Do you think men are more likely to cheat?

[nikki1978]

Feeling a bit sad as a couple of good friends have found out in the last month that their husbands have been cheating on them for over a year (one while his wife was pregnant with a baby they had tried to conceive for many years through IVF!).

Don't get me wrong I love my DH and am sure he would not do the dirty on me but I feel a bit disillusioned with other men at the moment.

MIL and I were having a chat on Boxing Day and she was telling me about how many of her friends husbands had affairs over the years. Of course there were a few women who did too but it was mainly the men.

I am pretty sure my Dad used to cheat on my Mum. My GM cheated on my GF. DHs Gf cheated on his GM. 3 of my uncles have cheated on their wives.

I feel like I am surrounded by it. Are humans just not able to be monogamous? I am sure that I will be for life and DH says the same. Why do people do it? And why does it seem to be mainly men?

QS I have a logical feeling you are right but your turn of phrase makes me uneasy!

I think men an women are just as bad as each other TBH. My mum cheated on my dad with my uncle (my dad's brother). I'm pretty sure my dad cheated on my mum too. They're now divorced. I think my stepdad has cheated on my mum a few times.

BIL cheated on his first wife with a woman he went on to marry. SHe also cheated on her boyfriend at the time with BIL. She then went on to cheat on BIL and now they're getting divorced.

My sister's ex boyfriend cheated on her with his current wife.

DH's ex cheated on him for the whole 6 years they were together.

I've been with DH 16 years and never cheated on him. I don't think DH has ever cheated on me in that time.

I think maybe some men and women cheat and just continue to cheat through out their lives. And other men and women are completely monogamous. Or I could just be talking complete bullshit.

It does put a bit of a dampner on things when you hear of lots of people cheating on their partners.

NoNamesNoPackDrill:

Sorry :( I didn't mean to upset anyone. Sexuality is an emotional subject so it's pretty much impossible to have an intellectual discussion about it without dehumanising and describing Homo Sapiens rather than people.

...describing Homo Sapiens rather than people.

Homo Sapiens Sapiens to be specific.

My friend Jo (a barrister) had (probably still has) a thing about men of the cloth.
Once she had produced two children by her husband she focussed purely on hairy-legged skirt wearers for the next thirty years.
Her top scalp (she claimed) was a bishop.
She insisted it was just a sport, notches on her belt (& she was quite keen on keeping them in order too).
Has Queen Strombola any angle on the hidden/driven aspects of such behaviour?

Thxs :)

The inherent difficulty of such discussions is that people are often seen as talking in absolutes rather than relative trends. People then take offence at this because they think that they are being unfairly described.

Just because you have certain genes, it doesn't mean to say that you will automatically develop in a certain way. The probability is higher though that you will. So we might possibly say that one gender is more or less likely to have a tendency to cheat. This is not the same as saying that all men cheat more than any women for example.

You also have different evolutionary strategies that co-exist within the same population. So while it makes evolutionary sense for there to be cheating 'alpha-males' (I hate that term), it also makes evolutionary sense for there to be monogamous men, women who value monogamous men, and women who use monogamous men to raise the children of men cheating.

After all, the genes that give us monogamous men probably came from mothers who value monogamous men.

P.S Someone who describes themselves as an alpha-male invariably isn't.

"No. I think selfish, immature people are more likely to cheat. Mature, unselfish people who have no interest in being monogamous will generally avoid relationships in which it's expected or be honest from the get go."

I agree with expat. It's not as if there are only two options: monogamy forever, or cheating on your partner. Being single and promiscuous is an option too, if that's what you feel like you wanna do. As is being single and celibate.

I don't buy any 'innate polygamy' theories at all.

What an incredibly interesting thread.

Alpha males have more testosterone, so more sexual, so they have more sex and hence have healthier sperm. A man who does not ejaculate on a regular basis has unhealthier sperm.

The sexual urge is incredibly powerful. Those lucky people in a relationship where their needs are being met are the ones who can say monogamy rules. But if, like me, you have to supress your libido, eventually you will crack and probably have sex with someone else. And forget about vibrators. Sex with a person produces much more oxytocin because you are responding to bodily touch, stroking, licking, etc. Find me a vibrator that can do that, and monogamy might be more popular.

The key factor is that people are blessed with different libidos. If you are mis-matched in marriage, you will probably be unfaithful or just very unhappy. I was very unhappy in a no-sex relationship. So I guess that makes me selfish and immature? Or maybe I just should have lived an unhappy life and sacrificed my life just to please monogamy-lovers. How very 1950s!

I think men are more likely to cheat than women - partly because, in the traditional marriage set up, it has been easier and more socially acceptable for men to have mistresses. Also, traditionally, men were in control of the finances which put them in a position of much more power than their wives.
Tradtionally, the knowledge that a husband had cheated might, possibly, raise a few eyebrows but in general the wife could not afford to get rid of him on the basis of infidelity alone. Apart from leaving her and her children financially worse off, socially it was more acceptable to be married than not. So women just put up with it.

It was traditionally far more risky for a woman to be unfaithful - she risked losing her financial security, security for her children, her reputation and her social status which was quite likely to be bound up with her marriage.

Even today I think there is far more acceptability for male infidelity than female infidelity as there is still a cultural expectation that women should put their children first, whereas it is considered acceptable for a man to put his career (and other needs as well) first.

Things are changing because divorce is now considered socially acceptable and there will be sympathy (rather than scorn) for a woman who dumps an unfaithful husband.

I take issue with the comments about people who cheat being selfish or immature. I think that is far too simplistic. For instance, I think whether you cheat or not has much less to do with morality than people admit. I think is is mostly to do with opportunity, personality and also one's own attitude towards risk.

The alpha male type of personality tends to be one that embraces risk - so if you elect to marry this type of man I think it is possibly naive to imagine that you will be rewarded with lifelong fidelity along with all the other stuff - money, exciting life style etc.

Women innately know this which is why the evolutionary biology stuff makes sense. Eg: have a wild romance with an alpha male type but don't marry him unless you are prepared for the mistresses that come with the package.

If you want lifelong monogamy without any fireworks go for the nurturing, risk-averse man who you know will stick around long enough to raise your children.

Also - and probably most importantly - an unfaithful wife makes a cuckold of the husband and raises questions about her husband's sexual prowess! The ultimate scorn which could lead to destitution for the wife and children and indeed, even today, is punishable by death in some countries. Yes, the male ego is a fragile beast!!

"I was very unhappy in a no-sex relationship. So I guess that makes me selfish and immature?"

Ummm, your logic is weird. I'm assuming that since you're using the past tense, you did what any normal, unselfish and mature person unhappy in their relationship would do and left the relationship before shagging other people?

No. I think selfish, immature people are more likely to cheat. Mature, unselfish people who have no interest in being monogamous will generally avoid relationships in which it's expected or be honest from the get go

Spot on, and I agree with WWIFN about the importance of knowing your boundaries and talking to your partner about them beforehand Don't just assume that infidelity or porn or whatever crosses your personal boundaries will ever happen.

I do agree with SGB that not everyone is monogamous, however it is IMO very unethical and shows no respect for your partner to have sex with someone else when he/she thinks the relationship is monogamous. If you are not willing to be monogamous, then be honest or leave the relationship. The worst thing about cheating (or was for me) was the deceit. I feel personally that I DO want any serious partner I have to be monogamous. But that is just me.

Madonna. It's that ideal world isn't it? Where people are all good and live a faultless life. They never make mistakes, they never give in to temptation, etc, etc.

You know I had an affair while still married. This was after almost a decade of trying to persuade DH to sleep with me now and again. I was not asking for fireworks, or endless shagathons, just sex twice a month or something like that.

I tried every tack. I did the undies thing. Then left him alone. I tried to innitiate. I tried to talk. I suggested counselling. I printed out MN things for him to read so that he knew it was unfair to withhold sex from me. What did I get...a big fat nothing. He is just not sexual and obviously did not care enough about me or my feelings to even placate me once in a while.

I never searched for an affair. But a decade of trying is a long time. I was vulnerable, unhappy, and for once without children and DH. Prime candidate.

I would have compromised til the cows come home. But compromising means meeting half way. Not subjugating all my feelings so he has his way.

Oh, god, not this again.

As QueenStromba bravely insists, both genetic logic and contemporary research support the view that women have more to gain, genetically, by seeking the best sperm. The seed-spreading/male protector argument is a Victorian one.

Contemporary research also shows that women are just as likely to cheat as men.

It is possible that humans descended from a vaiety of apes, not just one (jury's still out, pending more 'missing link' discoveries). Amongst apes there are species which pair for life, randomly promiscuous species and species which live in polygamous families. Until we know for sure, we might suppose that we've inherited all these tendencies, perhaps some more than others according to the individual.
Or perhaps we descendend from an ape that lived in polygamous matriarchies ... and perhaps that's why we evolved faster!

Top 12 Cheating Myths on AskMen.com

From the experience of friends I would say categorically men are more likely to cheat, and the women they cheat with are often single.

Margaret, could that have anything to do with the fact that a betrayed woman will talk to her friends about it - while a cheating woman's pretty likely to keep stumm?

QS...And that's what females want for their sons - they want them to be a major stud who will pass on their genes to even more people.

Are you talking about Peacocks or people?

yes I think they are
don't care about the research or studies.
I just think they are

Its Grace....no. Everytime a man leaves his wife, I always ask 'who for?'...then lo and behold another woman.

Out of all of the couples I know that were ruined by an affair, only one is a woman... although to her credit she did trump the whole thing by conceiving a child and passing it off as her Dh's for two years.

So I guess I know about 10 people fairly close to me and only one was a woman. My Dh's boss, newly married in Aug, had sex with two women at the Christmas party.

"Ummm, your logic is weird. I'm assuming that since you're using the past tense, you did what any normal, unselfish and mature person unhappy in their relationship would do and left the relationship before shagging other people?"

So are you suggesting that any of the women on here (WWIFN for instance) who have managed to rebuild a marriage or relationship after an infidelity (on either side) are married to selfish, immature people? Because that would be the logical conclusion from this argument.

"Mature, unselfish people who have no interest in being monogamous will generally avoid relationships in which it's expected or be honest from the get go." I suppose there is some truth in that, but if you take into account the number of people who are unfaithful and throw in the number of people who get divorced (don't forget they also broke the marriage vow of "til death us to part") then we are left with one hell of a lot of immature and selfish people!

Also, I tend to have some sympathy with those people who entered into a relationship or marriage (especially were children are concerned) with the perfectly reasonable expectation of physical intimacy, and then are denied it. Why should they NECESSARILY have to go through all the hassle and turmoil of divorce just because their partner is SELFISH enough to ignore their need for physical intimacy?

"Also, I tend to have some sympathy with those people who entered into a relationship or marriage (especially were children are concerned) with the perfectly reasonable expectation of physical intimacy, and then are denied it. Why should they NECESSARILY have to go through all the hassle and turmoil of divorce just because their partner is SELFISH enough to ignore their need for physical intimacy?"

What? Are you serious?

I agree with tadpoles. As fizzfiend says, marriages require compromise - not total sacrifice of one partner's desires to the other's.

But if you get married and then discover, as many women do, that following a baby, depression or whatever you don't feel like having sex for a year or two should you force yourself? Is that what's being said?

You should compromise. You might have to deliver compassionate hand-jobs now and then. Also, fizzfiend was talking about a partner with no sexual desire, not one who was temporarily incapacitated.