step on an inevitable slide into the affair, but at the start you don’t know much of anything.
In my opinion, the first betrayal of trust came when he didn’t defend the boundaries of his marriage. I think any conversation about the kiss initiated by Mia would include his wife asking him what he did about it; him saying he did nothing would prompt the wife to say something like, “You didn’t say ANYTHING? You didn’t tell her to back off, because you’re a married man who loves his wife?” I think he’d be in a world of trouble at that point. I don’t think it would be marriage-ending, but his wife would (rightly) be asking him some very hard questions.
“he calls his wife and tells her he has to have drinks with a client.”
Right here.
This is my thinking as well.
Instead of “cheating,” I’m going to call it “crossing the line.”
The Christmas party kiss–on the okay side of the line. It’s not okay that he didn’t tell her then and there that he wasn’t interested, but it’s also not a particularly big deal.
The lying to his wife about going for drinks–on the line. This was a very bad thing to do for a variety of reasons, but if it had ended right there, I would say that he hadn’t really crossed this particular line yet.
The salacious conversation–irrelevant
When he initiated the kiss–over the line. This action can’t be explained or excused by “he was surprised” or “he was flattered by the attention.” Maybe he can get a little slack for being caught up in the moment or whatever, but it was still over the line.
When he bought the book–way over the line. This is the point where it is clear that he has made the decision to cheat on his wife.
I voted for when he initiated the kiss because that was when he crossed the line. The serious betrayal occurred when he bought the book, however. It’s all about premeditation.
I agree. We may have different ideas of what it means to actually “act on” a crush or a fantasy, but I think we both agree that there is a big difference between the harmless enjoyment of a minor flirtation and taking (or accepting) actions that are likely to escalate things.
I picked “lying” over “mistletoe” just barely. I only gave him a pass on the mistletoe because I think it is conceivable to be taken off guard by the sudden kiss, and be too dumbstruck by shock to tell the co-worker to back off. It’s also conceivable to me that a guy might be too embarrassed to tell his wife or feel guilty wondering how he failed to avoid the situation and wondering if he brought it on himself and feeling ashamed by the possibility.
But the second he agrees to go out for drinks with someone who clearly is pursuing him, he crosses the line and become complicit in shenanigans.
This happened to me when a friend’s brother decided to plant a very intense kiss on me one night. I didn’t know how to respond (I was gobsmacked). I was just hugging the guy goodbye as I had many times before when he planted one on me.
I had to tell my husband or it would have eaten me up inside.
I can’t keep anything from my hubby and it didn’t bother him from a trusting me perspective (though he did want to smack the guy silly for making me uncomfortable).
Simpatico.
My bf trusts me because he knows if anything ever did happen, I would immediately tell him. And that I’m not about to risk the great thing my bf and I have by doing something foolish with someone else.
If I was in a monogamous marriage and started taking another woman out for romantic dinners and such behind my wife’s back, I think that would qualify as cheating even before genitals came into play. I’m being unfaithful in my actions, even if I haven’t yet been unfaithful in my pants.
So I’m going to say the cheating occurred when he first lied to his wife about going out with a client when he was really feeding drinks to the little skank.
Also, couples draw their personal “do not cross” lines for sexual infidelity all over the map. Some folks genuinely feel betrayed if their partner looks at an attractive member of their preferred sex too look (the whole adultery-in-one’s-heart thing) while others just insist there be latex barriers involved. Even in the more conventional range, some wives would completely shrug off the Christmas party kiss, while others would be devastated that he didn’t immediately rebuff her. But I can’t think of any couple where lying about spending time with a potential other sexual partner wouldn’t be seen as breaking trust.