Inside Infidelity: Whose Fault Is It?
How to Recognize Vulnerabilities and Reduce the Risk of an Affair
Did you see last week’s post in which I felt very philosophical? I am considering more of these. If you’d like to see more, ❤️ the post below.
There are two sides to every story, they say. But infidelity has three. You need to understand all three to know how to protect your relationship and yourself from becoming one of them. And to do that, you need to let go of the most common assumptions about affairs you’ve most likely accepted as gospel, because each perspective holds a diagnostic clue about hidden relationship dynamics and vulnerabilities.
When a relationship fractures, we instinctively want to assign blame. We want a clear villain and a clear victim. We want clear explanations. An affair offers none of it. Instead, it turns people’s worlds upside down. It meshes blame, shame, guilt, excitement, passion, insecurities, entitlement, and right and wrong into a Level 5 hurricane, with a long tail of destruction.
Who cheats more? It depends on what you consider cheating. Not all affairs involve physical contact. Not all people honestly answer survey questions for statistical purposes, either. Recent findings from the General Social Survey (GSS) and the Institute for Family Studies (IFS) highlight some interesting trends in physical cheating. In a major reversal from previous decades, the reported infidelity rate for married men (ages 25–54) dropped from 21% to 11%, while women in the same age group remained at 14%.
However, this did not mean that men stopped cheating. It means they changed their cheating ways. It turns out, the steep drop in physical cheating among younger men directly correlates with the rise of digital alternatives such as online pornography, virtual intimacy, and social media flirting, replacing physical affairs.
While historic GSS data only tracked physical intercourse among married people, modern surveys find that 76% of Americans consider a secret, non-physical emotional relationship to be infidelity. Nearly 72% of U.S. adults state that a secret online-only emotional relationship constitutes cheating, even if you are not married.
Chances are that you know someone, or you are someone who has been either a cheater, cheated on, or an affair partner. Perhaps some of you reading this are currently in a love triangle, even if you don’t know it yet.