Cheating Leads to Divorce

 Posted on March 09, 2013 in Family Law

It’s not easy to determine just how many Americans are being unfaithful in a marriage, primarily due to the necessary secrecy that an affair requires. Yet according to menstuff.org, an impressive 22 percent of married men “have strayed at least once during their married lives,” compared with 14 percent of women. Younger people are more likely to cheat, and younger married women more likely to cheat than young married men. The vast majority of partners did not know about the cheating—which is why, most likely, many relationships in which either one or both partners were cheating ended in divorce. According to the Associated Press and reported by menstuff.org, 17 percent of divorces in the U.S. are caused by infidelity.

And yet what does cheating, or infidelity, really mean? Does looking at another person and desiring him or her count as cheating? Do moves actually have to be made? University of Michigan Research Assistant Professor Daniel Kruger set out to determine just that, and earlier this year published a cheating survey, in which he looked at how people define infidelity, according to the Huffington Post. Just over 450 college students were surveyed, and were asked to “look at 27 different behaviors and assign them a number on a scale of 0 to 100 based on the extent to which they believed the action would be considered cheating in a long-term relationship,” according to the Huffington Post.

The survey found that women rated ten items higher than did men, “and men’s ratings were higher on a minor financial support item.” The survey also found, rather predictably, that women considered emotional interaction with a person of the opposite sex cheating more often than men did—men, for the most part, only considered sexual interaction as being unfaithful.

If you are considering divorce because your spouse has been unfaithful—no matter what that means to you—don’t go through it alone. Contact a dedicated Chicago-area divorce attorney today.