Infidelity Statistics

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Menstuff® has compiled the following information on infidelity statistics.

Snippets
What Do Infidelity Statistics Mean?

Snippets

• 22 percent of married men have strayed at least once during their married lives.
• 14 percent of married women have had affairs at least once during their married lives.
• Younger people are more likely candidates; in fact, younger women are as likely as younger men to be unfaithful.
• 70 percent of married women and 54 percent of married men did not know of their spouses' extramarital activity.
• 5 percent of married men and 3 percent of married women reported having sex with someone other than their spouse in the year1997.
• 22 percent of men and 14 percent of women admitted to having sexual relations outside their marriage sometime in their past.
• 90 percent of Americans believe adultery is morally wrong.
• 50 percent of Americans say President Clinton's adultery makes his moral standard "about the same as the average married man,'' according to a Time-CNN poll.
• 61 percent of Americans thought adultery should not be a crime in the United states; 35 percent thought it should; 4 percent had no opinion.
• 17 percent of divorces in the United States are caused by infidelity.
• Source: Associated Press
• Up to 37% of men and 22% of women admit to having affairs. Researchers think the vast majority of the millions of people who visit chat rooms, have multiple "special friends”. Dr. Bob Lanier, askbob.com
• Recent studies reveal that 45-55% of married women and 50-60% of married men engage in extramarital sex at some time or another during their relationship (Atwood & Schwartz, 2002 - Journal of Couple & Relationship Therapy)
• Only 46% of men believe that online affairs are adultery. DivorceMag
• 80% think it's Ok to talk with a stranger identified as the opposite sex. 75% thinks it's ok to visit an adult site.
• About 60 percent of men and 40 percent of women will have an affair at some point in some marriage "Monogamy Myth", Therapist Peggy Vaugn
• About 24 percent of men and 14 percent of women have had sex outside their marriages, according to a Dec. 21, 1998 report in USA Today on a national study by the University of California, San Francisco.
• Affairs affect one of every 2.7 couples, according to counselor Janis Abrahms Spring, author of After the Affair,as reported by the Washington Post on March 30, 1999. Ten percent of extramarital affairs last one day, 10 percent last more than one day but less than a month, 50 percent last more than a month but less than a year, but 40 percent last two or more years. Few extramarital affairs last more than four years.
• A lesser known fact is that those who divorce rarely marry the person with whom they are having the affair. For example, Dr. Jan Halper’s study of successful men (executives, entrepreneurs, professionals) found that very few men who have affairs divorce their wife and marry their lovers. Only 3 percent of the 4,100 successful men surveyed eventually married their lovers.
• Frank Pittman has found that the divorce rate among those who married their lovers was 75 percent. The reasons for the high divorce rate include: intervention of reality, guilt, expectations, a general distrust of marriage, and a distrust of the affairee.
• One-third of divorce litigation is caused by online affairs. This Is An Internet E-Mergency, The Fortino Group
• Approximately 70% of time on-line is spent in chat rooms or sending e-mail; of these interactions, the vast majority are romantic in nature. Dr. Michael Adamse, PhD., co-author of Affairs of the Net: The Cybershrinks' Guide to Online Relationships
• Because of the anonymity, affordability, and accessibility of Internet sexual resources, the computer can accelerate the transition from "at risk" to "addicted," as well as the progression of sex addiction in those with a history of prior sexual compulsivity. Cooper et al Survey
• 8-10 percent of Internet users become hooked on cybersex. Dr. Bob Lanier, askbob.com
• Spouses who get hooked on Internet porn are a growing complaint among spouses filing for divorce, according to a survey of 350 divorce attorneys. "If there's dissatisfaction in the existing relationship, the Internet is an easy way for people to scratch the itch," said lawyer J. Lindsey Short, Jr., president of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, which conducted the study.
• 57% of people have used the Internet to flirt.
• 38% of people have engaged in explicit online sexual conversation and 50% of people have made phone contact with someone they chatted with online.
• Evidence proves there is a high correlation between on-line infidelity and subsequent real-time sexual affairs.
• Evidence supports the existence of disinhibition, accelerated intimacy, and hyper-sexual online behavior that can easily lead to real-time infidelity
• 31% of people have had an online conversation that has led to real-time sex.
• It is estimated that 53% of all people will have one or more affairs during their lifetime.
• Look at the numbers from Playboy Magazine:
• -2 out of 3 women and 3 out of 4 men admit they have sexual thoughts about co-workers.
• -86% of men and 81% of women admit they routinely flirt with the opposite sex.
• -75% of men and 65% of women admit to having sex with people they work with.
• The fact is that human beings are NOT monogamous by nature. That means they cheat.
• Experts say that a gut instinct is the most powerful indicator of a cheating lover. Adultery statistics state that 85% of woman who feel their lover is cheating are correct. 50% of men who feel their lover is cheating are right. The first clue is seldom obvious. Typically, it's a "feeling" that something is different.
• Cheating spouse statistics confirm that 50 and 70 percent of married men (between 38 and 53 million men) have cheated or will cheat on their wives. One study found that 2/3 of the wives (26 to 36 million women) whose husbands were cheating had no idea their husbands were having an affair - largely because they failed to recognize the telltale signs.
• According to Annette Lawson, author of Adultery, published in 1989 by Basic Books. "The various researchers arrive at a general consensus…suggesting that above one-quarter to about one-half of married women have at least one lover after they are married in any given marriage. Married men probably still stray more often than married women—perhaps from 50 percent to 65 percent by the age of forty." According to Maggie Scarf, author of Intimate Partners, first published in 1987 by Random House, re-issued in 1996 by Ballentine.
• "Most experts do consider the 'educated guess' that at the present time some 50 to 65 percent of husbands and 45 to 55 percent of wives become extramaritally involved by the age of 40 to be a relatively sound and reasonable one." According to Peggy Vaughan, author of The Monogamy Myth, first published in 1989 by Newmarket Press (third edition published 2003).
• Conservative infidelity statistics estimate that “60 percent of men and 40 percent of women will have an extramarital affair. These figures are even more significant when we consider the total number of marriages involved, since it's unlikely that all the men and women having affairs happen to be married to each other. If even half of the women having affairs (or 20 percent) are married to men not included in the 60 percent having affairs, then at least one partner will have an affair in approximately 80 percent of all marriages. With this many marriages affected, it's unreasonable to think affairs are due only to the failures and shortcomings of individual husbands or wives."

Note that the above adultry statistics of the prevalence of affairs were made more than a decade ago; so based on changes in society during the intervening years, the current percentage of the population who have had affairs is probably somewhat HIGHER. For instance, the continuing increase of women in the workplace and the increase of women having affairs on the Internet means that the numbers for women having affairs is probably similar to those for men—about 60%.

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