Cushioning in dating: what it is and what it signals

Cushioning is keeping a warm backup, someone you flirt or stay close with, while you’re in a relationship that’s supposed to be exclusive. It’s a hedge against the current relationship ending. Research suggests some attention to alternatives is very common and doesn’t always mean much on its own. What seems to matter more is the uncertainty underneath it.

USA Today describes cushioning as someone in a monogamous relationship keeping backup options around. Dating coach Amy Chan told the paper that people cushion because they’re afraid of being alone or of being rejected, so a fallback feels like protection.1

What it looks like

Thandiwe has been with her partner for eight months. Over the same stretch she has kept up a friendly, slightly flirty thread with Lucan, someone she met at a friend’s wedding. Lucan doesn’t know she’s seeing anyone. She tells herself it’s harmless. When things with her partner feel shaky, she messages Lucan more. (This is an illustration, not a real case.)

Nothing physical has happened. But Lucan is being kept warm, and the reason is “just in case.”

How common is it?

Researchers Jayson Dibble and Michelle Drouin study what they call back burners: people you stay in touch with in case your main option falls through. In their study of college students, more than 70 percent had at least one.2 Singles averaged about six, and people in committed relationships averaged almost five.2

Here’s the surprising part. The number of back burners didn’t predict how committed people were to their partners.2 Keeping a few doors ajar, it seems, is common even among people who are committed.

That’s a single study of young adults, and it measured how many back burners people had, not how much attention they gave them. Which is where the other research comes in.

When attention to alternatives rises

Researchers call paying attention to other possible partners alternative monitoring, meaning noticing and thinking about people you might be with instead. In a study that followed 779 people in unmarried relationships over time, alternative monitoring was higher among people who later broke up or cheated. Increases in it came before breakups, and especially large increases came before infidelity.3

That timing pattern is useful. It’s not having alternatives that predicted trouble, it was attention to them rising. Still, the study shows a sequence, not a cause. Rising attention might be a symptom of a relationship already in trouble rather than what breaks it.

Another study points the same way. Among 542 adults aged 22 to 35 in exclusive relationships who had a crush on someone else, stronger attraction to the crush went along with lower relationship quality.4 Very few actually got involved with their crush over four months. But lower quality was linked to wanting to cheat and to breaking up.4

What may matter more: the uncertainty

A third study adds an important twist. In a sample of young adults, researchers found that commitment uncertainty, an ongoing state of mixed feelings about a relationship’s future, was linked to a greater chance of the relationship ending. Serious monitoring of alternatives, on its own, was not.5

Put together, the findings suggest cushioning may be more of a signal than a cause. The backup is often what uncertainty looks like from the outside.

Separating the pieces

What happened: a quiet, warm connection kept going alongside an exclusive relationship. The reading: someone is hedging. The fear: either “I’m going to be left for the backup” or “I don’t know what I want.” The next step: look at the uncertainty, not just the backup.

If you’re the one cushioning, the more useful question isn’t “is this flirting okay?” It’s “what am I unsure about?” Naming it, even just to yourself, is more honest than keeping a seat warm.

If you suspect it’s happening to you, focus on what you can observe and talk about. A calm question about where you both stand will usually tell you more than trying to prove anything. If things have already crossed into deception, read how to tell if someone is lying, and if there’s been a betrayal, see whether to stay after cheating. For the version that happens before anyone is exclusive, read benching, or just being one option.

Thandiwe eventually asked herself why her messages to Lucan spiked after hard weeks. The honest answer was that she didn’t feel sure about her partner. That was the conversation she needed to have, and it wasn’t with Lucan.

What doesn’t the research show?

• Nobody has studied “cushioning” by that name. The research is on back burners, alternative monitoring and crushes, which overlap with it but aren’t identical.
• The back-burner figures come from college students and were reported in a popular article, not the full paper.
• The monitoring study shows timing, not cause. Attention to alternatives rose before breakups, but it may reflect trouble rather than create it.
• The crush study followed people for four months and only included adults aged 22 to 35.
• The commitment uncertainty finding was in young adults, and it conflicts somewhat with the monitoring study. Both may be true in different relationships.