Many cheat for a thrill, more stay true for love

Jane Weaver Health editor • Profile • E-mail

For most people in relationships, a commitment means no playing around, ever. That doesn't mean there aren't plenty of love rats out there.

About one in five adults in monogamous relationships, or 22 percent, have cheated on their current partner. The rate is even higher among married men. And nearly half of people admit to being unfaithful at some point in their lives, according to the results of the MSNBC.com/iVillage Lust, Love & Loyalty survey.

More than 70,000 adults completed the online reader survey in February, answering about 30 questions that revealed their intimate feelings about adultery and what makes them stray or stay faithful.

About three-quarters of the survey takers say they've made a monogamous commitment, with a majority either married or remarried. But a significant portion found it easier to make that promise than keep it.

Spending years together, exchanging wedding rings, even having children doesn’t inoculate a couple against cheating. In fact, married folks with kids — including women with very young children — are nearly as likely to commit adultery as childless couples.

The bright side is, while many of us are tempted by the fruit of another, it seems we fear cheating more than we need.

We're bombarded with images of infidelity in popular culture and the news, so it's no surprise we think it's a world of callous cads and desperate housewives.

Survey takers guessed that twice as many people are having extramarital affairs as really are, estimating that 44 percent of married men and 36 percent of married women are unfaithful. The reality is it's not as rampant as we think, with 28 percent of married men and 18 percent of married women admitting to having a sexual liaison, the survey found.

Survey results are in! Who's cheating and why All the juicy details: Infidelity by the numbers To stay or stray? A crime of opportunity Survey: Influenced by cheating celebs? Is virtual affair real-world infidelity? Readers respond to the findings Loads more on infidelity from iVillage.com

"We think everybody is out there doing it," says Janet Lever, a sociologist at California State University, Los Angeles, and the study's lead researcher. "Well, they're not."

In fact, the rate of cheating has stayed pretty consistent, according to research expert Tom W. Smith, director of the General Social Survey for the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago.

Smith conducted the highly respected study “American Sexual Behavior,” a poll of 10,000 people over two decades. The study found that 22 percent of married men and 15 percent of married women have cheated at least once — similar to the results from the MSNBC.com/iVillage survey.

SURVEY STATS — Total participants: 70,288 — Average age: Men, 43; Women, 38 — Gender: Men, 54%; Women, 46% — Age range: 18-76+ — Married or remarried: 60% — Length of relationship: 1 year, 5%; 3-5 years, 15%; 11-20 years, 25% — Living with partner: 11% — Dating one person: 13% — Heterosexual: 94% — Average number of lifetime sexual partners: Men, 17; Women, 11

Still, much of this depends on your definition of cheating. Nearly everybody considers sexual intercourse or oral sex to be cheating, but there are some other behaviors that fall into grayer areas.

Nearly 20 percent of survey takers in committed relationships have romantically kissed someone else, a breach that 83 percent of people consider to be cheating.  And 15 percent of men (though only 7 percent of women) have engaged in online sex or sexual Webcamming, which 66 percent of people consider to be cheating.

Blind to the affair
Ironically, while we tend to overestimate cheating in society, we are often blind to it in our own lives. If your partner is cheating, chances are, you have no idea.

Six in 10 cheaters believe they totally got away with their affair and another one in 10 felt their partner was suspicious, but never found out for sure. Few cheaters — only 2 percent — were busted in the act. And even when confronted with a partner's suspicions, only 6 percent of both men and women confessed to having an affair.

"It is surprising that the wives and husbands and girlfriends aren't more suspicious," says  Lever. "Even when they know something's amiss — a sex life that's fizzled or intimacy waning — they count on their partner's love to keep them from straying."

Philanderers are so inscrutable partly because there’s no single profile for a cheater.

The survey did find some common scenarios, however. Cheating tends to happen well into the relationship — especially in the three- to five-year zone — by a man who is dissatisfied with his sex life or a woman who feels emotionally deprived. The new lover is most often a friend or co-worker, and the typical fling lasts less than a week.

"It can be the 30-year-old guy who's been cohabiting for six years with his girlfriend, or the 45-year old guy who has seemed happily married for 15 years, or, perhaps most surprising, it's the young mom who seems totally wrapped up with her infant and toddler," says Lever.

Indeed, having kids is no deterrent. According to the survey, 15 percent of women and 16 percent of men with children ages 2 to 5 years had an affair. An unexpected 7 percent of women and 9 percent of men cheated while there was a baby under the age of 2 in the home.

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