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.
The authors of the study, a website that facilitates extramarital affairs. Ashley MadisonWhile uncovering some shocking facts from a survey of users of “Findings from this study challenge widely accepted views about experiences of cheating” he writes.
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.
lead author Dylan Selterman in his statement, “In the popular media, television shows, movies and books, people in a relationship have this intense sense of moral guilt and we don’t see it in this sample of participants.” he says and continues: “In terms of sexual satisfaction and emotional satisfaction, their satisfaction levels were high. And feelings of regret were low. These findings paint a more complex picture of infidelity than 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 of them were not sexually active with their partner and were cited as the driving force behind their decision to cheat. low sexual satisfaction they reported. Other factors included the desire for independence and the pursuit of sexual diversity.
Selterman, “People have different motivations for cheating” he says and adds: “Sometimes they cheat, even if their relationship is pretty good. We do not 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 are limited due to the low diversity in the sample, Selterman hopes to expand the research to investigate infidelity in other populations:For me the result of this research is that it’s really very difficult for people to maintain monogamy or sexual exclusivity, especially 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. This does not mean that everyone’s relationship is doomed, it does mean that cheating can be a common part of human relationships.”
The study was published on the Archives of Sexual Behavior.
2023-07-23 21:21:00
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