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Men regret their affairs, women don’t
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While men regret their infidelities, the situation is very different for women – for several reasons.
“Have you ever been unfaithful in a committed relationship?” Women and men asked themselves this question for one ElitePartner study from 2020. Accordingly rose every tenth man “several times in bed with different people” – for women it was still seven percent.
Almost one in five women (17 percent) cheated on their partner once – and like a current one study shows, the infidelity doesn’t have much impact on one’s conscience. At least not for women. Several factors point to why this is so.
Why do people cheat?
Anyone who lives in a monogamous relationship also promises fidelity – physically and emotionally. It’s no secret that this doesn’t always work. The older people are, the more likely they are to cheat on their husband:wife, according to research by the Institute for Family Studies.
The reasons can be varied, such as from one study from Florida State University shows: Attractiveness plays a role, for example, with attractive women being less likely to cheat than men. In turn, they are more likely to be unfaithful if “the partner is less attractive,” according to the study. Other factors include:
The sexual past: “Men who had frequent and brief sexual relationships before marriage are more likely to be unfaithful. The opposite is true for women.”
The personal background: If infidelity has played a role in one’s family, it is likely that the person is also prone to infidelity.
Fear of commitment: According to one, people who are very afraid of entering into a deep romantic relationship with someone (or are with someone who has such fears) tend to study more likely to cheat.
Why women are less sorry for an affair
Relationship problems and infidelity are interrelated – but the question, which is not only asked by science, is: What is the cause, what is the effect? In a study from 2022, researchers tried to get to the bottom of this question. To do this, they accompanied 12,000 German adults for up to twelve years and documented 1,000 cases of infidelity in their random sample.
Some of the findings were more surprising than others: Hardly anyone is surprised at the result that infidelity in relationships of poor quality (i.e. when well-being in the relationship is low and there is a lot of conflict) is more likely. The situation is different for the well-being of people who are unfaithful: This tends to drop in the aftermath, along with self-esteem and intimacy.
The study finds at least one clear answer to the question of which comes first: Dissatisfaction with the relationship comes before infidelity, so it is the cause of an infidelity – at least according to the results of the investigation.
And another result may surprise you: women tended to be better off than men after the infidelity. The authors assume that infidelity among women is more often motivated by dissatisfaction in the relationship. According to the researchers, the infidelity could be “a wake-up call for their partners that leads to a positive change in behavior”.
Another possible reason: Unlike women of recent decades, the modern woman is free and independent, so she can meet her needs more freely without fear for her physical or economic well-being.
One way or the other: Even if, according to the study results, women may feel comparatively less sorry for an infidelity, nobody comes out of an affair (whether it’s a one-off or not) satisfied. But it is also clear that infidelity does not arise on a whim, but dissatisfaction in the relationship is a prerequisite. It can therefore be avoided – insofar as the partners respond to each other and tackle their problems together.
Sources used: de.statista.com, journals.sagepub.com, ifstudies.org, psycnet.apa.org, psychologytoday.com