Good sex life? He is more likely to cheat – research
When cheating happens in a relationship, the assumption is that the sex is bad. The partner on the receiving end of it is then tasked with thinking about what it is that could have been done better.
Findings of an interesting new study suggest that these assumptions could be wrong. Apparently, a man is more likely to cheat in a relationship where the sex is good than where is bad.
For the study, researchers from the University of Florida in the US looked into how newly married people reacted to third parties. 233 newly married couples were analysed for a period of three years.
Intimate details of their marriages were recorded including marital satisfaction, long-term commitment, whether or not they were unfaithful and finally whether or not they were still together at the end of the study period.
The study subjects were then showed photographs of attractive men and women and photos of average looking men and women as researchers recorded how long they gazed at them.
They were looking to see whether it is possible to predict the likelihood of one party being unfaithful in a relationship. They findings show that it is.
People who gaze longingly at third parties are more likely to cheat on their partners. Their relationships are also more likely to fail.
They found that men with more attractive wives were less likely to cheat than women with more attractive husbands. Attractive women were also found to be slightly less likely to cheat than less attractive women.
On the flip side, when it came to men, being more attractive increased the chances of a man straying.
Faithful people, they found, also downgraded how attractive other people were. Clearly, for faithful people, the grass is not greener on the other side.
Upon further research, good sex in a relationship was found to be a risk factor when it came to cheating.
The explanation:
In a bid to explain these findings which have been published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the researchers reckon that partners who enjoy sex in their relationships are actually more likely to seek out other people to have sex with.
At a time when the social media is full of people who could tempt a person in a relationship to stray, the researchers feel that this research is timely.