Statistics on cheating

[Origin]

Hi,

Just curious if anybody knows any good posts here, or online in general, that talk about statistics in topics related to cheaters repeatedly cheating, even after being forgiven the first time. 
 

Is once a cheat always a cheat true?

[understand50]

OK, but one has to take each souse with a Large grain of salt.

“about 40% of unmarried relationships and 25% of marriages see at least one incident of infidelity.”

"Another estimate from the journal of Marriage and Divorce concludes that a mind-blowing 70% of married Americans cheat at least once in their marriage."

According to the US General Social Survey, “twenty percent of men cheat compared to 13 percent of women.”

So two different outcomes.  Depends on how the question is asked.

The website the Truth About Deception maintains a poll for cheaters that’s updated daily. It currently has over 94,600 respondents. The poll allows users who have cheated to anonymously say why they cheated, how many times and more information.

The results as of March 23, 2021 shows some fascinating info:

43.7 percent of cheating women and 22.2 percent of cheating men have cheated on their spouse with someone they both know.

 72.1 percent of cheated males cheated in a one-night stand, while only 53.1 percent of cheating women cheated by having a one-night stand.

53.1 percent of cheating women have cheated on their husband more than once; 66.9 percent of cheating men have cheated on their wife more than once.

40 percent of cheating females and 30.5 percent of cheating males have engaged in cybersex with someone other than their spouse.

34.6 percent of cheating females and 25.9 percent of cheating males did so because they were bored with their sex life.

73.7 percent of cheating females and 48.1 percent of cheating males were motivated to be unfaithful due to problems in their relationship

49.8 percent of cheating females and 19.8 percent of cheating males thought about splitting up because of the affair

30.3 percent of cheating females and 15.2 percent of cheating males did so to get even with their partner

47.8 percent of cheating females and 39 percent of cheating males were caught by their significant other.

So, more cheating then we would like, but I do think not as much as one may fear.

My two cents.

[Wiseman2]

1 hour ago, Origin said:

after being forgiven the first time. 

Don't know of specific statistics, but conding (by forgiving/forgetting) would certainly be a green light for it to happen again. So maybe it's more a case of the adage "fool me once....", than "once a cheater..."

[mark clemson]

The stats are certainly interesting, but don't seem to show a tendency (or lack of one) towards "once a cheater, always a cheater".

FWIW, here are some thoughts on the subject from a recent post, in case you haven't read it.

 

[central]

From articles/stats I've seen, most cheating is never found out. Apparently, over 80% of men get away with it, but over 90% of women are never found out.

[BrinnM]

12 minutes ago, central said:

80% of men get away with it, but over 90% of women are never found out.

Boah, that’s a high percentage.

I am guessing that must be referring to ONSs more than to affairs. 

[central]

3 minutes ago, BrinnM said:

Boah, that’s a high percentage.

I am guessing that must be referring to ONSs more than to affairs. 

That could well be and makes sense. I've known of a couple of people who got away with it for months, at least, without being caught, so it's not exclusively ONSs.

[BrinnM]

5 hours ago, central said:

I've known of a couple of people who got away with it for months, at least, without being caught, so it's not exclusively ONSs.

Yes, same, but I’ve always thought they’re the exception. 

[Will am I]

20 hours ago, understand50 said:

According to the US General Social Survey, “twenty percent of men cheat compared to 13 percent of women.”

 

Quote

The website the Truth About Deception maintains a poll for cheaters that’s updated daily. It currently has over 94,600 respondents. The poll allows users who have cheated to anonymously say why they cheated, how many times and more information.

The results as of March 23, 2021 shows some fascinating info:

53.1 percent of cheating women have cheated on their husband more than once; 66.9 percent of cheating men have cheated on their wife more than once.

 

Those two statistics don't seem add up. If there's significantly more men than women in the "cheating pool" (20 vs 13% = about a 60/40 composition of the pool), you'd assume that a cheating woman would on average encounter more men. The second statistic suggests the opposite, namely a lower recidivism rate which should correlate to a lower average count of partners.

So there has to be a significant amount of "male cheating without female cheating" going on. Either that's (A) homosexual encounters or (B) men cheating with women who are not in relationships. I don't believe that homosexuality rates are significantly different between men and women, so most likely the explanation is B. Married/occupied men cheating on their partners with available women.

In order to align the statistics this has to be a major factor. I wonder how the age difference in affairs usually is. How common it is for a man in his 30s of higher to be with a woman below 30. 

Edited October 20, 2022 by Will am I

[basil67]

I've read that cheating stats aren't accurate because many don't admit to it

[Will am I]

I know. There will be underreporting.

If the same amount of underreporting is going on by men and women, and the numbers are big enough, you can still draw conclusions based on the partial data.

What could be a problem in any statistical analysis is if the reporting rates differ significantly between the genders. For example if that men reality admit to affairs and women don't. Then the stats would say that cheating is a 100% male problem even when it is not.

[Starswillshine]

1 minute ago, Will am I said:

I know. There will be underreporting.

If the same amount of underreporting is going on by men and women, and the numbers are big enough, you can still draw conclusions based on the partial data.

What could be a problem in any statistical analysis is if the reporting rates differ significantly between the genders. For example if that men reality admit to affairs and women don't. Then the stats would say that cheating is a 100% male problem even when it is not.

But of course this is comparing cheaters to cheaters. Just from this forum, it seems majority of OW are single. My xH had at least 9 OW over some years (work travel really gave him the opportunity to have a "friend" in every city he frequented), that I know of, and all of them were single. 

[basil67]

22 minutes ago, Will am I said:

I know. There will be underreporting.

If the same amount of underreporting is going on by men and women, and the numbers are big enough, you can still draw conclusions based on the partial data.

What could be a problem in any statistical analysis is if the reporting rates differ significantly between the genders. For example if that men reality admit to affairs and women don't. Then the stats would say that cheating is a 100% male problem even when it is not.

 My response is based on nothing more than gut feeling, but I feel that more women than men would under report.  Why?   Because the shaming of women for promiscuousness is ingrained in our cultures.  Men are studs and women are shamed.   I would argue that more women than men aren't entirely honest even about the numbers of men we've had sex with even when both were single.  I know I've fudged numbers

Edited October 20, 2022 by basil67

[Will am I]

@StarswillshineThat anecdotal evidence seems to align with my idea from the statistics. That married men often cheat with unmarried women. My own episode of infidelity also followed this pattern (xOW being a student in university and not yet married).

I wonder how this group of unmarried-women-seeing-married-men is categorized. Many recently divorced women hoping that MM will jump ship and marry them? Many younger women who haven't married yet and are ok in relationships with unavailable men ?

@basil67I think you have a point. Getting an estimate on that reporting bias would be a difficult task, albeit important to increasing the understanding of the problem.

 

 

Edited October 20, 2022 by Will am I

[basil67]

@Will am I there is also a rule in cheating that a good OW/OM is one who also has too much to loose.   If they aren't going to leave their marriage or make demands then the cheating partner is a whole lot safer.  

Edited October 20, 2022 by basil67

[heartwhole2]

So almost half of cheating women had one instance of infidelity; about one third of cheating men only had one instance. That certainly seems like it could be true.

If you have already "gone there" then I'd assume you'd be more likely than the general population to decide to cheat (again).

But no, I wouldn't assume it's a foregone conclusion either. It's always seemed to me that cheating is generally a symptom of some issue or combination of issues . . . lack of impulse control, poor self-awareness, poor boundaries, poor communication skills, unhealthy coping mechanisms, poor self-esteem, not owning that it's possible to leave an unfulfilling relationship, etc. So if you address those, you're probably going to handle potential affairs differently in the future. If you don't address those, you may or may not cheat again, but you will certainly find yourself having interpersonal problems of some kind.

No one has a crystal ball but you can look at certain predictors. Is the person someone who regularly lies about stuff to avoid unpleasantness/conflict? Is the person an addict? Is the person materialistic and image focused? During the prior affair, were they a smooth operator or did things seem off? Some people don't experience conscience the way most people do, and IMO that kind of person can never be trusted; they're simply incapable of a relationship based on mutuality. There's a reason people tune into those "Suddenly I Found Out My Husband is a Horrible Monster" Lifetime movies.

We're all works in progress; all we can do is recognize that and want to be a better version of ourselves tomorrow than we were today.