Cheating or infidelity is one of the biggest social taboos around. Many who've been cheated on will attest to just how destructive it can be to them.
So I have always wondered, why do people cheat on their partners? After professing love to them, they then seek solace elsewhere, either almost immediately for serial cheats or several months or years down the line.
Is it because of money? Partner not turning out to be what was promised or intended? Dissatisfaction? Enticements? Retaliation? Negative influence or pressure? Innocent starts? Geographical differences? Physiological Inadequacies? Unavailability due to job demands? Poor sexual performance? Over spirituality? To escape hurts or abusive relationships? Or just plain habit.
What is the rationale behind the desire to partake in infidelity? Let's find out based on these statistical facts I dug up.
* Rates of infidelity are higher in dating relationships than in marriages. For instance, studies of college student relationships typically find that between 1 in 2 and 1 in 3 students admit to having cheated.
* Most studies report that men are more likely to admit infidelity than women. Interestingly, however, while rates of infidelity among men have remained pretty stable over time, they’ve increased by 40% among women in the last half century.
* When people cheat, they’re disproportionately likely to do it with someone they already know well , as opposed to a stranger. Why? Perhaps because there are more opportunities for cheating to emerge with someone you see frequently. Alternatively, this could reflect the fact that when people cheat, they’re often looking for more than sex, many are also looking for intimacy and emotional connection, which may be easier to obtain when you already have an existing friendship.
* More often than not, people who cheat tend to be in troubled relationships. However, people who are perfectly happy sometimes cheat, too.
* There’s some truth to the idea of “once a cheater, always a cheater.” Research has found that people who had sex outside of an earlier relationship were nearly three-and-a-half times as likely to do the same thing in a later relationship.
* Cheating is a high-risk sexual behavior. Studies have found that when people in monogamous relationships cheat, most of them don’t use condoms during the act . This is likely because when people cheat, it usually isn’t planned and, as a result, they may not be prepared to take precautions.
* A neurotransmitter dopamine floods into our system after we do pleasurable activities such as eating food or having sex. Two different types of dopamine exist and our bodies genetically produce one or the other. Scientists have found that people with the long version cheat on their partners at a much higher rate – 50% vs 22% – than those with the short version. People with the long version are also more likely to take risks and face problems with addiction.
* The rise of social media has paralleled a rise in infidelity. Why? With sites like Facebook and Instagram, people can re-connect with old lovers, increasing the amount of affairs and breakups.
Species in which males have large testicles are more likely to have promiscuous females. Scientists believe the males developed larger testicles to store more sperm and be able to mate more frequently with the females to increase their chances of passing on their biological material.
* About 50% of married women and 60% of married men will have an affair while married – these numbers double what they were a decade ago.
* The deeper a man’s voice, the more likely women will assume he’ll cheat on her. Similarly, men assume women with higher-pitched voices are more likely to cheat on them. This is because pitch is related to our amount of testosterone and estrogen.
* Though it sounds contrary to common sense, cheaters often report being happy in their current relationship. Around 56% of men and 34% of women who cheated reported being “happy” or “very happy” in their relationship.
* When a woman ovulates and is highly fertile, she is more attracted to men besides her partner than during the rest of the month. They tend to want to flirt more and the urge for sex is high.
* The most popular day for cheaters is Wednesday and, more likely than not, cheating happens in the afternoon when our strength to resist moral temptations is weaker than in the morning. It seems there’s another reason Wednesday is called hump day…
* Christians cheat more than Jews. Surveys done by Jdate.com and Christian Mingle (2 dating sites) revealed cheating patterns from these two religious-based dating websites. About 16% of Jewish singles reported cheating in a relationship compared to 34% of Christian singles.
* Most cheaters look for affairs while at work. Data from Ashley Madison has revealed that most (68%) of cheaters search for affairs while at work. Surprisingly, they do this for an average of 1.17 hours daily, which means some people are spending over an hour of each work day searching for a secret partner!
Interestingly, the combination of daily interaction for multiple hours and the closeness built by working on common projects leads to strong bonds and sometimes affectionate attachments. Incredible!!
* Men & women consider different things about cheating. Most men feel sexual cheating is worse while most women feel emotional cheating is worse. Women are more likely than men to see behaviors as cheating, such as believing passionately kissing another to be cheating (90% vs 75% for men) or sending flirty text messages (68% vs 51%).
* The most common question in relationship arguments is...Who cheats more? Contrary to beliefs that generally, young men cheat more, Women under 25 are more likely to cheat on their partner than are older women. Some reasons for cheating include a lack of intimacy and being denied their preferred sexual position.
* Another interesting twist to this is that Blondes really do have more fun in cheating. Though hair dyes were not factored in, a study by CheaterVille.com found 42% of women who cheated had blond hair. This contrasts with 23% of redheads, 20% of brown-haired and 11% of faithful black-haired women. The numbers were mostly switched for men with 40% of those with brown hair admitting to cheating compared to 23% of black-haired men, 20% of blondes, and 5% of redheads.
* Rock and Rollers are more likely to cheat. Our musical tastes can also determine our propensity to cheat. Out of a survey of adulterers in Great Britain, 42% claimed rock n’ roll music was their favorite genre. Least likely to cheat were people who listened to rap (2%), gospel (3%), R ‘n’ B (5%), and classical (7%) music as their preferred genre. Interestingly, cheaters in Ireland were more likely to prefer country music. So watch out if your partner loves Rock and Roll.
* Now this is bizarre...men with larger penises are more likely to be cheated on by their wives. For every extra inch Kenyan men in a study had down below, the likelihood of being cheated on increased by nearly 150%. Some reasons include pain and discomfort caused during sex which prevented pleasure.
* Now the strange fact... Sperm production changes for cheaters. A man’s body will subconsciously alter his sperm production if he assumes his mate is being unfaithful. Normally, human sperm contains about 40% of fighter or kamikaze sperm: aggressive swimmers used to block another guy’s sperm from inseminating an egg. If a man feels his partner is cheating, his body will produce higher percentages of these fighter sperm. Isn't that out of this world!!
* If you're economically dependent on your spouse, you're more likely to cheat on them. A 2015 study of about 2,800 people between ages 18 and 32, published in the American Sociological Review, suggests that a person who is completely economically dependent on their spouse is more likely to be unfaithful.
- That's especially true for a man who relies financially on a woman. Fifteen percent of men who are completely financially dependent on their wives cheat, compared to 5% of dependent women.
- Here's the really interesting part: Men are less likely to cheat the more money they make relative to their spouse -- until they bring in 70% of the household income, at which point they become more likely to cheat again.
- Women are also less likely to cheat the more money they make relative to their spouse -- but their cheating rates don't seem to go up at any point.
* Totally crazy...Men and women react differently to flirting outside their relationship. A 2008 study published in the journal Interpersonal Relations and Group Processes found that after men flirted with an attractive person of the opposite sex, they were less tolerant of their partner's transgressions. Women, on the other hand, were more tolerant.
* We feel differently based on the sex of the person with which our partner cheats. For a 2015 study, men are more likely to be angry and more inclined to end a relationship if their partner cheats with someone of a different sex. But they are more likely to be aroused it was with the same sex.
Women also said they'd feel more negatively if their partner cheated with someone of a different sex. But they'd be more inclined to end the relationship if their partner cheated with someone of the same sex.
* We think everyone is cheating -- except our partner. In a 2015 study published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, university students estimated that the average person of the opposite sex has about a 42% chance of cheating on their partner. But when it came to their own partners, participants estimated that there was about a 5% chance that their partner had already cheated on them and about an 8% chance that they would cheat on them in the future.
As it turns out, 9% of participants said they'd really strayed.
* Men are more likely to cheat when they hit a milestone. In 2014, researchers looked at activity on Ashley Madison, a dating site for people who are already in relationships. They came to a fascinating conclusion, which was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The men studied were more likely to seek extramarital affairs when their age ends in the number nine.
In other words, right before they hit the big 4-0 or 5-0, they have a greater chance of trying to find meaning in life by having a relationship with someone who isn't their partner.
* Your genes may influence how likely you are to stray. A growing body of research suggests that certain people are more likely to be unfaithful, depending on their biology. According to the results of that study, a whopping 40% of instances of infidelity in women and 62% in men had to do with genetics.
* You're more likely to cheat if you've cheated before. A 2017 study published in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior followed nearly 500 adults through two mixed-gender romantic relationships. Researchers asked participants to report their own infidelity. As it turned out, participants who had reported being unfaithful in the first relationship were three times more likely to report being unfaithful in the second, compared to people who hadn't reported infidelity.
Interestingly, participants who had reported that their first partner had cheated on them were twice as likely to report that their second partner had cheated on them.
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