Causes of Infidelity: Why People Cheat in Relationships

One of the worst things that can happen is infidelity in relationships. The moment you enter a romantic relationship, you do everything so it doesn’t result in cheating. Infidelity is, by far, one of the worst things that can occur in the relationship- but it does happen.

So, why does cheating truly occur in a relationship? Nobody enters a relationship with the purposes of infidelity, so why does it occur in the first place? Why would you seek the comfort of another person, when you’re in a committed relationship?

Is the saying ‘Women cheat for sex, and men cheat for emotions‘ based on facts, or is it something people just made it up? These are all valid questions pertaining to the topic of why infidelity happens and why it tears a relationship apart.

In this article, we’ll be discussing the common causes of infidelity in relationships, between both men and women, to answer all the questions pertaining to this complex topic.

1. Lack of Communication

Communication is key in a happy and contented relationship, for both men and women. If things go unresolved or even unexpressed, this may cause feelings of resentment in the relationship. No matter how simple and irrelevant you think an issue is, you should still bring it up with your significant other.

You got in a relationship with the purpose that they become both your best friend, your partner, and your lover- all wrapped up into one. If you fail to open up even about the simple things, how do you expect to open up about the significant and difficult issues that have yet to arise?

Infidelity happens in a relationship when one, or both parties, have a terrible form of communication. This goes for both men and women, and this isn’t just limited to women. Despite the fact that women are more in tune with their emotions, men are just as likely to resent their partner for being unable to express certain things.

Communication, with the combined aspect of comprehension, is what makes a relationship work. If even just one party feels misunderstood and they feel like the relationship isn’t a safe place to express their true selves, that’s when cheating occurs.

This is where one finds comfort in someone else, and that’s precisely why a lack of communication is one of the causes of infidelity in relationships. You’d be surprised on how much of long-term relationships and marriages get ruined just by a simple lack of communication and understanding.

This is the problem with communication nowadays- people communicate to respond, not to hear what they’re trying to say. For an effective communication, actually, hear the point they’re trying to express. By doing this, you can avoid infidelity from occurring in your current relationship- and all your future relationships.

2. Emotional Disconnection

People often associate communication to be similar with emotional disconnection, but that isn’t the case at all. Communication is how you express things you want to say and the things you feel, but emotional disconnection has to do with how intimate you feel with your partner.

Unlike the contrary, intimacy isn’t always just about sex- and this is especially true for women. This is where you see the phrase ‘women cheat for emotions‘ come in the picture. Infidelity is caused when one, or both, feel emotionally distant from each other.

Infidelity happens when you no longer feel understood, respected, heard or loved by your partner- and so you seek validation from an external source. At the beginning of any romantic relationship, we have what we call the ‘honeymoon phase’ and it’s when the couple feels so loved up by the other person.

It’s called that way because it’s similar to a honeymoon that occurs right after marriage. In the beginning of the relationship, this is when you feel the most intimate with your partner. As the relationship progresses and your needs aren’t being met- or heard- then this is why infidelity occurs.

For instance, over the course of your relationship, you don’t spend as much time together but this is a significant way for your girlfriend to feel intimate with you. By disregarding this need of hers, you cause a wall to build in between your relationship, and it may be the cause of infidelity.

Of course, infidelity doesn’t just happen in one immediate instance. It happens gradually, over the course of your relationship, until one can’t take it anymore and they seek comfort- and intimacy- elsewhere.

In addition, this is also where love languages come in the picture. Naturally, women are more sensual and more in tune to their emotions, and men are more logical and practical. As mentioned above, infidelity is caused when you refuse to listen to the needs of your partner.

You may assume that they feel loved the way you do, but everyone has different love languages. You may think they feel loved with compliments and words, but they actually feel loved by spending time together and putting your focus on them.

It’s important that you pay attention to your partner’s love language, as to not cause any variety of infidelity in the long run. You prevent infidelity in relationships is when you make your partner feel loved as much as you can, and not just when you feel like it.

Love is a choice and nobody ever wants cheating to occur in relationships, right? However, infidelity happens when you don’t pay attention to their emotional needs. If you aren’t sure how they want to be loved, be direct and ask them about it.

3. Revenge for Past Infidelity

The thing about infidelity is that, it can damage someone to the extent that they enter relationships to do that to another person. People someone has been cheated on and it leaves a negative impact on how they view relationships- and themselves- they integrate this burden into all their future relationships.

In return, they believe that all people end up cheating, and this is why they cause infidelity in their relationships. When infidelity impacts you in the most negative manner, your mindset is focused on being cheated on, that you end up doing this before it’s done to you.

In this entire list, this is the most unhealthy and toxic cause of infidelity- but it isn’t common. There’s no denying the fact that when you get cheated on, it’s a certain type of darkness that isn’t easy to heal from. For others, they never heal from this, and that’s why they choose to ruin their own relationships before it ruins them.

When you’ve been cheated on, it leaves you with all these questions as to why you weren’t good enough for them, and why they had to destroy you like that. It leaves you with all these questions that never get answered and leaves you with no type of close. This is why infidelity can occur for the reason of revenge.

They want others to feel like they did when it was done to them. This isn’t a valid excuse, but it happens in reality, more often than you expect. When infidelity hits you with a type of darkness that just destroys you, it can ruin your mindset and overall behavior in relationships.

4. Physical Intimacy

Let’s talk about sex. There’s no denying the fact that physical intimacy is just as important as emotional and mental intimacy with your partner. These three aspects are what makes a relationship last, and when you leave out one, even just one, it can lead to a relationship failing.

It can lead to one of the most common causes as to why infidelity occurs in the first place. This is where we discuss if the saying ‘men cheat for emotions, and men cheat for sex‘ is based on facts.

Studies show that approximately 52 percent of marriages and relationships fail because of an unsatisfying sex life, wherein 71 percent were men that had cheated on the past because of sexual boredom- and only 49 percent were women.

In a similar study, it’s been proven that 46 percent of men cheated because of a lack of sexual intimacy, and 19 percent of women. It’s evident that the phrase women cheat for emotions and men cheat for sex is based on statistics and research.

In nature, men are more likely to cheat when they aren’t satisfied sexually. However, this isn’t to say that women can’t guilty of infidelity for this very reason. Men just have a higher tendency to be prone to sexual boredom than women do.

It’s time to face the reality that physical intimacy clearly displays a significance in why infidelity may occur in relationships. If anything, this is the most popular reason as to why one- most often men- cheat.

Physical intimacy lets you be close and intimate with your partner in a way that words or actions can’t do, and that’s why it plays a huge aspect in intimacy. This is especially true when one has a higher sex drive in the relationship and is rather known for adventurous sex life in the bedroom.

This is also the reason why sex is normalized and romanticized in romantic relationships- to see if you’re sexually compatible with the person. Sex isn’t everything, and it doesn’t make or break a relationship, but it can lead to a lack of needs being met. Especially if one is more physical than the other, the tendency is that they need someone who can meet their physical needs.

5. One-sided Relationship

Obviously, a one-sided relationship causes infidelity the fastest in a relationship. You can’t expect it to last when you or the other person have an unequal way of showing love. Despite the fact that relationships aren’t always 50/50, it’s still significant to know that you aren’t alone in the relationship.

For a relationship to last in a healthy and contented manner, both sides need to exert mutual effort and love. Otherwise, it’s a relationship bound to fail. Imbalance, or one-sided relationships, can occur for a variety of reasons. It can occur when one is more invested in the other, or when one feels more financial pressure in the relationship.

Basically, when one feels like the relationship is out of equilibrium, that’s when they feel it’s a one-sided relationship- when they feel they are constantly giving than getting something back. Nobody ever wants to feel like they’re being taken for granted, and so these people find comfort in another person.

This is why one-sided relationships cause infidelity– to block out the fact that they’re giving more than receiving. Infidelity occurs when certain needs are not being met, and when they feel like the pressure is more on them rather than on the other person.

Even if relationships aren’t always 50/50, it’s still about the partnership and someone who invests in you equally. If this factor is lacking in the relationship, then infidelity is the result of that.

Conclusion

So there you have it! These are 5 common causes of infidelity in relationships. What you have to remember about infidelity is that it doesn’t happen overnight, and it’s not like somebody intends to break someone else’s heart.

At the end of the day, cheating is still a choice that you chose to take, one that guarantees the end of a relationship. What causes infidelity is a lack of communication, understanding, and intimacy- one either or both parties. To make a relationship truly last- and to stay contented in it- you have to work on choosing to love them every day.

Infidelity in relationships is a real and serious issue, and it’s more common than you think. People are more prone to cheat in long-term relationships and marriages for the reason that we all have needs that need to be met.

If you truly want to avoid infidelity in relationships, you need to work towards fulfilling and expressing the needs you have. It takes two to tango, and to avoid infidelity in your own relationship, always make your significant other feel loved and understood.