Nearly half of Americans think the country’s moral values are bad, and almost three-quarters believe conditions are only getting worse, according to a Gallup study. One of the key factors they are concerned about is how more people, with and without children, are cohabiting or remaining single without exchanging formal marriage vows. There also seems to be some sentiment about the damage marital infidelity is bringing to spouses, children, and families.

Dr. Sherrie Campbell said, “Infidelity is on the rise in our culture. Women and men are having affairs in equal numbers, and it is destroying the American concept of marriage.”

The following are answers to some of the most common questions about infidelity, affairs, adultery, and divorce. Where possible, links to studies and statistical sources have been provided.

Does Infidelity Impact Marriage?

Infidelity remains the number one reason that married and unmarried relationships end all across the world.

Is Most Infidelity Emotional or Physical?

Emotional infidelity, compared to pure physical infidelity, can inflict as much if not more hurt, pain, sadness, sorrow, and suffering. To make matters worse, most infidelity involves both physical and emotional betrayal.

What Percentage of Spouses Engage in Infidelity?

It is estimated that roughly 30% to 60% of all married individuals (in the United States) will engage in infidelity during their marriage. These numbers are probably on the conservative side when you consider close to half of all marriages end in divorce.

Another estimate concludes that a mindblowing 70% of married Americans cheat at least once in their marriage. Still, 74 percent of men and 68 percent of women admit they’d cheat if it was guaranteed they’d never get caught.

A happy marriage is no guarantee that a spouse will be faithful. Happily married people sometimes cheat due to a desire for novelty or due to their insecurities.

Why Do Married Individuals Cheat?

The decision to be unfaithful and cheat is rarely, if ever, a rational choice; instead, infidelity is usually driven by circumstances and one’s emotions. Most cheaters are surprised by their behavior at the start of their affair.

Infidelity is a coping mechanism, like gambling, drinking, or other similar vices. In happy relationships, spouses might cheat not because they are dissatisfied with their spouse, but because they are dissatisfied with themselves. When people are happy in their relationship, it’s less likely that the spouse practicing infidelity has fallen out of love with their spouse. Rather they’re in love with the free, risk-taking, adventurous person they become when they’re having their affair.

What Percentage of Affairs Lead to Marriage?

For cheaters who are considering leaving their marriage for their affair partner, they should understand that trust will be an issue with their affair partner. Many people who leave their marriages for their affair partners have made life-changing sacrifices — both personally and regarding their families. Their sacrifice includes enduring public and personal shame, resentment, and uncertainty. Many of these sacrifices are unwittingly self-inflicted to their detriment.

Issues of trust and integrity are a common theme with now-married former affair partners. (This is the natural byproduct of relationships borne out of lies, deceit, betrayal, and infidelity.) Affairs burn hot because they require secrecy, deceit, lies, and betrayal. They require a sacrifice of one’s integrity. Affairs survive more on what each partner withdraws from the relationship rather than what they deposit or invest.

The probability of an affair ending in marriage is extremely low — between three and five percent. Most of those marriages that begin as affairs end in divorce. Research suggests 75 percent of second marriages fail, a rate half again as high as first marriages. While fewer than 25 percent of adulterers (i.e. cheaters) leave a marriage for an affair partner, most of those relationships are statistically unlikely to endure. This research suggests that only 1–3% achieve stability and happiness.

Do Happily Married Spouses Cheat Too?

Surprisingly, statistics show that 56% of men and 34% of women who commit infidelity rate their marriages as happy or very happy.

Why Do Happily Married Spouses Cheat?

Infidelity is a coping mechanism, almost like gambling, drinking, or other similar vices. In happy relationships, spouses might cheat not because they are dissatisfied with their spouse, but because they are dissatisfied with themselves. It’s easy for a spouse to get caught between the questions, “What do I want?” and “What does everyone else want from me?” If a spouse has spent their whole life doing everything they’re expected to do, the act of breaking free of those expectations can be more exciting and meaningful than the act of cheating itself.

When people are happy in their relationship, it’s less likely that the spouse practicing infidelity has fallen out of love with their spouse. Rather they’re in love with the free, risk-taking, adventurous person they become when they’re having their affair.

What Percentage of Marriages End in Divorce Because of Infidelity?

While studies vary, one study suggests that 69 percent of marriages break up as a result of an affair being discovered. It’s important to note that due to the secretive nature of affairs, and the public shame of them that follows, it is likely that studies are limited by the forthrightness of those reporting.

Who Do Affairs Start With?

Some studies suggest that 60 percent of affairs start with close friends or coworkers.

How Long Do Affairs Last?

An affair will last as long as it suits its purpose. Some affairs last only a couple of hours, while others can last a lifetime. Some research suggests an average affair lasts 2 years while others suggest they last between 6–18 months.

Do Affairs Lead to or End in Love?

Affairs and Adultery are lust-based, not love-based relationships. When people engage in affairs and adulterous behavior they do not have the best interest in mind or heart of their affair and adultery accomplice, spouse, children, family, or friends. They are in it for what they can get out of it. They risk everything for their affair by gambling away not only their own but also their cheating partner’s reputation, family, friends, children, physical health, and mental well-being. They do not value their cheating partner because they do not love them. Affairs and adultery are lust-based and done in secret through lies, deception, and betrayal.

In the book, Private Lies: Infidelity and the Betrayal of Intimacy, Dr. Frank Pittman outlines nine defects that flaw a second marriage that begins as an affair. A second marriage that begins with infidelity, statistically speaking, will most likely end in divorce within two years.

The very elements that create an exciting and intoxicating affair are the fuel that consumes the relationship when it becomes a marriage. This is because the affair is fueled by lust and not love. Such marriages begin on extremely weak foundations that collapse under the strain of everyday life. When the affair is at its peak, the ‘adultery’ partners are blinded to the inevitability that the ‘romance consumes itself’ because it is based on lust. Those caught up in the lust of an affair nearly always imagine that they are the exceptions to an established pattern of human affairs. They are almost always wrong.

Why Do Married Individuals Pursue Affairs?

Why then do so many married people pursue happiness through infidelity and affairs? Typically, they are blinded by their pursuit of self-gratification and the belief that they are an unfortunate victim seeking happiness. The irony is, in their pursuit of happiness they destroy their lives as they burn down the foundations of trust and fidelity which leads to pain and suffering for their families, children, and eventually themselves.

Why Do Marriages that Begin as Affairs End?

The probability of an affair ending in marriage is extremely low — between three and five percent. Most marriages that begin as affairs end in divorce. Research suggests 75 percent of second marriages fail, a rate half again as high as first marriages. While fewer than 25 percent of adulterers leave a marriage for an affair partner, most of those relationships are statistically unlikely to endure.

In the book, Private Lies: Infidelity and the Betrayal of Intimacy, Dr. Frank Pittman outlines nine defects that flaw a second marriage that begins as an affair. A second marriage that begins with infidelity, statistically speaking, will most likely end in divorce within two years.

These nine defects include:

1. Stimulating unreality — While still married to others, the affair partners become immersed in “stimulating unreality,” but the second marriage illuminates reality.

2. Overwhelmed with guilt — The cheaters who wrecked a family (or two) and inflicted tremendous pain on innocent people may feel little to no guilt during the affair but become overwhelmed with guilt after they marry.

3. Disparity in their sacrifice — Divorces drain both financially and emotionally. After affair partners marry, the new couple may feel a disparity in what had to be sacrificed to bring them together.

4. Expectation misalignment — Unfaithful couples who marry may believe that the life after the marriage will be as good as life during the affair and that the greater the sacrifices, the greater the expectations for the new marriage.

5. Foundation of Distrust — The unfaithful affair partners, develop a distrust of marriage and for the affair partner who is now a spouse. A marriage that begins on an untruth cannot have a trusting foundation.

6. Betrayers Insulate Themselves — During the affair and the divorce, the unfaithful couple isolates and insulates themselves, and they retreat to a private little world “protected from the devastation that they have created, safe from anyone who tries to pull them apart.”

7. Failure to Nurture Relationship — When the romance fades, as it does in most marriages, romantics do not understand that this is part of the growth of the marriage, and they do not know how to nurture “a deeper more meaningful relationship” because they relish lust over love.

8. Betrayal of Fantasies — During the affair and the divorce, the affair couple convinces each other that the defective marriage is the fault of the betrayed spouse. To acknowledge otherwise, now that the remarriage has taken place, seems a betrayal of “the rescue fantasies that fed the affair in the first place.”

9. Jealousy and Insecurity — The absence of a shared history that nurtures a comforting familiarity with relationships that begin earlier in life makes talking about the past difficult. An affair that wrecked the first marriage makes it painful and embarrassing for both spouses to discuss the past because it may promote jealousy and insecurity.

Relationships that are free of these defects and last are based on mature love, which values responsibility. Affairs are relationships based on lust and rarely transition to love.

Will Cheaters Cheat Again?

Based on a recent study, people who had cheated before were much more prone to unfaithfulness. Those who cheated in their first relationship were three times (3x) more likely to cheat again. Love doesn’t lead to cheating, lust does.

In the study, which was published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, researchers had nearly 500 people answer questions about at least two different romantic relationships. Of the research participants, nearly 45 percent reported having sex with someone outside of their current relationship during their study. (Interestingly enough, the study finding is also backed up by earlier research.)

People who had cheated before were much more prone to unfaithfulness. A lot more. Those who cheated in their first relationship were three times more likely to cheat again.

What’s the Difference Between Marital Fidelity and Infidelity?

Infidelity is the action or state of being unfaithful to a spouse. Infidelity is based on dishonor, distrust, disloyalty, irresponsibility, lies, and deceit. Sustainable relationships, marriage or otherwise, are not built on the foundations of infidelity. Affairs are built on infidelity which is lust.

Fidelity is, on the other hand, faithfulness to a person, cause, or belief, demonstrated by continuing loyalty and support. Fidelity is based on honor, trust, loyalty, responsibility, truth, and honesty. Sustainable relationships, marriage or otherwise, are built on the foundations of fidelity. Fidelity is based on love.

Lust doesn’t last and will not make one happy. Lust is the counterfeit of love. Affairs are built on lust and generally ruin marriages, families, and lives.

Similar to other forms of trauma, betrayal trauma may occur after you have experienced an event or betrayal of your spouse (or partner) that you consider extremely disturbing or damaging. According to Bessel van der Kolk, an expert on trauma and author of a renowned book, The Body Keeps the Score, trauma is defined as, “an event that overwhelms the central nervous system, altering the way we process and recall memories.”

Does marital infidelity increase the likelihood of transmitting STDs and STIs to a spouse?

Betrayed spouses (or partners) often feel as if their life and reality were violently ripped from their grasp when they learn of their spouse’s betrayal. This betrayal and trauma may be intensified by the transmission of sexually transmitted disease (STD) or sexually transmitted infection (STI) by an unfaithful spouse.

New data published by the CDC estimate that on any given day in 2018, 1 in 5 people in the U.S. had a sexually transmitted infection (STI). The CDC estimate is a few years old, and the transmission rate and risk are more than likely on the rise. This means, that the more people who have STDs and STIs there are, and the more they have sex, the more they risk sharing their STDs and STIs.

While there doesn’t appear to be an extensive body of research on this, common sense suggests that any increase in sexual partners is a potential increase in the risk of transmitting STDs and STIs.

Do affairs and infidelity hurt spouses and children?

Research suggests betrayal trauma symptoms are deeply impactful and may have long-term effects on one’s mental health. Experiencing betrayal, a form of emotional abuse may cause post-traumatic stress disorder. Symptoms such as flashbacks, nightmares, impaired sleeping, depression, anxiety, confusion, distrust, and dissociation, are common.

The long-term effects of parental infidelity can run much deeper than future relationship behavior (i.e., cheating or not cheating). According to clinical psychologist Ana Nogales, author of Parents Who Cheat: How Children and Adults Are Affected When Their Parents Are Unfaithful, growing up in a family with infidelity has a lasting impact on children in terms of how they view their romantic relationships and their ability to trust future partners.

What are the Long-Term Effects of Parental Infidelity on Children?

When a parent is unfaithful, it can make children wonder what’s real — and what’s not. “When a parent is unfaithful, it can cause a child to question the stability they felt at home,” Dr. Cassandra LeClair, Ph.D., a relationship expert and author of “Being Whole: Healing from Trauma and Reclaiming My Voice” stated.

When affairs occur, children may feel unsure about who to trust, and more importantly, who to show their love towards. “They may feel a sense of betrayal and confusion about loyalty,” says Dr. LeClair. “If they have been taught to be honest and care about others’ feelings, they may question why their role models did not have to follow the same rules.” So when parents think, ‘My infidelity or adultery doesn’t involve my children. It has nothing to do with my children,’ they’re lying to themselves.

The long-term effects of parental infidelity can run much deeper than future relationship behavior (i.e., cheating or not cheating). According to clinical psychologist Ana Nogales, author of Parents Who Cheat: How Children and Adults Are Affected When Their Parents Are Unfaithful, growing up in a family with infidelity has a lasting impact on children in terms of how they view their romantic relationships and their ability to trust future partners.

Nogales’ research found that 75% of children experience lingering feelings of betrayal toward their cheating parent, 80% say that infidelity shapes their outlook on romance and relationships, and 70% describe infidelity as affecting their general trust in others. Let’s break this down into simple numbers — 3 out of 4 children experience lingering feelings of betrayal toward their cheating parent, 8 of 10 children say their parent’s infidelity shapes the way they think about romance and relationships, and 7 of 10 children say that their parent’s infidelity affects their trust of others. The research, and common sense for that matter, clearly show how infidelity and affairs are immeasurably damaging to families and children.

What about when these children grow up and move on? Do they carry the wounds of infidelity with them, and how does this impact their relationships and marriages? Unfortunately, they do. Studies show that children from cheating homes are twice as likely to be unfaithful. In the study, “Family Background and Propensity to Engage in Infidelity,” children of parents who cheated were more likely to cheat as adults, too.

Of children affected by infidelity, Dr. Frank Pittman stated that the children who have grown up the strongest are those who had the chance to ‘’deal with parental infidelity openly, as an error or a character flaw, rather than normal activity or an appropriate solution to a marital problem.”

For those cheating parents that think their infidelity or adultery doesn’t involve their children, they’re lying to themselves.

Are All Extramarital Affairs Harmful to Marriages?

There are several types and forms of affairs — just as there are several types and forms of affairs, the underlying reasons, and motives for those affairs vary as well. Here are some of the different types of affairs-physical and non-physical:

1. The Lust Affair. This affair is the most common and is mostly about sex. It can feel intense, but it’s also the quickest to burn out.
2. The Revenge Affair. This affair deals with anger and resentment toward their spouse (or partner), and as a result, the affair is based on revenge.
3. The Cyber Affair. Cyber affairs are kept secret and have an emotional and/or sexual undertone. With today’s society spending more and more time online, internet relationships are becoming more common. Several studies suggest that even though there is no in-person contact with an internet affair, it can be just as devastating as an affair with physical contact, triggering feelings of insecurity, anger, and jealousy.
4. The Emotional Affair. This type of affair is solely based on an intimate and emotional connection with no sex involved. However, although there is no sexual physical contact, it is still an affair and damaging to the marriage.
5. The Family Affair. An example of this type of affair would be between a man and his sister-in-law. It’s an affair within the family structure. This can be more damaging than other types of affairs because it can not only deteriorate the relationship between the spouses but between brother and brother, sister and sister, and father and mother, even long after the relationship has ended.
6. “It’s Not Really an Affair” Affair. In this affair, one party is available but the other isn’t, and the available partner believes that the other will leave their partner or spouse, given enough time.
7. Mind/Body Affair. Unlike having just a sexual affair or a purely emotional affair, this type of affair is both physical and emotional and is therefore among the top of the most dangerous and damaging.

While there are several types and forms of affairs, an affair is still an affair. All affairs have consequences and prices to pay. Some are significantly more costly than others but the price must be paid eventually.

Key Takeaway

Infidelity, affairs, and adultery only offer short-term distractions from life. The long-term impact of infidelity, affairs, and adultery on self, spouse (partner), children, family, and friends lasts a lifetime and leaves a legacy of shame, hurt, insecurity, and sorrow. This impact ripples for generations through children, families, and societies with immeasurable damage and carnage.

Recovering from Infidelity

If you have experienced infidelity-induced trauma caused by the emotional and sexual betrayal of your spouse, there is hope! If you are a child affected by parental infidelity, there is hope! If you are a spouse who has betrayed the trust, love, and fidelity of your marriage, there is hope! We recommend that you seek support through professional counseling and therapy as well as through groups dedicated to supporting you through this traumatic journey. You are not alone and recovery and healing are possible!

Share Your Story

The CHADIE Foundation shares personal stories of spouses and children impacted by infidelity and affairs. If you have a story you would like to share and have published, please use the contact information below to share your story with The CHADIE Foundation. Our mission is to help educate everyone about the damage infidelity, affairs, and adultery cause families and how to minimize the impact.

About the CHADIE Foundation

The CHADIE Foundation (Children are Harmed by Adultery, Divorce, Infidelity, and related Emotional trauma), helps spouses, partners, and children who adultery, affairs, and infidelity have negatively impacted. To learn more about CHADIE and how you can help, please email us at support@chadie.org or visit us at CHADIE.org.