Common cheating assumptions about why people cheat, how they feel about it, or the impact it has on their relationships have been taken to a whole new level by a recently published study.
While uncovering some shocking facts from a survey of users of Ashley Madison, a website that facilitates extramarital affairs, the study’s authors write, “The findings from this study challenge commonly held views about experiences of infidelity.”
Unfaithful partners are said to be quite happy with their situation and rarely regret their misdeeds. Perhaps more surprisingly, they did not believe that low relationship satisfaction was the cause of their cheating and that it was negatively affecting their marriage.
“In the popular media, television shows, movies, and books, people in relationships have this intense sense of moral guilt, and we don’t see it in this sample of participants,” says lead author Dylan Selterman. And feelings of regret were low. These findings paint a more complex picture of infidelity compared to what we think we know.”
Researchers surveyed nearly 2,000 Ashley Madison users before and after they had sex and asked them about their marital status, why they wanted an extramarital affair, and their general health.
Most of the participants were middle-aged and male. Although they claimed to love their partner very much and were not motivated by anger or lack of commitment, about half were not sexually active with their partner and reported low sexual satisfaction as the driving force behind their decision to cheat. Other factors included the desire for independence and the pursuit of sexual diversity.
“People have different motivations for cheating,” Selterman says. “Sometimes they cheat, even if their relationship is pretty good. We don’t see concrete evidence here that people’s relationships are associated with lower relationship quality or lower life satisfaction.”
They were also not linked to a decline in relationship quality over time, suggesting that relationships, at least between people who are actively seeking relationships, may not be as damaging as many believe.
While the findings were limited due to the low diversity in the sample, Selterman hopes to expand the research to investigate infidelity in other populations: “The implication of this research for me is that it’s really very difficult for people to maintain monogamy or sexual exclusivity throughout their lifetime, and I think people underestimate monogamy when they commit to someone in marriage. People assume that having sex with one person for the next 50 years of their partner’s life is completely satisfying, but for many people this is not true. That doesn’t mean everyone’s relationship is doomed, it just means that cheating can be a common part of human relationships.”
The study was published on the Archives of Sexual Behavior.
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