How Often People Cheat – The Real Stats

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-By Caleb Jones

I’ve discussed the ever-rising divorce rates on this blog many times, but I haven’t really delved into statistics regarding cheating and infidelity. Today we will look at what the stats can tell us. Fair warning: if you’re a defender of monogamy, you’re not going to like what the stats are about to show you.

As always, we need to start with our definitions. Many people have different definitions of infidelity or cheating, so we need to clear this up first. Some people think texting sweet messages to an ex is considered cheating. Other people think that even things like getting a blowjob isn’t cheating because it’s not full-on sex. Some other people even think that watching porn is cheating.

Who’s right and who’s wrong? That’s a matter of opinion, but I can give you mine, which I think is the most accurate and rational, because I’m an arrogant jerk who thinks he’s always right. Per the glossary, the definition of cheating is:

Cheating – The act of promising monogamy to someone then getting sexual with someone else without the first person’s permission. Though society hates to admit it, cheating is a cultural norm and is widely practiced. Cheating is sometimes viewed as “easier” than establishing honest open relationships. (In some extreme cases of irrationality, cheating is considered “more respectful” than having an open relationship.) Cheating almost always leads to drama and usually leads to bad breakups and is thus never a good idea, polyamory, open relationships, or serial monogamy being much better options.

To narrow things down, we need to define what “getting sexual” means. When I use the term cheating or infidelity, that means someone who has verbally promised sexual monogamy engages in physical and sexual contact with someone else. The word “and” is important in there, since in order to be actual cheating, the contact must be physical and sexual. If it’s one without the other, it cannot be considered cheating. Inappropriate perhaps, against the relationship's rules perhaps, but not cheating.
For example, physical, sexual contact means things like kissing, groping, boob-sucking, oral sex, actual sex, and everything like that. Things like hugging and playful touching do not count, since these are physical but not sexual. Sending sweet, romantic, or even sexual texts to someone is also not cheating, since that's sexual but not physical. It's bad, but it's not cheating. You need both aspects in order to truly be cheating, at least in my opinion.

Certainly if you have a monogamous partner or OLTR who is sending romantic messages to someone else, I agree that’s a violation of the relationship and a shitty thing to do, and you have every right to get upset about it, but it’s not cheating. Cheating requires both sexual intent and physical contact.

So if you have a girlfriend or wife you’ve promised monogamy to (you dumbshit) and you give your ex-girlfriend a big hug, this is not cheating. Neither is giving her a friendly kiss on the cheek. But as soon as you squeeze her ass or kiss her on the mouth, boom, now you’re a cheater. If you later try to deny you cheated, then you’re also a liar.
Cheating Is Not Monogamy

Since cheating is sexual activity, those who cheat are not monogamous, by definition. That’s why I use the term “monogamous” in quotes to differentiate those who are truly monogamous (they’re only having sex with one person and that one person is only having sex with them) from those who are pretending to be monogamous, but are not.

Over the years, I’ve had defensive married men (and some married women) try to tell me that they’re monogamous while they’re cheating on their spouses. Nope, sorry, you aren’t. If you are cheating, you’re having sex with multiple people. This is not monogamy. It’s sad that I have to explain such simple English concepts to some people. It might feel like you’re monogamous, it might look like you’re monogamous to the outside world, but you are not monogamous. You’re pair bonded, but not monogamous. Pair bonding is just fine (I’m pair bonded myself). But sexual monogamy doesn’t work, and one does not require the other.

Cheating “monogamous” people are essentially in dysfunctional OLTRs. I have even told women that if they take back their boyfriend who cheated on them, they’re basically in an open relationship. You’re dating him, and he’s fucking other women, and you’re not leaving him. You might be screaming at him, but if you took him back, you’re not leaving him. That’s an open relationship, Sweetie, just a very high drama, dishonest, dysfunctional one.

Along those lines, what if you’re in a “monogamous” relationship and you are not cheating but your partner is? Well, that means you are monogamous, but you’re not in a monogamous relationship. You’re only in a monogamous relationship if you’re not having sex with anyone else and your partner isn’t either. If your wife or girlfriend is having sex with other men and you are not having sex with other women, you’re pretty much a “monogamous” cuckold. And a beta too.

Infidelity Stats

Now let’s look at the stats. As I’ve said many times, since monogamy doesn’t work, the majority of men and women in free societies will cheat on their “monogamous” partners eventually, assuming the relationship/marriage lasts long enough, and you’re about to see this reflected in the stats. However, because of 50-70% divorce rates and 85% break up rates, many people tend to break up before cheating occurs.

In other words, since everyone hates long-term sexual monogamy, virtually everyone under the age of 60 in a relationship or marriage eventually has sex with someone else. It’s simply a question of whether or not they formally end the relationship with the first person before they fuck the second person. Sometimes they do (which is called a “divorce” or a “break up”) and sometimes they don’t (which is called “cheating” or “infidelity”). Ah, monogamy.

Because of all this, you need to remember that every statistic you ever see regarding cheating/infidelity is artificially low. Many, if not most of these people are ending the relationship/marriage so they can have sex with someone else before they “cheat.” If your girlfriend fucks your brother, she cheated, but if she dumps you and then fucks your brother, she didn’t cheat at all, thus she won’t show up in these cheating statistics. The point is she still banged your brother.

If you two hadn’t broken up and had actually stayed together for 25 years (unlikely), the odds are overwhelming she would have eventually fucked your brother anyway. So the only reason she didn’t “cheat” in the first scenario was because she didn’t stay with you long enough to do so. Thus, the cheating stats are artificially lower in relation to actual human behavior and desires.

Over the years I’ve had various serial monogamous women brag to me that they’ve never cheated on a guy. Almost every time, under my questioning, it’s revealed that these women have never had a relationship that lasted longer than two or three years. Well shit, of course you haven’t cheated yet, Sweetheart! You keep dumping guys before you hit the boredom point of three years where the need for you to cheat becomes too strong. Stick with one guy for 20 years straight, and then come back and tell me you’ve never cheated. Ha! Odds are you won’t be able to honestly make that claim.

Also, remember that women are Societally Programmed to either not discuss or lie about past sexual partners. Thus, in cheating statistics that rely on surveys, you can accurately predict that a huge percentage of women, if not most of them, are lying about whether or not they’ve ever cheated, or how often they have. Some men, particularly the more religious ones, will lie about this as well.

That means the cheating stats you read are even lower, again.

Thirdly, as I talked about with divorce, just because someone hasn’t cheated on their partner yet doesn’t mean they never will in the future. For example, most married women and married beta males take a few years of marriage before they cheat. They need the Getting Married NRE to die down and the babies to get a little older before they do that. (Married Alpha Male 1.0s don’t need to wait and can and do cheat at any time. Married Alpha Male 2.0s aren’t dumb enough to promise absolute sexual monogamy, so they’re exempt from all this garbage.)

So if you have a survey full of people who have been married for less than three years, this is going to skew the infidelity statistics down, because they haven’t been married long enough to cheat yet. As I’ve explained before, if you want truly accurate stats about this stuff, you need to only survey people who have been married a long time, as in 10 or 15 years or more.

Because of these three reasons, you can easily increase any stat you ever read regarding cheating/infidelity from 10% to perhaps 100% or more. Remember this as we go through the specific stats. Here we go...

1. 57% of men and 54% of women admitted they’ve cheated on someone before. [*] By the way, that means most people have admitted to cheating, since more than 50% = “most.” And remember, that's just the people who are admitting it.

2. 41% of married couples admit to some form of cheating. [*] Many of the others are lying. The actual figure is higher.

3. 31% of marriages last after cheating after it has been discovered. [*] Yep. Read this blog post I made about that.

4. 74% of married men and 68% of married women say they would cheat on their spouse if they knew they wouldn’t get caught. [*] Think about that for a minute. I’m serious. Really think about that. Still think long-term monogamy is a good idea?

5. 30-60% of all married individuals will cheat on their spouses at some point in the future, and these numbers are estimated to be “on the conservative side” [*] I personally think the real number is around 75%. In other words, if you have a marriage that somehow beats the odds and lasts 25 years or more, you’re looking at a 75% probability or more that you or her will cheat during those 25 years (unless both of you were over the age 60 when you got married; as I’ve explained before, monogamous marriage can work just fine for people who are already old).

6. The more people you’ve had sex with, the more likely you are to cheat if you get married. [*] This is true for women AND MEN. Many manosphere bloggers love to point this out about women, but they always conveniently neglect to show that this applies to men too. As I’ve been saying for many years, if you’re a badass Alpha / player / PUA who has banged a lot of girls, you are now incapable of a long-term monogamous relationship. You’ll cheat on her. And you’ll get caught. This renders the usual PUA / manosphere advice of “fuck a lot of girls for many years, and then when you’re older settle down and get monogamous” as horrible, destructive advice for men. Settle down if you want to, but do it as an OLTR Marriage, not as a societal, monogamous one. That shit doesn’t work anymore.
7. Cheating in society is increasing, just like divorce rates are increasing. Between 1991 and 2006, the numbers of unfaithful wives under 30 increased by 20% and husbands by a whopping 45%. [*] To quote from the article, “The rise in infidelity has caught some marriage experts off-guard.” As I’ve demonstrated before, most of these Societally Programmed marriage researchers are absolute idiots, and often don’t even want to admit to the clear data they’re seeing right before their own eyes. Long-term monogamy doesn’t fucking work in a free society, folks. Let’s all be adults here and have the balls to admit it.

After seeing these stats and rising, sky-high divorce rates, look me in the eye and tell me that long-term sexual monogamy is a good idea.

Pair bond, sure. Get sexually monogamous, no. Unless you love drama and problems of course.

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