8 People Explain Why They Cheated—and Their Reasons for Infidelity Are Wildly Different
When my former boyfriend discovered that I had cheated on him, I felt physically sick with guilt, despair, and grief. But I also had plenty of excuses as to why I did it.
After I moved thousands of miles away for a job, we struggled to adjust to a long-distance relationship. I felt neglected, lonely, and unable to communicate what I needed via Skype. When I met someone new and exciting, I told myself we were just friends. And then we weren't.
During our first visit in nearly a year, I forgot to log out of my Facebook on my partner's laptop. He read my messages, and the life we'd built together exploded. Of course, it was all my fault-I'd planted the bomb and somehow hoped he'd never find it. Many painful, hours-long conversations followed, as did an attempt at an open relationship. But we couldn't recover.
A few years later, I got a taste of my own medicine when a new partner cheated on me. I completely lost it, and despite my need to ask how he could hurt me like that over and over again, none of his explanations mattered. In my mind, he was bad, cheating was bad, and it was that simple. Pretty hypocritical, right? Unfortunately, I'm not alone.
Cheating can destroy a marriage, shatter your ability to trust future partners, hurt your kids, and even lead to depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The vast majority of adults agree that it's wrong, but anywhere from 39 to 52% of us may experience infidelity at some point in our lives.
Why do people cheat?
“There's a multitude of reasons why people cheat,” says Kenneth Paul Rosenberg, M.D., a psychiatrist and author of Infidelity: Why Men and Women Cheat. According to a 2017 article published in the Journal of Sex Research, explanations for infidelity often dip into three main categories: personal problems, beliefs, or characteristics; issues with your partner or the relationship as a whole; and situational factors like easy access to dating websites, long business trips, or liquid courage.