An affair as a wake-up call
On average, cheating women fared better than cheating men. They gave the cause of the relationship unhappy with their relationship. Researchers interpret infidelity as a kind of “wake-up call” for the partner—a wake-up call that often has the desired effect.
They concluded that a relationship may provide the impetus for addressing relationship issues. This would also explain why, on average, the unfaithful were worse off than the unfaithful. Psychologist Stavrova and her team suspect that there are still many unfaithful people who have kept their infidelity a secret and thus have not yet revealed their problems. They inferred this from the fact that significantly more respondents admitted to having an affair of their own than, on the contrary, reported having an affair with their partner. He was not asked directly whether the case was still confidential, nor the duration or type of infidelity.
According to the authors, the study is the first to show that a relationship deteriorates even before infidelity — from the traitor’s point of view as well as from the traitor’s point of view. Infidelity is often seen as one of the most stressful events in a partnership. But this is doubtful: it is essentially pre-descended.
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