Predicting Infidelity

Using the recent poll results about what kind of content readers are looking for as a guide, I've decided to focus this week on a subset of the long term relationships topic: infidelity. Variations of the cheating theme are the most often-asked dating question I receive. From predicting infidelity to coping with it, wanting to know the definition of infidelity or how to get away with cheating (yes, I actually have people asking me this!), its obviously something that a lot of singles and daters have on their minds.

A study being released later this month discusses this same issue, entitled, "Premarital Precursors of Marital Infidelity" - essentially, what behaviors a dating or engaged couple would be more likely to exhibit while still dating, so as to predict their potential for infidelity when married.

The study tested over 70 couples in the first year of marriage, using behaviors exhibited before marriage to demonstrate one's chances of being unfaithful. Men and women responded quite differently in the study. The men who cheated were more likely to:

• ... feel negated and/or invalidated by their female partners;
• ... be dissatisfied sexually; and
• ... offer significantly less positive reinforcement to their partner as compared to the non-cheating control group.

The women who cheated in the study were more likely to:

• ... also offer significantly less positive reinforcement to their partner as compared to the non-cheating control group;
• ... feel nullified both towards their partner and by their partner; and
• ... both be the target of and speak to their partner using significantly more negative communication tactics than the non-cheating control group.

The results of this study tie nicely into a book I've been reading and will blog about more later this week called, "How To Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It," by Dr. Patricia Love and Dr. Steven Stosny (Compare Prices). The title may lead you to believe that its contents are more suited towards married couples than dating ones, but the advice given throughout the entire book is just as useful to those in long term relationships. The book explains how to avoid the issues that the predicting infidelity study points out, in ways that are unique, well explained and informative (although some are far from easy). I hope to share some of those details and debate them here with all of you, so as to potentially predict and avoid the painful effects of cheating in monogamous, long term dating relationships.

_{References: Allen, E. S., Rhoades, G. K., Stanley, S. M., Markman, H. J., Williams, T., & Melton, J. (2008). Premarital precursors of marital infidelity. Family Process, 47(2), 243-259'}