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 is the role of unmet needs. One partner may be incapable of fulfilling their partner's needs, but far too often, those needs have not been expressed.
Marital partners are not mind-readers. Another is the lack of addressing problems directly. Running away from problems conflict avoidance rather than staying and addressing them is another crucial element in communication and commitment in marriage. Some of the reasons cited as the cause for cheating may include:. In addition to the primary reasons for cheating noted above, there are secondary reasons that may lead to an affair.
Sometimes people have a suspicion that their spouse is cheating but don't have any solid evidence. While often the best approach in marriage is to be direct, you may wonder if it will cause more damage to ask directly.
And, of course, the answer your spouse gives could either be the truth or a lie. The best approach will vary for different couples, but if you're concerned, it may be a good idea to look for some of the signs. In some marriages, an affair is a cry for help, a way to force the couple to finally face the problems that both parties are aware of but aren't addressing. In this case, the partner often actually tries to get caught as a way of bringing the issue to the fore.
Other times a partner may simply see infidelity as an exit strategy—a way to end an unhappy marriage. Regardless of the underlying reason a spouse cheats, it can either devastate a marriage or be the catalyst for rebuilding it, depending upon how the infidelity is dealt with. You may, however, want to explore how the dynamics between you and your spouse led you to this point.
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? One of the most uncomfortable truths about an affair is that what for Partner A may be an agonizing betrayal may be transformative for Partner B. Extramarital adventures are painful and destabilizing, but they can also be liberating and empowering.
Understanding both sides is crucial, whether a couple chooses to end the relationship or intends to stay together, to rebuild and revitalize.
Let me assure you that I do not approve of deception or take betrayal lightly. I sit with the devastation in my office every day. Not condemning does not mean condoning, and there is a world of difference between understanding and justifying. My role as a therapist is to create a space where the diversity of experiences can be explored with compassion.
People stray for a multitude of reasons, I have discovered, and every time I think I have heard them all, a new variation emerges. I feel like a teenager with a boyfriend. As I listen to her, I start to suspect that her affair is about neither her husband nor their relationship. Her story echoes a theme that has come up repeatedly in my work: affairs as a form of self-discovery, a quest for a new or lost identity.
For these seekers, infidelity is less likely to be a symptom of a problem, and more likely an expansive experience that involves growth, exploration, and transformation.
Cheating is cheating, whatever fancy New Age labels you want to put on it. Intimate betrayal feels intensely personal—a direct attack in the most vulnerable place. And yet I often find myself asking jilted lovers to consider a question that seems ludicrous to them: What if the affair had nothing to do with you? We are not looking for another lover so much as another version of ourselves.
Perhaps this explains why so many people subscribe to the symptom theory. Blaming a failed marriage is easier than grappling with our existential conundrums, our longings, our ennui. The problem is that, unlike the drunk, whose search is futile, we can always find problems in a marriage.
They just may not be the right keys to unlock the meaning of the affair. If she and I had taken that route, we may have had an interesting chat, but not the one we needed to have. Good daughter, good wife, good mother. She never partied, drank, or stayed out late, and she smoked her first joint at After college, she married the right guy, and helped to support her family, as so many children of immigrant parents do.
More free? Do they have more fun? In our sessions, we talk about duty and desire, about age and youth.
Her daughters are becoming teenagers and enjoying a freedom she never knew. Priya is at once supportive and envious.
As she nears the mid-century mark, she is having her own belated adolescent rebellion. These explanations may seem superficial—petty First World problems, or rationalizations for immature, selfish, hurtful behavior. Priya has said as much herself. We both agree that her life is enviable. And yet, she is risking it all. S ecluded from the responsibilities of everyday life, the parallel universe of the affair is often idealized, infused with the promise of transcendence. For some people, like Priya, it is a world of possibility—an alternate reality in which they can reimagine and reinvent themselves.
Then again, it is experienced as limitless precisely because it is contained within the limits of its clandestine structure. It is a poetic interlude in a prosaic life. Forbidden-love stories are utopian by nature, especially in contrast with the mundane constraints of marriage and family.
A prime characteristic of this liminal universe—and the key to its irresistible power—is that it is unattainable. Affairs are by definition precarious, elusive, and ambiguous.
Because we cannot have our lover, we keep wanting. It is this just-out-of-reach quality that lends affairs their erotic mystique and keeps the flame of desire burning.
Reinforcing this segregation of the affair from reality is the fact that many, like Priya, choose lovers who either could not or would not become a life partner. By falling for someone from a very different class, culture, or generation, we play with possibilities that we would not entertain as actualities.
Few of these types of affairs withstand discovery. One would think that a relationship for which so much was risked would survive the transition into daylight. Under the spell of passion, lovers speak longingly of all the things they will be able to do when they are finally together. Marriage is tough, particularly after the first few loved-up years, and when people are not getting intimacy in their primary relationship, they may seek it elsewhere.
I love my spouse. I just like to have sex with other people. In other words, there is a reason that people have affairs that has nothing to do with the quality of their marriages.
Famed relationship expert Esther Perel has written extensively about happily married philanderers, including in The Atlantic. We are best friends and happy together,' and then say, 'But I am having an affair. Over a third of people actively seeking affairs on the internet as surveyed by a married-dating agency consider themselves happily married.
Extramarital dating service Ashley Madison the "affair website" asked users whether they regretted their infidelity nearly 90 per cent said they did not and if they regretted marrying their spouse. Whilst 63 per cent of respondents said they would not marry their spouse again, given the chance, the remaining 37 per cent of users reported that they would. In other words, more than a third of Ashley Madison members — people who are actively seeking affairs on the internet — consider themselves to be happily married.
It seems that many people who have affairs consider themselves to be happily married, which is concerning for those who seek to "affair-proof" their relationships and the websites and books that promise to show you how.
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