cheating

Cheating - I Think It's A Human Gene Or Is It?

Martin Cooney

Aug 20, 2010 — 5 min read

I recently read an article on CNN that suggested there is a link between a person’s income and whether they’re likely to cheat on their partner. Here’s a few excerpts to begin with:

Men who are completely economically dependent on their female partners are five times more likely to cheat than men in relationships with women who earned similar amounts, according to the study’s author, Christin Munsch, a sociology Ph.D. candidate at Cornell University.

The article wanders over various other facts and statistics and ends with this quote:

Munsch points out that in the overall study, very few couples surveyed had experienced cheating during the six-year period studied. Only an average of 3.8 percent of male partners and 1.4 percent of female partners cheated during that period.

You’ve got to be kidding me on that last point, right?

The article essentially victimizes men for being cheating bastards and the conclusion is that all this is based on less than 4% of the total study group. A long-winded analysis based on thin air – though statistics are just that, aren’t they?

You can use them in many ways to pull out incorrect and baseless conclusions.

What Is Cheating?

Check out my blog post ‘ Top Reasons Why Partners Cheat ‘ for a reference to cheating relationships.

I’m been a victim of a cheating partner in a past relationship. Let me tell you, saying that you forgive the other party is the easy part.

The truth is that forgiveness never really happens.

You want to forgive, you want the relationship to get fixed and you want things to be just like they were before. That’s why you forgive them. You say to yourself ‘It was a big mistake, I forgive you, and let’s move on since you’re remorseful.

In reality, how can you forget what’s happened?

How do you trust them again?

It’s happened once, for whatever reason and the possibility has to exist that something else in the future will cause the cheating to recur.

It’s as I there’s a ‘Cheating Gene’ inside some people if you ask me.

Cheating Gene

As I was writing that last line, I did a Google on ‘Cheating Gene’ – my goodness, there’s significant evidence to suggest that hormones and brain scans have indeed suggested a cheating gene could very well be a reality.

They talk about things such as the vasopressin receptor gene associated with pair-bonding behavior in humans.

Yippee, though I suggest opportunity and environmental circumstances factor into whether a male or female is likely to cheat.

And when I say ‘likely’, I mean that that person actually has thoughts at some point about cheating.

Which is where this ‘gene’ comes in. Some people would never ever even think that cheating is an option, in any way, shape or form.

Is It Cheating When…

Now that I have touched on the cheating gene, I got to thinking about circumstances in a relationship where some people may think that cheating could be acceptable.

Is It Sex Drive?

Now imagine a couple where the woman has a low sex drive or, perhaps, little interest in making love, itself.

The man, however, still has a very active interest in sex and making love. I pose the question, is it morally fair for the guy to suppress his desires and in so doing, living in what I would call an unhealthy relationship?

Now in this circumstance, would it be reasonable for the man to go out and have an affair?

Or even to enter into a purely sexual relationship with another partner, with his wife’s consent?

What are your thoughts regarding this situation?

Perhaps, another relationship situation could be where one party in a relationship might happen an illness that essentially prevents them from having sex.

Again, is it acceptable for the other party who still has a very healthy sexual appetite to no longer enjoy the sexual act or, at least, sexual release with another human being.

Now I know we are all capable of self-gratification. It’s also proven that this gives one a very different set of hormonal releases. By that I mean, sex with the human being actually releases a completely different set of endorphins and hormones than the subset released through masturbation.

These are interesting situations, aren’t they?