Should the opportunity arise to cheat on your partner, would you do it? If, however guiltily, you thought ‘yes’, you’re far from alone.
One survey found that as many as one in five of us admit to having had to an affair. Men were the worst culprits, with a shocking 60 per cent having been unfaithful, compared with 32 per cent of women.
But why do we do it? We spoke to a selection of cheaters of both genders to discover why they’d strayed. While some may horrify you, you may find others’ rationale more compelling than you’d expect – or even, whisper it, recognize elements from your own relationship…
She was the breadwinner… and didn’t I know it
Teacher Danny, 45, is married to his second wife and lives in the Cotswolds. He says:
I was married to my ex for ten years. The managing director of a chain of fitness centres, she earned far more than me – and while she said it should never make a difference to our relationship, it did.
She would make decisions without consulting me, purely because she had the credit card. I never got to choose where we went on holiday. She put in an offer on our home without me even seeing it. It was wounding to my ego.
At times I felt like the lodger. Her stuff dominated every room of the house, with my possessions confined to the corner of our dressing room she granted me.
Before Covid, she was travelling two weeks out of every four for work. She micromanaged everything even in her absence, including having a cleaner, Anna, pop in each week.
I got chatting to Anna, moaning about being at home alone. She was very sympathetic – and for once I didn’t feel that I was ‘less than’.
I also couldn’t help but notice that she was a lot slimmer and hotter than my wife.
Impulsively, I asked her if she wanted to get a drink. After a few rounds I invited her back and we had sex in the marital bed. It could have been anyone; it was just a way to get back at my wife.
Did she know? She never confronted me about it, but she ended things six months later, telling me that marriage was ‘far too much work’. She gave Anna the boot too. When I returned to pick up the last of my things, our bed was in a skip outside.
Teacher Danny said he felt like a ‘lodger’ when living with his ex-wife because of how much money she made (picture posed by models)
He was good looking but just too short
Lucy, 29, is a civil servant. She’s single and lives in Swindon. She says:
Three years ago I matched on a dating app with a guy who was perfect on paper. But when we met for a drink I was horrified. I’m relatively tall at 5ft 8in, and he was just 5ft 6in. We even wore the same size 5 shoe.
I had misgivings about getting into a relationship with him, but he was good looking and such an amazing man. So I thought I could be the, ahem, bigger person in not worrying about our mismatched physical appearance.
They say height doesn’t matter when you’re horizontal but I’m proof that it does. I’d never go on top for fear of crushing him, and his head would be in my chest the whole time we did the deed. It made me incredibly self-conscious about my appearance; I felt like a heffalump next to him.
It didn’t help that my mum kept going on about me meeting someone more my size. Her objection boiled down to how we’d look in wedding photographs. She said that while it didn’t matter now, I’d come to resent him for it.
At first I’d close down the conversation, yet a year into our relationship, I finally started to agree with her – and re-activated my dating app account. I quickly matched with a man who was 6ft, went to the gym and had a tanned body. Much more my type!
I started seeing him on the side. I couldn’t bear to dump my boyfriend – I felt guilty for being so superficial.
A year after I started cheating I found the courage to tell my pocket rocket he wasn’t right for me. Heartbreakingly, he later mentioned to my friend that he knew I was cheating but never said anything because he wanted to stay with me.
I regret spending so long with someone who clearly wasn’t right for me. Mum was right, I needed someone who was a real man – in stature as well as spirit.
Our sex life died after she gave birth
Electrician Fred, 47, is single with a daughter. He lives in Essex. He says:
My partner and I had been together for three years when we became parents. Our sex life was great back then, but after she’d given birth it was non-existent. At a stretch I’d say we did it twice in 18 months. I was accepting but frustrated. Sex is a big thing for me.
One afternoon she told me she wanted to talk. She wasn’t happy and wanted time on her own to think. I packed some things and went to stay with my mum.
Totally blindsided, I called a woman I’d worked with previously. That same evening we went for a drink, and I could tell she fancied me.
Unlike my partner, she was attentive and very tactile. We went back to hers and within minutes we were having sex. It was incredible – like waking up after being asleep for four years – but I did feel guilty afterwards.
On my way home I noticed I had a few missed calls from my partner. When I got back my mum told me that she’d called her too, saying she’d made a mistake in asking me to leave.
After a quick shower I went home to my partner. She was contrite and I made her work to get me back. I admit that I enjoyed her grovelling; I’d been treading on eggshells for months. I didn’t tell her I’d been unfaithful during our very temporary split.
I was never faithful after that because I could never trust that she’d stay with me. I was right; she walked out two years later. Apparently she wanted to ‘spread her wings’.
I was far too clever for him
Solicitor Bonnie, 38, is single and has two daughters, 13 and 11. They live in Surrey. She says:
I married my childhood sweetheart, whom I’d met at school, when I was 21.
Even while I was studying for a degree in law and he was working on a building site we were joined at the hip. But we were always opposites; I kept my head down and worked hard at university, while he was never interested in higher education. Yet he was a big character who worked all hours to pay for our home.
Not long after I graduated I started working and two years later I was pregnant. He was very hands-on with the girls and turned out to be a brilliant dad.
Bonnie the solicitor was married to her childhood sweetheart but had her head turned by a man she met at a business event (picture posed by models)
As parents, though, our differences began to show – specifically the differences in our education.
When meeting with friends, he was the odd one out in many conversations; I’d get embarrassed when he began his spiel about attending the ‘university of life’. I hated it when he watched those awful cheap quiz shows with our daughters, when I wanted them to be reading and expanding their horizons.
I’d routinely go to networking events to pick up business, and on one occasion my head was turned. The chap in question was very handsome and as we were chatting, he asked me about my favourite writers.
When he quoted lines from Shakespeare and Proust, I was mesmerised. I got home that night to see my husband sat in front of the telly again laughing at something stupid. When the man from the party asked me to dinner a week later, I said yes.
That night he continued to woo me with poetry and, two dates later, I went to bed with him.
A year after the affair began I split with my husband but the affair fizzled out. In the end he didn’t want to ‘take on’ someone else’s children.
An older, wiser me recognises that life as a single mum of two is hard. I wish I’d told my ex to pull his socks up and expand his cultural repertoire. Maybe then I wouldn’t have thrown away my marriage for someone who seduced me with pretentious literary quotes.
She was cruel so I explored my sexuality
Yoga teacher Charlie, 35, is single and lives in Devon. He says:
I’ve always been secretly bisexual, and five years ago I got together with my then-girlfriend via a spiritual dating app.
She was incredibly zen at first. Our relationship moved very quickly, but it was at her pace rather than mine.
At her behest we were living together after three months, and before long I’d catch her looking through my phone. She’d say she was just checking my work schedule but we both knew she was reading my messages.
Before long she had started to criticise my friends, my body, the yoga studios I was working at. She’d phrase it as light observations, insisting she only wanted the best for me. But they wore me down. Even in the bedroom we only ever did what she wanted to do. She didn’t give a hoot if I was sexually satisfied or not.
Even so, during arguments she’d accuse me of sleeping with clients, which I’d never do.
After one family get-together, we were in the car heading home and she started saying how my mum could do with losing weight.
I saw red but didn’t say anything. Instead, while she was driving, I downloaded a gay dating app and uploaded my profile. I felt justified in doing it to spite her.
A university post-grad student got in touch and we met later that week for sex. I saw him a couple of times more but I ended things because he wanted a relationship. I was also terrified of my partner finding out.
A tiny part of me felt guilty. But she drove me to cheat. When I ended things I only did so because I knew she fancied someone else, so I could put the blame on her. A bit lame, but it’s the only way I managed to get free of her.
I was addicted to the thrill
Publishing executive Cassie, 31, lives in Dorset. She says:
I was very strait-laced at school, always more focused on getting As than I was on boys. But at university, it was as if a switch flicked.
In my first year, I met my partner on campus. On paper we were the perfect match. But I met him too soon in my journey of sexual exploration, and during the seven years we were together I was repeatedly unfaithful. Quite simply, I was addicted to the thrill of cheating.
I was meeting a lot of men via my job; they were pretty much always married, so it was a risk for them to be putting their marriage on the line – which added to the thrill.
The first time was with my boss. He’d deliberately booked an away day for the team – although it turned out to be just the two of us.
We’d already been flirting, so I packed accordingly with a beautiful, if barely there, pair of knickers and bra hidden in my suitcase. From then on, whenever things weren’t going well with his wife, we’d have sex at a mutual friend’s home. That went on for 18 months.
One guy was very kinky, and we explored a lot together. Another chap loved having sex outside. My relationship with my partner was more akin to brother and sister at that time, and the rare times we did have sex, it was boring.
During the seven years my ex and I were together he never once challenged me or voiced any suspicions – and I never told him.
Today I’m single, because I prefer to have sex when, and with whom, I fancy. I look back without regret. I clearly wasn’t getting what I needed in the relationship, otherwise I wouldn’t have strayed. My behaviour never weighed on my conscience either because I love sex.
I don’t believe any man has ever cheated on me, but then again, I have never given them a reason to.
Names have been changed.