Why People Cheat on Their Partners
Unhappy relationships are unique in their own ways
Cheating sucks. The insecurity, the deception, and the distance culminate in sleepless nights that are painful and incredibly draining. Up to 40% of married couples are impacted by infidelity, despite that most people believe that cheating is wrong. Therefore, I asked myself why people cheat nonetheless and found surprising reasons for doing so.
When we think of cheating, various reasons come to mind. Maybe we fear commitment, aren’t sure about our relationship, or have personal insecurities that harm our relationship. Other reasons such as growing apart or falling in love with someone else could lead us to cheat on our partner.
However, it’s not as simple as that.
Cheating is more complex than we think
In an attempt to figure out why people cheat, a recent study tried to identify motivations that trigger cheating. They found that dyadic motivations such as anger at one’s partner led to longer affairs with a higher chance of public dates with the affair than affairs that were non-dyadic. However, these rather situational affairs, rooted, such as feeling stressed or intoxicated, were short-lived, and the sex was rated less satisfying.
Thanks to this research, which included 495 people (87.9 percent of whom identified as heterosexual), eight key reasons for cheating were revealed: anger, self-esteem, lack of love, low commitment, need for variety, neglect, sexual desire, and situation or circumstance. These factors and how they play together influenced why people cheated and how long the affair lasted. Furthermore, these motivations impacted sexual enjoyment, emotional investment in the affair, and whether their actions resulted in their primary relationship ending.
So, why did you do it?
Great people do bad things. While we have a black and white view of infidelity, it’s noteworthy to assess this notion. Why? Because when it comes to cheating, different motivations, conscious and subconscious ones, come into play. Therefore, cheating is rarely cut-and-dry.
For instance, simply having an opportunity to cheat makes infidelity more likely. Of course, not everyone who has the chance to cheat will cheat. However, if other circumstances such as being in a long-distance relationship, feeling stressed because of work or a relative being ill, or low self-esteem come into play, the chances of cheating increase.
Consider this: You’re upset by your relationship’s recent remoteness and suffering from poor self-esteem related to your appearance. One night you go out with co-workers for a round of beers, and one of them walks up to you and starts flirting with you, and asks you out on a date. Would you go out with him? You might not, however, given the situation and circumstance you might.
Another surprising finding is that we consider cheating on our partners out of revenge or anger. However, unlike other motivators, the probability of confessing infidelity to the partner is much higher. This suggests that their confession was likely a form of retribution and a way to exact revenge instead of clear their conscience. Surprisingly, unlike people who cheat out of circumstance and situation, people motivated to cheat out of anger have longer affairs. Also, they were more likely to form a committed relationship with the affair. This shows that though most cheating involves sex, this isn’t exclusively the case.
There are, however, motivators that relate almost exclusively to sex. For example, in the context of relationships, a partner might establish a need for variety. Even if the relationship is stable and the couple well-matched, someone might want to try out forms of sex their partner isn’t into. Another important factor that comes into play here is attraction. Some people are attracted to many people, which is something that doesn’t stop just because of a relationship. However, just because you can be attracted to many different people doesn’t mean you are prone to cheating.
This is also a wrong assumption for people who have the simple desire to have sex. It might be that other factors such as lack of love, distance, and unmet sexual desires play into infidelity motivated by desire. Someone who wants sex might also look for opportunities without having any other motivators.
Feelings, emotions, desires, and secrets clearly motivate our actions. And it’s the culmination of various needs that lead to cheating. However, two people in a similar situation are not going to react the same. So while one starts an affair, the other won’t. It just comes to show how many shades of grey there are when it comes to cheating. And maybe that’s the reason why cheating is not the relationship killer we might think it is — or is it?
Affairs aren’t the relationship killers we think
Ultimately, the study found that the future of the primary relationship depended less on the act of cheating itself and more on what motivated it. For example, cheating was more likely to end a relationship when it arose from anger, lack of love, low commitment, or neglect.
Furthermore, rather surprisingly, only one in five relationships ended because of the affair, and couples stayed together despite their primary partner finding out about the affair. Only slightly more couples interviewed in the study stayed together without their partner discovering their infidelity. The remaining relationships broke up for non-cheating reasons.
When it comes to love and relationships, anything is possible — it’s just not all equally likely. However, when it comes to overcoming infidelity, mutual forgiveness and a strong commitment to the relationship are crucial. And sometimes, it is better to go separate ways than to make the joint road unnecessarily bumpy.
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