This post lists 11 surprising infidelity in marriage statistics.
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Infidelity in marriage is a sad truth of relationships where cheating has always been and will threaten the sacred union.
In the modern age, it’s easier than ever to engage in affairs ranging from emotional to sexual.
It seems that cheating is happening everywhere nowadays.
However, it isn’t new; it is more convenient and easier to catch.
Between most affairs starting at work and the ability to find side pieces online effortlessly, the modern world and our deteriorating culture set a perfect stage for cheaters to engage in affairs.
From women being the primary demographic for serial cheaters and husbands who cheat fully admitting they are happy and satisfied in their union and sex life, this infidelity in marriage statistics is genuinely eye-opening and flat-out concerning.
Willpower is dwindling along with an inner conviction and a lack of the innocent and pure love that sustains a marriage beyond romantic love.
With how easy it is to stray from our partners, we must be more aware and dedicated to our spouse than ever if we want to remain faithful and happy in our unions.
This post reviews 11 surprising infidelity in marriage statistics.
Infidelity in Marriage
From work affairs to emotional infidelities, here are 11 infidelity in marriage facts to be aware of.
1. 66% of People Believe Business Trips Lead to Cheating
We can often be terrified of our spouses being unfaithful to us when they frequently travel for business.
When my now husband and I were dating our first year, he worked out of Toronto, and we lived in San Diego.
So he would fly out every Sunday and then return every Friday.
Although I trusted my husband, it’s hard because with them gone, who knows what they get into?
It makes sense people are apprehensive of their spouse going on work trips. You must rely on their word, knowing they are thrust into an atmosphere of temptation.
2. 60% Of Affairs Start At Work
Well, it looks like we have good reason to worry about straying eyes at the workplace making business trips a massive opportunity to have an affair.
With 60% of affairs happening at work, we have less to worry about Tinder or Facebook than we thought and more to be concerned about the late evenings and frequent business trips our spouses are taking.
Considering we are in the digital age, you would have thought access to the internet would be the culprit of most affairs engaged.
It makes sense, though.
We have all had work crushes and flirtations, and you are there daily.
I see posts daily on Reddit of men and women finding out their spouse is sleeping with someone at work. Sometimes it is just sex.
Sometimes, it is a full-blown relationship and affair.
But if your spouse has recently been “buried” in work and “slammed” with intensive meetings that run late into the evening, it is something to be curious of.
The temptation is strong in person as opposed to online.
It’s also much easier and more exciting to carry on a forbidden workplace affair.
So if your partner is all of a sudden spending longer hours late into the night at the office?
It may be a little suspish.
Infidelity in marriage seems to stem in the workplace.
3. 74% Of Men Would Cheat If They Could Get Away With It
Yes.
You read that correctly.
74% of men would cheat if they knew they could get away with it.
How scary is that?
This isn’t a situation where they would cheat if they knew their partner knew and was okay with it or in an open relationship.
This is if they could cheat, take it to their grave, and never tell you they would do it.
BUT….
A whopping 68% of women would do the same.
If people feel this tempted, it’s no wonder infidelity in marriage is so commonplace.
With infidelity in marriage, some people must believe they are being mindful of their partner’s feelings because it’s another case of: “what they don’t know won’t hurt them.” Rationalization comes off as having no regard for their partner’s feelings and what it would mean to them if they found out or knew.
The only concern is how it would affect them in the place of their relationship and their world if exposed.
This seems to imply a lack of connection with ourselves.
If you can’t empathize with yourself and your feelings, how can you possibly do so for your partner?
It’s tough to feel connection and empathy for others if you can’t do it yourself.
If you can’t do it for others, you won’t consider others when you make decisions and how it affects you and your partner.
If you only aren’t cheating because you don’t want to get caught and deal with the circus of that crappy decision, a lot of inner work needs to be done before engaging in any relationship.
Infidelity in marriage can stem from a lack of inner connection within ourselves.
If we are empathetic toward ourselves and how others’ actions affect us, we consider how our actions make others feel too.
4. 56% Of Men Who Cheat Are Happily Married
Okay, this one is just discouraging AF.
This means you could do everything you can to make your man happy, and he IS happy, but it won’t keep him from cheating.
The cheating husband is likely happy and fulfilled in his marriage. Sweet.
These men want their cake of a loving wife, home, and kids, AND eat it with their spicy side piece.
It doesn’t seem like these men nurture themselves, so instead of doing the inner work, there is more than just their physical bodies with needs and impulses.
According to He’s Married to Mom, men who womanize and cheat generally have a less than healthy relationship with their mothers.
I wonder if they suppress that aspect of themselves and pursue the animalistic and material-focused desires driven by the material world.
I see this in Reddit Forums almost every day.
A man is cheating on his wife and fully admits how amazing his sex life is with his wife too.
They want more.
These kinds of men are dopamine junkies.
Unfortunately, our society is toxic and perpetuates this self-centered, self-obsessed hedonistic way of living.
For the cheating husband, there is too much to indulge in as much pleasure as possible, like you stuff your face at a buffet.
For women, the same study showed that 34% of happily married women cheat.
Men seem to cheat more due to dopamine junkie tendencies, whereas most married women cheat simply in unhappy unions.
Happy people cheat, and sad people cheat.
So we can have happy marriages, and it’s STILL under threat of infidelity.
We can never let our guard down.
Infidelity in marriage can occur even when it’s a happy one in this day and age.
5. Most Affairs Happen After 2 Years Of Marriage
Remember the 7-year itch? Nah.
That used to be the case.
We have now established the 2-year itch.
2 YEARS!
Infidelity in marriage begins much sooner these days.
I’ve seen this from both men and women on anonymous marriage forums.
Husbands and wives complain that their partner doesn’t “excite them anymore,” or they don’t find their spouse attractive anymore.
Can’t we even make it past TWO YEARS before cheating?
Are people getting married during the 2-year honeymoon hormone blast?
That has to be it.
I imagine this is because real life kicks in, and the honeymoon and hormonal tsunami phase is officially over.
We aren’t as bright, shiny, and new as we once were just two years before, I suppose.
My husband and I are approaching our 2nd anniversary in August of this year (2022).
Luckily, we are even crazier about each other now than when we first started dating in 2017.
Our connection is more potent, our love for each other is more robust, and the sex is WAY better than it was when we first started dating and more frequent.
However, we had to work toward that, not just ride out the happy hormones.
But if shit goes sideways at some point this year, I’ll let y’all know (Update: It hasn’t, the sex and pillow talks are still plentiful and excellent!)
6. 60% Of People Consider Emotional Affairs To Be Cheating
I have to agree.
In my opinion, emotional cheating is worse than sexual.
To me, a one-time sexual encounter to desperately get your rocks off once isn’t as bad as my husband growing in love with someone else.
I know that men especially have no problem engaging in sexual encounters that are purely physical where they have no further interest in that person otherwise.
However, having your partner fall in love with another person is detrimental and heartbreaking.
It seems less likely to come back out of an emotional affair than a sexual one.
Still hard, but glad to know most people don’t take emotional cheating lightly.
78% of men and 91% of women have confessed to having an emotional affair.
Men generally have more physical needs and cheat through sex, whereas women have more emotional needs where they would cheat emotionally.
More or less, though, both sexes can have crushes within their marriages.
Emotional infidelity in marriage is a slippery slope, if not the slipperiest.
7. The Average Affair Length Is 6 Months
This, I imagine, is pretty typical and makes sense.
After all, infidelity in marriage, some may say, generally stems from boredom and is fueled by novelty.
A new person to have fun with is exciting and has endless possibilities.
Bombarded by love hormones, you fawn over this new romantic pursuit.
Like usual, though, the excitement of novelty fades.
The hormones die down.
You indulged in your impulses, the itch had been scratched, and by that point, you satiated.
Unless you were genuinely considering a long-term relationship with this person and leaving your current partner, it makes sense the initial spark fades away and loses its luster for the person seeking a cheap thrill.
After all, sex can’t fuel a meaningful relationship.
Considering sex is the cherry on top of a fantastic relationship, who wants to eat cherries forever?
Nobody.
After the 50th cherry, they don’t taste nearly as good as the first.
Infidelity in marriage is generally fun and exciting initially, but once those hormones die down, the fun gets old.
8. 15% Of Infidelity in Marriage Cases End
For various reasons, the divorce rate in the US is roughly between 40-50 percent.
15% of those divorces do end because of cheating.
That is a surprisingly low number, considering how prominent infidelity is.
Cheating happens in marriages that don’t end up in divorce, though.
So because 15% of marriages end due to infidelity doesn’t mean there was no cheating in other marriages that ended in divorce due to other issues.
Many couples work through the ultimate betrayal and come together stronger than ever.
This is one of the noblest feats to forgive a loved one for cheating and not only come back together but maintain an even stronger and happier marriage despite it all.
However, the betrayal is too great for some couples, and the union is severed the second cheating takes place.
That is the camp I reside in.
Infidelity in marriage is a deal breaker for me.
I even told my husband this: that there is no going back, so to make sure that fantasy romp for a cheap thrill is worth throwing away our entire marriage and life we built for some extramarital whoopie.
9. 21% of Men Have Cheated Compared to 15% of Women
There is always a debate on who cheats more, men or women.
Although this number seems relatively low for women, it has increased by 40% in the last 20 years.
As more women are in the workforce, this creates more opportunities to cheat instead of being at home with the kids all day.
I see in forums all the time of husbands catching their wives having affairs with some dude at work.
Turns out those times she came home late weren’t due to egregiously long meetings going over time, as they said.
Not only that, but women can now find other partners on social media for sh*ts and gigs.
It has never been easier for a woman to snag a dude for cheap thrills; most men are willing, and if women bring it, men will take it.
One man in Reddit’s /Infidelity forum caught his wife making sexual webcam videos for numerous boyfriends across the seas.
She denied it still, too lol He knew damn well she wasn’t making those sexy videos for him!
More or less, he filed for divorce in less than two weeks.
So, do men cheat more than women?
Although infidelity in marriage doesn’t discriminate on gender, a cheating husband is more relevant than the other.
10. Women Are More Likely To Be Serial Cheaters Than Men
Honestly, I’m not that surprised by this.
Women can get the partners they want, whether with men or women.
Men and women love us, making sense as we have more options.
47% of women have admitted to cheating at least six times.
With the swipe of a Tinder profile, a modern woman can get access to anyone they like.
Men aren’t that far behind, though, with 44% of men admitting to having numerous cheating episodes.
I can imagine that people cheat more now than ever in this day and age.
There is just an array of potential partners to indulge in who we wouldn’t have been able to connect with as easily just two decades ago.
Infidelity in marriage took a lot of effort.
It’s easy to have a steady rotation of partners available just at the fingertips of your smartphone.
Accessibility has never been easier, and this culture’s temptation has never been stronger to feed infidelity in marriage.
11. The Average Cost Of An Affair is $444/ Month
That is a hefty bill for some sexy shenanigans!
Infidelity in a marriage ain’t cheap!
People will practically pay an additional car payment to indulge in their affairs.
A side piece ain’t cheap!
Some pay more, some less, but this is a pretty hefty bill for the average liaison.
Considering the average six months an affair takes over, that is $2,664 to fund this little side gig.
32% of spouses ever noticed an increase in spending.
This makes sense if one spouse is in charge of all the financial care of the family.
It is probable spouses don’t ever really look into their bank charges.
Having an app to access your funds is a good practice to ensure you don’t miss any shady dealings. NEVER negate from checking your bank account.
Infidelity in Marriage
This list of infidelity in marriage facts interested me, and I just had to share them. It helped me gain more insight into where people’s heads are and what they won’t share with us. It’s good to know your marriage is most at risk at the 2-year mark of your union, and it most likely will happen in the workplace, not through Tinder or social media.
If you suspect your partner is cheating, consider these facts. Infidelity in marriage is a sad and harsh reality we need to navigate.
