Differences in How Men and Women Cheat on Their Partners
While the desire to cheat is a fundamental and unconscious, part of our human nature, thankfully, not everyone will be unfaithful. As most of our behaviors, infidelity is not intentional.
Cheating and having an affair can be driven by a situation rather than being calculated and someone out there looking for it to happen.
People can trigger our emotions and so can events and circumstances. When your emotions are triggered you’re going to react. It depends on the situation as to how you’ll react. Please note that some of the factors listed below are drawn from Buss and Shackelfords work on infidelity.
What factors influence a person’s willingness to cheat?
Attraction
An individual’s attractiveness influences how likely he or she is to cheat. Attraction comes in many forms including physical appearance, confidence, social skills, social status, money and assets.
The more that one is in demand, the more likely one is to cheat.
People, who have higher incomes, more education and successful careers, are more likely to cheat than people who are less successful. Physical attractiveness also plays an important role.
Opportunity
The more individual free time people have the more likely they are to cheat. Couples who have separate social lives, friends, careers and travel plans are much more likely to cheat than couples who spend most of their time together.
The more opportunity people have to cheat, the greater the odds that cheating will occur. It’s a sad fact that people cheat just because they can
Thrill Seekers & Risk Takers
People who like to take risks or have a sense of adventure are more likely to cheat than people who are more timid by nature.
Taking the risk of getting caught doesn’t mean a person really wants to get caught out. It means they are excited by the naughtiness in the situation and having a secret.
Sexual Desire
Some people have a very high sex drive while other people are much less interested in sex.
People with a high sex drive are more likely to cheat because they are more easily aroused and driven by their desire for sex. It’s a chemical reaction and sex is on their mind a lot.
People who have multiple affairs are often addicted to the novelty and excitement that infidelity can provide. Men tend to have a higher sex drive and are more likely to cheat.
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Love Styles
Love can mean many things. Some see love as a pure emotional connection to a person and others see love as a game to win.
The only way to win the game is to be in control and make sure your partner loves you more than you love them. It’s also a self-protection thing.
People who view love as a game are players and that means they usually have more than one love interest at the same time.
These people are most likely to cheat than those who believe love is a heart connection feeling designed for one partner only.
Relationship Problems
When a relationship is going through a communication breakdown it causes all sorts of emotional reactions and self-doubt.
People doubt if they are loved if the relationship will survive and they doubt their self-worth. These people are more likely to cheat as they look for reassurance that they are ok.
Affairs in a marriage or relationship are more common when people feel unappreciated, disrespected and misunderstood.
When there is more fighting or conflict people don’t want to go home and will find reasons to stay out as long as possible which increases the chance of meeting someone else.
Sense of Entitlement
Some people believe that it’s their right to cheat on their partners. Some people believe it’s ok to cheat.
These people don’t have any emotions over cheating and they feel they aren’t doing anything wrong.
However, they don’t feel the same way about their partner. It’s not ok for their partner to cheat because when they are cheating there is no emotional connection – it’s just sex.
They would more than likely break up with their partner if they found out they were cheating too and would disrespect them forever too feeling hard done by.
Why do Both Men and Women Cheat?
Going back through history, around 3% of all mammals including humans practice Monogamous Mating.
However, even within the 3% of mammals that practice monogamy very few species, including humans, are actually monogamous.
When it comes to both men and women, monogamy is not a natural sexual strategy.
For millions of years, the desire to mate with multiple partners was a very useful reproductive strategy.
Men and women who cheated on a partner were more likely to succeed at having MORE children than people who were sexually faithful to one mate.
Cheating was a strategy to increase reproductive success and diversify risk. We could say it’s a part of human nature.
This doesn’t mean everyone will cheat on a partner or people are fully aware of their unconscious sexual desires. It’s not an excuse condoning anyone to cheat either.
How are Men & Women Different When it Comes to Cheating?
The differences between men and women that influence cheating are based on two basic biological differences:
Men and women differ when it comes to eggs and sperm. Men can produce hundreds of millions of sperm per day.
Women are born with a million or so eggs with roughly one egg released every twenty-eight days over a short period from puberty to menopause that has the potential to create life.
The basic biological difference lays with gestation. Embryos grow and develop in women, not men.
For men reproduction can literally take just a few minutes of effort.
For women, it takes around nine months.
From a biological point of view, men can quickly engage in reproduction while women are much more limited to do so.
Men are more likely than women to think about sex and fantasize about having sex with multiple partners.
7 Key Differences In How Men and Women Cheat:
- Men are more likely than women to cheat with someone who is less attractive than their current partner
- Women cheat up while men are more opportunistic when it comes to cheating
- Men are more likely than women to have a one-night stand
- Women are more prone to having emotional affairs.
- Men are less likely to consider leaving their partners after cheating
- When women cheat it tends to be a deeper emotional connection involved so they are more likely to consider leaving their relationship
- Men are more likely than women to cheat more than once on their partner
Conclusion
If you’ve experienced any of the above and you need some help to deal with it or help your relationship to get through it, then click here to book an appointment.
I’ve worked with a lot of couples who have gone through this experience and what I know to be true is you need to be careful who you confide in about it.
When you talk to your family or friends they feel your hurt and it can trigger their own emotional baggage too.
That means even if you decide to stick together and work through it you family and friends aren’t ready to let go or forgive.
Then you have to deal with their issue around you being together. What I am saying is it gets messy.
Keep your business private. If you talk to friends or family to help you instead of getting professional help just ask them to support you no matter what the outcome.
