The Frontier Psychiatrists is a health-themed publication. We talk about “social determinants of health” in medicine as if they were a rounding error. In most people’s lives, “what is happening in our lives” is the “whole show.” The social determinants are the life. The health status is supporting cast.
Marriages and other long-term pair bonds are the bedrock of our lives. Monogamy is the most common assumption, although more and more individuals are discussing non-monogamous relationship models. However, no matter what relationship model one subscribes to, none of those relationship models make breaking your partner’s heart by lying to them fit in well. And yet, people cheat on each other.
This happens all the time. As a therapist, I came up with a term for this category of behavior, which I referred to as f*cked up people sh*t (FUPS). When other individuals would say, "How could he possibly do that?” But it was the kind of thing that happens all the time because people reliably do things that are transgressive, against their values, against the values of their partners and their families because we are imperfect. Predictably awful. This is predictably awful behavior. I called it “FUPS”—where others would say, “How could you?!” …with shock and surprise, while it's the kind of thing that happens all the time.
There is little scholarship on this topic. Here's some of the data that we have at our disposal. When it comes to incidence (how much infidelity happens per year—which is assuming monogamous marriages for this sample):
it is estimated that about 2–4% of spouses engage in sexual infidelity in any given year
Remember, the numbers are just under double that per dyad since there are two spouses per marriage. The pattern is also predictable:
infidelity shows a seasonal pattern with a peak in the summer months, a period associated with travel that likely facilitates sex with a partner in a geographically different location thereby decreasing the chance of detection
People are so predictable. One large-scale sample estimate over the lifespan:
conservative estimates suggest that infidelity occurs in 20–25% of all marriages1
Among those not married, the rates are estimated to be even higher. Meanwhile, infidelity is deemed somewhere between bad (immoral) and awful:
Although the majority of Americans disapprove of infidelity (in a Gallup Poll 90% view it as immoral and 65% say it is “unforgivable”
For a brief detour into the nature of “the unforgivable,” I will lean on philosophy for a moment. For something to be forgiven, the individual is essentially signing up to let the thing go and not resent the letting go. This is the hard part,
“Foreswearing resentment”
And, if the transgression is so far beyond the ability to ever move past it, that becomes unforgivable. Some unforgivable acts make moving pastness impossible, and thus those:
cases that fall into this category [“unforgivable”] understandably tend to involve “levels of evil that elicit resentment so deep as to be accompanied by rage, indeed outrage.”2
Now, most loving couples are not in the business of philosophy; they are in the business of arduously forgiving each other endlessly for myriad slights, lies, transgressions, and failings in any life of any messy pair of humans. Suffice it to say, forgiveness is hard work, and sometimes it’s reasonable for one or the other party to choose to call a mulligan and walk away instead of doing the work on both sides or getting to a resentment foresworn. It’s a high bar.
Infidelity, in addition to being common, is a driver of suicide attempts. In one sample of women in Italy, a husband’s infidelity led to a 4,400% (44-fold) increased risk of suicide attempts in their female partners.3. This was a stronger predictor of attempted suicide—in this admittedly traditional society—than threats of physical assault and intimate partner violence.
Studies on those who die by suicide are by their nature more limited, but one investigator found, in suicide notes:
Lester et al. (2004), found that men more frequently reported love or romantic problems, whereas women were more likely to have “escape from unbearable pain” as a motive in their suicides (p. 34).
Whereas other authors found the opposite, when it comes to the gender balance:
Problems in a marriage or relationship was a major risk factor associated with suicide death within a number of retrospective studies (Busuttil et al., 1994, Logan et al., 2011). With Kurtaş et al. (2012) observing that suicide letters written by men focused on financial problems, while for women interpersonal relationship problems with a spouse or boyfriend were more dominant.3
Regardless, both men and women who die by suicide regularly tell the world that the problems in their relationships are enough of a problem to highlight in their final communication to the living they leave behind.
Infidelity—the lives we try to withhold from our loved ones—is toxic. The behavior is common. Human sexual behavior beyond what we explicitly agree to in agreements between partners won’t stop— if I had to make a bet. However, the degree to which we choose to acknowledge it, be less sh*tty to each other about it, and the degree to which we work on a cultural context for forgiveness might be able to change. These changes could be lifesaving.
We buy life insurance policies based on tiny risks. We discuss minute details of a wedding’s seating arrangement or other life details that don’t matter. However, we don't spend time addressing the completely predictable infidelity that will happen in many long-term relationships. We don't agree—in advance— on how we will talk to each other about what is likely to occur. This leads to lies, shame, self-recrimination, and unrealistic but deeply harmful blaming of the self for the behavior of others. We can't change how humans behave easily around sex, but we can change the fact that we don't talk about it honestly. Admit it's predictable. Admit it's likely to happen. Planning via uncomfortable conversations could save our partner’s life, our own, or both. We need more realism in these conversations, understanding, and less default to the existentially unforgivable.
Fincham, F. D., & May, R. W. (2017). Infidelity in romantic relationships. Current Opinion in Psychology, 13, 70-74. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2016.03.008
Formosa, J. P. D. (2015). The Unforgiven and the Unforgivable: On the Nature and Limits of Forgiveness(Doctoral dissertation).
Kazan, D., Calear, A. L., & Batterham, P. J. (2016). The impact of intimate partner relationships on suicidal thoughts and behaviours: A systematic review. Journal of Affective Disorders, 190, 585-598. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2015.11.003
My observation is that the reaction to infidelity is not that rational. And many times when it is forgivable it simply destroys the relationship. The partner forgives the other partner but simply doesn’t find the same value in the connection. I’m sure you know relationships can be delicate things. And you have to know that emotions don’t follow cultural or background beliefs perfectly, and people’s emotional bonds are not necessarily amenable to such things as ‘this is forgivable and/or understandable.’ We don’t even necessarily know what causes deep bonding between spouses or what causes these to fracture, do we? So I don’t think ‘realism about human foibles’ is necessarily going to protect us from rifts due to certain actions when it comes to certain types of loves.
So we couldn’t get rid of these effects for all people necessarily by ‘knowing in advance that this is normal.’ It might help a little but certain other responses could take over even for people who accept that as a fact.
This is true for other things—losses and death. I know my loved ones will die. I know I will die. i think about these facts a lot, and ponder various ways to prepare. I have my doubts I will automatically deal with them with calm acceptance. The loss or fear will be great no matter how I prepare. The emotions come from a more primitive place. That’s probably why our attachments to people can be so lasting and profound.
That’s not to say that nobody is capable of being sanguine in the face of infidelity or death. It’s merely to say that these are skills or what have you that go beyond the acceptance of various beliefs like ‘this is just one of those things that happens in life.’ There’s something in them that are beyond rationality. After all, the person we love is simply one person among many. It’s theoretically possible we might never have met them or loved them. It’s all arbitrary whom we are connected with in that profound way. However, our emotions do not reflect this in any way. If they did, the intensity of the connection we feel would not happen like it does. Our identity is entangled with theirs in some mysterious way—even our survival may be.
That said, I do think gay men who are deeply bonded but in more open relationships seem to have some kind of infidelity realism that is pretty fascinating, and maybe shows it is cultural in some respect or that there are outlooks that will allow greater latitude than the ones that structure monogamous relationships. But I don’t know if their strategies necessarily are connected to longer or more lasting or more satisfying relationships overall. But at least it does show there’s a fair amount of variability possible. I’m just not sure if you can create that or if it just sort of happens. It would also work if the love relationship were more like a friendship. But the love relationship between partners -when it’s really deep and profound—involves more of a merging of the self with the other person that you don’t necessarily get in other types of relationships, and this can’t survive all schisms.
Though of course it is true that there are some background assumptions that cause people to get hung up on infidelity that possibly make it harder to get over, and it might help to examine these.
But there’s just something about somebody deeply hurting you for their own benefit that’s going to mess up a relationship, and make it harder (if not impossible) to maintain. Saying ‘you should accept that love is not necessarily about sexual fidelity’ and ‘this wasn’t about you’ or ‘this person didn’t mean to hurt you’ won’t work. However, there might be various processes that work—e.g., allowing the cheated-upon person to be furious for a lengthy period of time in which the unfaithful person has remorse. These are often hard to tolerate or go through but they can work. Perhaps certain processes allow us to re-establish bonding after major breaks in connection. Things like that might not be able to be short-circuited by rationality just like a lot of relationship bonds aren’t fully rational in the first place but more like limbic experiences. They work out in the longer term when there’s more than emotion behind them but other factors that create affinity. But the emotional aspects remain mysterious.
I think that another, less tractable problem is that even when couples talk about infidelity, they don’t really think it will happen to them, so they may be inclined toward forgiveness in the early stages of their relationship. I believe that it also depends on whether the commitment is “eternal fidelity, i.e., marriage” or another type of relationship. I don’t think that people truly understand the idea of forever in any relationship, especially one with memorized vows, etc.
Great article!