It’s a big question, and predictably, it doesn’t have a simple answer. People cheat for a variety of reasons, but when the deed’s done, they’re rarely proud of themselves. Cheating’s arguably a form of abuse, and at the very least, it’s a gross violation of trust.
We spoke with two people who betrayed trust in very different ways. Samantha, a 30-year-old woman living in St. Louis, started a relationship with a married man; Lewis, a 31-year-old man from Southwest England, cheated on his girlfriend of seven years. By listening to their stories, we hoped to find out why people engage in these types of relationshipsâand how they feel when the inevitable fallout occurs.
Lewis says that he never set out to cheat.
“Everything happens for a reason,” Lewis tells Urbo. He repeats the phrase several times, as if he’s trying to convince himself of itâas if he’s trying to provide some sort of silver lining to the dark cloud hanging over his head.
He and his ex met on a night out in their local bar/nightclub hybrid, bonding over their mutual dislike for the terrible dance music the DJ was playing. It was an instantaneous attraction that metamorphosed from a one-night stand into a seven-year relationship, complete with two cats and a cottage which boasted a large, old-fashioned wood burning fireplace that they would hang stockings with their initials over at Christmas. For a long time, their relationship was picture perfect.
âHonestly, there wasnât anything much wrong with our relationship. Our sex life was actually okay, even in that last yearâwe still had sex three times a week,â he says. âI loved her very much, I still do. But we had been together since I was 21. The relationship consumed all of my twenties. Iâm just not sure it was realisticâat least not for meâto be with that one person forever.â
Perhaps Lewis simply met his soulmate too early in life. A study by Match found that the average age people meet the person they end up marrying is 27âwith most women finding âthe Oneâ after 25, and men slightly older at 28. Many studies point to getting married after 30 as the key to a successful union. By the time Lewisâ relationship fell apart, he was just at the point where most men are finding their life partner.
In the end, Lewisâ curiosity got the better of him.
Between the two of them, life could get stressful; Lewis has a mentally ill brother, while his girlfriend’s father battled addiction. Occasionally, he wondered what life would be like without the restraints of bills, check-ups on his big brother, and inebriated dads on the doorstep.
When life presented that opportunity, he grabbed it. That first time, Lewis had been out with his friends in a town around 30 minutes away from where he and his girlfriend resided. He had just finished a big job, and they headed out to a pub near the worksite. After spending some time there, he headed over to a club down the road.
He made his way to the dance floor with his friends, setting up camp next to a group of girls.
âMost of my friends are in relationships, but they were all talking to these girls,â he remembers. âIt started harmless enough.â
After that first kiss, it was as if a floodgate had opened. He went out more, making out with multiple girls. He kissed one in the middle of a bar in his hometown, less a mile away from where his girlfriend was in bed at home.
âAnyone could have seen me,â he says, eyes wide as if he can hardly believe he did it, even now.
Then, during a holiday in Croatia for his friendâs 30th birthday, he finally went to what he calls âthe point of no return.â
âA couple of the lads and I were walking down these little alleyways with these three girls, and before we knew it we were at their front door,” he says. “After we sat down in their flat for a few drinks, one of the girls and I headed to a bedroom.”
“When my friends realized what was going on, they started banging on the door. They all loved my girlfriend and didnât want me to make a big mistake, but by that point, the damage was already done.â
None of Lewis’s friends mentioned what had happened in Croatia, but the guilt plagued him. He became distant from his girlfriend, and their arguments became more frequent.
Lewis still struggles to understand why he did what he did.
He insists that he wasn’t ready to settle down, but we wondered: What if some people simply aren’t built for monogamy? Polyamory and polygamy involve having consensual relationships with more than one person at one time, while an open relationship typically involves two people consentingly having physical relationships outside of their romantic relationship.
With the latter in particular, the rules vary greatly: Some have a tell-all policy, whilst others believe that what happens outside of the relationship, stays outside of the relationship. According to 2017 statistics on infidelity, 22 percent of men say theyâve cheated on a significant otherâso could an open relationship be a far more viable option for someone like Lewis?
He doesnât think so.
âI donât think I can be with one person forever,” he says, “but I donât want to be in a relationship with more than one person at one time.”
But statistically speaking, people like Lewis might find monogamy difficult. A recent study suggests that the adage “Once a cheater, always a cheater” could hold some truth.
The research looked at data collated from a U.S. survey of 1,300 people aged 18 to 35, who answered questions about their romantic relationships at regular intervals over five years. At the start of the study, all the participants were unmarried. During each interval of data collection, participants were asked whether they had ever had physical relationships with someone other than their partner since they started seriously dating.
Over the course of the study, 44 percent answered yes to this questionâat least once. Participants were also asked whether their partners had cheated; 30 percent knew at least one of their partners had cheated, while 18 percent suspected they had.
Sure enough, the data indicated that cheating in one relationship predicted cheating in the next relationshipâin fact, cheaters were 3.4 times more likely to cheat the next time around. Forty-five percent of those who cheated in their first relationship did so in the next, and of those who didnât cheat initially, 18 percent cheated with their next partner.
But Lewis isnât convinced this rule applies to him.
âI havenât been in another relationship long enough to know,â he said. âI hope not, though.â Before meeting his girlfriend, he hadnât had a serious girlfriend; his longest prior relationship was a month or two.
Lewis believes that his cheating is more a symptom of poor timing. If he had met his girlfriend later in life, he believes things would be different. Heâd have spread his proverbial wings in his early twentiesâand would likely be better equipped to deal with each of their familial problems and the stress it would put on their relationship.
âIt often felt like we were playing parents to two people who were supposed to be looking after us. It really took the joy out of things sometimes. It was hard.â
He also knows itâs not a valid excuse, and the guilt he feels is still as acute today as it was back then.
âWe stayed together for another four months,â he says, âbut the strain became too much.â
In the end, it was Lewis who called things off, and they moved out of the house theyâd shared for six years. He now lives in a one-bedroom apartment in a different town and has been there ever since the breakup. He isnât sure if his ex knows about him cheating; he never brought it up.
âBut itâs a small town,â he says. âIâd be surprised if she hadnât.â
Lewis hasnât been with anyone since his girlfriend.
Like Lewis, Samantha is plagued with guilt.
âI didnât think of myself as the type of person whoâd be the âother woman.â I wouldnât cheat, either,” she says. “It was a point of pride for me.â
For Lewis, it was “Everything happens for a reason.” With Samantha, it’s “I’m not that type of person.” She repeats this phrase several times throughout our conversation.
When the affair started, she was 26 years old, and her life was on the right track.
She was living in a small St. Louis apartment, she had a decent job, and she regularly hung out with the same small group of friends. On paper, everything in her life was going well. Then, something changed.
âI didnât expect it or plan it, but yeah, it happened,â she recalls. âThe worst thing Iâve ever done, no question.â
After a party, Samantha slept with a friendâs husband. A week later, she did it again. Soon, she was part of an affair; she was âthe other woman.â
Before she tells her story, we want to make this clear: Generally speaking, Samantha is not a woman of poor character (and no, she didnât ask us to say that). The point she wants to get across in telling her story is that romance is complicated, people arenât always predictable, andâmost importantlyâcheating sucks for pretty much everyone involved.
âIâve moved on, but itâs still something I think about from time to time,â she says. âIâm not proud of myself. And everyone seems to know about itâ[screw] you for bringing it up, by the way.â
We asked Samantha to tell us about the night the affair started.
She was hanging out with friendsâincluding the married man, who weâll call Paulâat her own apartment. Paulâs wife, Laura, wasnât there.
âShe was a friend of mine from high school,â Samantha says. âI wouldnât say a really close friend, but I saw her, like, more than a couple times a month.â
She didnât know Paul nearly as well.
âI didnât even invite him, and I certainly wasnât planning on [anything happening],â she says. âI wasnât really into him. He was cute, but I was at their wedding, so he wasnât on my radar.â
The rest of the scene played out like something from a terrible movie. One at a time, Samanthaâs friends left. Eventually, she was alone with Paul, and he asked to stay over, and things escalated from there.
âHe said he wasnât okay to drive, and Iâve always had an open-couch policy,â she says. âI really donât think he was planning on anything. He had his issues, but he, uh, wasnât capable of thinking that far ahead. Thatâs the nice way of putting it. âŠBut we kept talking, and we connected, I guess.â
The next day, the reality of the situation started to set in. She had betrayed the trust of one of her friendsâand it wouldnât be the last time. For the next two months, the affair continued.
As for why it started, Samantha doesnât know.
âIâve read stories online where women said they were empowered by being the âother woman,â or that it taught them about who they were,â Samantha says. âThat wasnât my experience. After the first night, everything got worse, every single day.â
She still felt drawn to Paul, and while they were together, she felt almost normal.
âHe said he was still in love with her, and I believed himâhe had no reason to just say that,â she says. âBut I thought that I was in love, too.â
Today, she says she was just confused.
âI felt okay when I was with him because it was someone I could share this messed-up experience with,â she says. âThat seemed like love to me, I guess. Or maybe it didnât seem like I was doing something bad if I could say, âWell, Iâm in love, so itâs okay.ââ
Thatâs a common sentiment among cheaters, and while Samantha isnât technically a cheater, per se, her impulse is understandable. A 2013 psychological study found that unfaithful people tend to trivialize their actions to minimize feelings of guilt. However, Samantha says that cognitive dissonance didnât help her much in the long run.
âI knew it was wrong the whole time,â she says. âIâm not a dramatic person, I donât go looking for big, dramatic blowouts, but I wanted one to happen. I couldnât sleep, and I had serious stomach issues. I wanted it all to end, even when I didnât.â
Things came to a head, appropriately, after another long night of partying.
âI wasnât completely in my right mind, and I called Laura,â Samantha says. âI was honest. I was way too honest. I donât know what I expected, or if I even expected anything, but she told me she knew, and she said a few things that broke my heart.â
Over the next several weeks, Samantha dealt with the fallout.
That meant hearing from friends. Some didnât want to hear from Samantha; others gave her honest feedback.
âPeople blame you. I didnât hear words like âhomewreckerâ outside my own head, but I know people were thinking it. It decimated my group of friends, and honestly, thatâs what needed to happen.â
Confronted with her actions, Samantha made some changes. She quit her job, moved to her parentsâ house for a while, and took time to reflect on her choices. She also lost a few friendsâbut she notes that Paul didnât seem to get the same treatment.
âI do feel like Paul got more sympathy from our friends,â she says. âI donât know if it was because he was a [man], or if it was just that âhomewreckerâ trope, but people treated him differently.â
At first, she said it didnât bother her; later in our interview, she admitted that it was a big deal.
âReally, that hurt more than almost anything,â she says. âHe barely knew some of our friends. We made the same exact mistakeâthe same thing, except I didnât break a f****** vowâand they were able to forgive him, but not me. But maybe there are other reasons, I donât know. I donât really blame anyone.â
Thatâs not to say Paul got off scot-free. After seeking counseling, his wife asked for a divorce. Samantha says she lost touch with him after that.
âOnce everything was out in the open, I had no interest in continuing it,â she says. âIt was like a spell was broken. I realized that I wasnât really ready to be in a relationship with anybody, let alone a relationship that complicated.â
We had to ask: Does she want forgiveness from Laura?
âWell, yeah,â she says, âbut itâs not coming. And thatâs just how it is. Maybe if she wasnât married ⊠but, no, I canât start looking for ways to justify it. Even this [interview] is a little too much. I donât want her finding out about this.â
Itâs been five years since the affair, and Samanthaâs in a good place. She volunteers for charitable causes, she has new friends, and sheâs more comfortable with herself as a person. We ask whether the affair helped with that process in some wayâwhether, as Lewis insists, “everything happens for a reason.”
âI donât want to give a mistake that much credit,â she says. âI mean, weâre made from our mistakes, but I canât say, âOh, that was a great idea since I learned so much,â or whatever. That would be stupid. It wasnât a trip to a [psychiatrist], it was a series of bad decisions. No bueno.â
Her story certainly isnât uncommon.
While itâs hard to find trustworthy statistics about cheatingâsurveys rely on self-reporting, and many cheaters donât admit to their affairsâsome research indicates that itâs remarkably common.
The Washington Post referenced the work of researcher Shere Hite, who found that 70 percent of married women and 72 percent of married men admitted to cheating on their spouses. Other studies put the number much lower, but even going by conservative statistics, we can safely say that infidelity isnât unusual.
Of course, cheaters have a variety of reasons for their transgressions. One study asked cheaters to explain their rationale.
Respondents could choose multiple reasons for their transgressions; researchers found that 57 percent of people cheated to boost their self-esteem, while 74 percent wanted more variety in their partners. Seventy-seven percent of people say that they cheated because they felt a “lack of love,” and 70 percent cited neglect from their partner or for situational reasons (for instance, inebriation).
In any case, cheating hurtsâeven for the people doing the cheating.
âI still feel bad about it, even now,â Lewis says quietly. “[My ex] was so confused about everything, and I couldnât tell her why I was so distant. It was definitely a defense mechanismâin my f******-up view, if we were on the rocks, then I couldnât feel as bad about sleeping with someone else. Even though I still did.”
We asked Samantha whether she has any advice for women (or men, for that matter) who find themselves in similar situations.
âI guess just be on your guard,â she says. âWhat I know nowâI thought at the time it was going somewhere or Iâd learn something about myself or the guilt would eventually go away. It doesnât. And if Iâd known that it was something I was capable of, I would have been on my guard. I would have made sure that I didnât do something that stupid.â
Granted, some people have their affairs and go on with their lives without feeling a shred of guilt; others are more like Samantha and Lewis. Every story is different, but they all start with the same type of betrayal.
âThe fact that youâre calling it âcheating,â that you used that word, that [implies] a broken trust,â she says. âI donât think itâs ever really something positive. Even if it feels right at the time.â