Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. There are many reasons why married people cheat.
Risk factors such as personality disorders and childhood issues, as well as opportunities such as social media and poor boundaries, can increase the chance that one of these reasons will actually lead to some type of affair. Frustration in the marriage is one common trigger; the cheater may make several attempts to solve problems to no avail.
Maybe they had second thoughts about getting married or they were jealous over the attention is given to a new baby and neither had the skill set to communicate these feelings.
Perhaps the straying spouse has childhood baggage — neglect, abuse, or a parent who cheated — that interferes with his or her ability to maintain a committed relationship. Less often, the cheater doesn't value monogamy, lacks empathy, or simply doesn't care about the consequences.
We will take a look at a number of risk factors and causes for cheating, but it's important to point out upfront that a partner doesn't cause their spouse to cheat. Whether it was a cry for help, an exit strategy, or a means to get revenge after being cheated on themselves, the cheater alone is responsible for cheating. Men are more likely to have affairs than women and are often seeking more sex or attention.
So sex becomes an important path to connection and intimacy. If men aren't sexually satisfied for instance, if their spouse declines sex often , they take that rejection to heart, and it can easily translate to feeling "unloved.
When women cheat, they're often trying to fill an emotional void. Women are more likely to feel unappreciated or ignored, and seek the emotional intimacy of an extramarital relationship. An affair is more often a "transitional" partner for the woman as a way to end the relationship.
She is seriously looking to leave her marriage and this other person helps her do just that. That's not to say that sexual satisfaction isn't a primary driver of affairs for wives as well as husbands.
Similarly, boredom with the marital relationship may lead both men and women to cheat. In one study of men and women who were actively pursuing or involved in extramarital affairs, both genders said they were hoping to improve their sex lives—because they felt their primary relationship was lacking between the sheets.
There's a myriad of reasons or causes why men or women may engage in an extramarital liaison, but certain risk factors—either with one of the individuals or the marriage as a whole—increase the odds it will happen. The general rule is that it takes two to tango, or in this case, to mess up their marriage with an affair, but there are certainly exceptions.
Individual factors that may increase the chance of infidelity include:. In a study looking at personality traits, women who ranked high in "neuroticism" and men who ranked higher in " narcissism " were more likely to cheat.
Problems in the marital relationship can also be a risk factor for cheating. Some of these include:. With or without individual or marital risk factors there are a number of possible reasons for marital infidelity.
Underlying many of the reasons, however, lie a few threads. One of the most well researched methods of helping a couple mend these issues involves addressing the initial impact of the affair, developing a shared understanding of the context of the affair, forgiveness, and moving on. Overall, therapy seems to work for about two-thirds of couples who have experienced infidelity. If a couple decides to stay together, they must identify areas of improvement and commit to working on them.
It's also vital to re-establish trust. The therapist can help the couple acknowledge the areas of the relationship in which trust has already been rebuilt. Then the betrayed partner can be progressively exposed to situations that provide further reassurance they can trust their partner without having to constantly check on them.
But if therapy works for two thirds of couples, it leaves another one third who experience no improvement. What then? If the relationship is characterised by many unresolved conflicts, hostility, and a lack of concern for one another, it may be best to end it.
Ultimately, relationships serve the function of meeting our attachment needs of love, comfort and security. Being in a relationship that doesn't meet these needs is considered problematic and dysfunctional by anyone's definition. But ending a relationship is never easy due to the attachment we develop with our romantic partner. Even though in some relationships, our attachment needs are less likely to be fulfilled, it doesn't stop us wanting to believe our partner will one day meet our needs.
The impending end of a relationship fills us with what is termed "separation distress". Not only do we grieve the loss of the relationship no matter how good or bad , but we grieve over whether we will find another who will fulfil our needs. The period of separation distress varies from person to person. Some may believe it's worth celebrating the end of a toxic relationship, but they will still experience distress in one form or another.
If the couple decides to end the relationship and are still in therapy, the therapist can help them work through their decision in a way that minimises feelings of hurt.
So infidelity is less about sex and more about matters of the heart and a misguided quest to have one's relationship needs met. The problem is that some people choose to seek their relationship needs in the arms of another rather than working on their existing relationship. This article first appeared in The Conversation. We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we live, learn, and work.
Never before have our expectations of marriage taken on such epic proportions. We still want everything the traditional family was meant to provide—security, respectability, property, and children—but now we also want our partner to love us, to desire us, to be interested in us. We should be best friends and trusted confidants, and passionate lovers to boot.
Contained within the small circle of the wedding band are vastly contradictory ideals. We want our chosen one to offer stability, safety, predictability, and dependability. And we want that very same person to supply awe, mystery, adventure, and risk. We expect comfort and edge, familiarity and novelty, continuity and surprise. We have conjured up a new Olympus, where love will remain unconditional, intimacy enthralling, and sex oh so exciting, with one person, for the long haul.
And the long haul keeps getting longer. We also live in an age of entitlement; personal fulfillment, we believe, is our due. In the West, sex is a right linked to our individuality, our self-actualization, and our freedom. Thus, most of us now arrive at the altar after years of sexual nomadism.
We used to get married and have sex for the first time. Now we get married and stop having sex with others. The conscious choice we make to rein in our sexual freedom is a testament to the seriousness of our commitment. I can stop looking. At so many weddings, starry-eyed dreamers recite a list of vows, swearing to be everything to each other, from soul mate to lover to teacher to therapist. I will not only celebrate your triumphs, I will love you all the more for your failures.
In such a blissful partnership, why would we ever stray? And yet, it does. Infidelity happens in bad marriages and in good marriages. It happens even in open relationships where extramarital sex is carefully negotiated beforehand. The freedom to leave or divorce has not made cheating obsolete. So why do people cheat? And why do happy people cheat? She vaunts the merits of her conjugal life, and assures me that Colin is everything she always dreamed of in a husband. Clearly she subscribes to the conventional wisdom when it comes to affairs—that diversions happen only when something is missing in the marriage.
If you have everything you need at home—as modern marriage promises—you should have no reason to go elsewhere. Hence, infidelity must be a symptom of a relationship gone awry. The symptom theory has several problems. First, it reinforces the idea that there is such a thing as a perfect marriage that will inoculate us against wanderlust.
But our new marital ideal has not curbed the number of men and women who wander. In fact, in a cruel twist of fate, it is precisely the expectation of domestic bliss that may set us up for infidelity.
Once, we strayed because marriage was not supposed to deliver love and passion. Today, we stray because marriage fails to deliver the love and passion it promised. Second, infidelity does not always correlate neatly with marital dysfunction. Yes, in plenty of cases an affair compensates for a lack or sets up an exit. Insecure attachment, conflict avoidance, prolonged lack of sex, loneliness, or just years of rehashing the same old arguments—many adulterers are motivated by domestic discord.
And then there are the repeat offenders, the narcissists who cheat with impunity simply because they can. However, therapists are confronted on a daily basis with situations that defy these well-documented reasons.
Many of these individuals were faithful for years, sometimes decades. They seem to be well balanced, mature, caring, and deeply invested in their relationship. Yet one day, they crossed a line they never imagined they would cross. For a glimmer of what? I want to understand what the affair means for them. Why did you do it? Why him? Why her? Why now? Was this the first time? Did you initiate? Did you try to resist? How did it feel? Were you looking for something?
What did you find? If your love language is different to your partners, that can leave you feeling unloved — and potentially more open to the affections of someone who seems to understand you better.
An affair might then be tempting in order to feel appreciated and equal. Sometimes, affairs occur at times when you might assume people would be the most secure in their relationship, such as after getting engaged or when someone is pregnant. But worries over commitment can be very destabilising. Sometimes, people can sabotage what they have, consciously or unconsciously, as a way of rejecting feelings of responsibility.
Affairs can also arise from personal insecurities. It may also cause someone to feel insecure in their own relationship, so much so that they might cheat as a way of rejecting rather than being rejected. Affairs can commonly be linked to problems with sexually addictive behaviours. This is where someone habitually engages in sexual activity as a way of satisfying desires and relieving negative feelings they find hard to control.
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