You are not spiritually bound until you are married but once you tell someone that you’re committed to them, then you’re committed until you both decide otherwise.

It’s a mutual agreement for both parties to invest and invest exclusively in each other. Once you break that agreement, you have violated the terms. That goes for a business, a relationship, or any other type of partnership even if God nor contracts are involved. Women want men to be men of their word, right? Men want women to be women of their word, right? Right…

Your word is what creates the initial atmosphere of mutual agreement, then your actions, THEN you can take it to the next step of marriage. But you can indeed back out on someone or break your word, or violate the agreement without being married and that’s called cheating. Cheating in marriage is worse but in a courtship, or engagement-ship (if that’s even a word) of course it’s still considered cheating.