Married cheaters reveal all in big survey

A study has dished the dirt about the motivations of married cheaters.

According to a survey of almost 2,000 users of Ashley Madison, a website for people seeking affairs, about 20 to 25 percent of married people — and 33 to 50 percent of young adults in dating relationships — have had sex outside their relationships.

Most people reported love for their partners and no serious relationship problems but about half said they were sexually inactive with their spouses, leading them to find sex elsewhere.

“We don’t see solid evidence here that people’s affairs are associated with lower relationship quality or lower life satisfaction,” lead study author Dylan Selterman said in a news release. “Sometimes they’ll cheat even if their relationships are pretty good.”

The study was conducted by Johns Hopkins University’s Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences and published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior.

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It also found that about 80 percent also reported that they kept their affairs a secret from their spouse or relationship partner.

“The take-home point for me is that maintaining monogamy or sexual exclusivity, especially across people’s lifespans is really, really hard and I think people take monogamy for granted when they’re committed to someone in a marriage,” Selterman said.

“People just assume that their partners are going to be totally satisfied having sex with one person for the next 50 years of their lives but a lot of people fail at it. It doesn’t mean everyone’s relationship is doomed, it means that cheating might be a common part of people’s relationships.”

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