I talk to a lot of people near their relationships. And a lot of these relationships are virtually every bit healthy as the Ebola virus: common cold, afar, loveless, and flesh-eating.

I hear the stories about the heartbreak and loneliness, the lying and cheating, and the pain. Always the pain.

Inevitably, these conversations end with some form of the same question: "Why?" Why does he/she do this to me? Why does he/she not care anymore? Why won't he/she change?

Tolstoy said that all happy relationships are the same, but each unhappy relationship is unique in its own way.1 I suppose that'due south true. But I exercise remember the question of allegiance, of why some people choose to remain faithful and others do not, is fairly straightforward and easily answered.

It turns out that infidelity is really non uncommon in both men and women. In fact, surveys estimate that most ane-4th of all marriages experience infidelity at some point. And that's but counting the people who answered honestly or found out about it.2

It's too very hard for most people to be logical nigh infidelity. They commencement raging all over the place and throwing people's shit out on the lawn. Or they get then sad and hurt that they can't look at the state of affairs reasonably and see all of the warning signs stretching out miles behind them.3

And then let's pause this down logically. I know algorithms aren't exactly romantic or sexy. Only then again, neither is cheating. So fuck it, you go an algorithm.

The Cheating Algorithm is quite simple and goes equally follows:

SELF-GRATIFICATION > INTIMACY = Cheating

In plain English language: when one's need for cocky-gratification outweighs their need for intimacy, cheating is likely to occur. Allow'due south break that downwards a picayune more and dig a little deeper:

  1. As humans, we all have a natural want for self-gratification. Good food. Good sex activity. Petty work. Lots of sleep. Porn and video games and corn flakes.4
  2. As humans, we as well all accept a natural desire for intimacy and to feel loved past somebody else, to experience as though we are sharing our lives with somebody.5
  3. Unfortunately, these two needs are ofttimes contradictory. To reach that intimacy and dear, you lot have to sacrifice your own self-gratification at times. And to achieve self-gratification, you often have to sacrifice some honey and intimacy. This can exist as simple as watching a flick you don't really similar or attending some boring piece of work party you don't care virtually. Simply it tin also be deep and complex, like being open almost your fears and insecurities to your partner or making a conscious delivery to be monogamous with that person for an indefinite corporeality of time.half dozen
  4. If a person values cocky-gratification more than than the intimacy they gain from a relationship, and so they will terminate sacrificing for the relationship and are probable to stop up adulterous. If a person values the intimacy they gain from a relationship more than self-gratification, then they will willingly sacrifice some of their self-gratification to remain faithful.
  5. Think of information technology like a scale. On i side you lot accept self-gratification and on the other you have intimacy. If at any point the self-gratification side outweighs the intimacy side, well, then you lot become a cheater.why people cheat: the self-gratification vs intimacy balance scale

There are two ways this can happen. The first fashion is that a person is just shallow and selfish and needs to exist gratified constantly. The second reason is that the relationship is failing to provide sufficient intimacy and want.7 Let's unpack these two reasons separately.

In my optics, the definition of maturity is the ability to defer self-gratification in favor of more important long-term goals.8

You don't masturbate at work considering that would get you fired. You don't consume chocolate cake for breakfast every morning because that would give you lot a heart assail by the age of 32. You don't mainline heroin straight into your eyeballs earlier picking your kids upward from school because, well, Jesus, practise I really have to explain that 1?

Certain, these things feel nice, but you have larger and more than important concerns and y'all're able to defer your own gratification to run into those concerns.

This is called "maturity." Information technology'due south called "being an adult." It'southward called "not being a fuck up."

Adulterous falls nether the aforementioned umbrella here. Sure, it may experience good to rub your genitals all over that cute stranger'southward face, simply a mature person is capable of stepping back and deferring their gratification in favor of a more than important life-long commitment.

Cocky-gratifying cheaters come up in two flavors: miserable over-compensators and people in ability.

The miserable over-compensators are constantly focused on their own gratification considering they feel so miserable well-nigh themselves that they need to make themselves feel good to cover it up all the time. Chances are that if your cheating deadbeat of an ex-boyfriend/girlfriend is a miserable over-compensator, cheating isn't the just destructive cocky-gratifying beliefs they pursue. They may exist a heavy drinker, a difficult partier, a drug user, or a social climber.

Or they may only try to take over the world.

The people in power are just that, people in high positions of power.ix They're Genghis Khan. Or more recently, Bill Clinton and Arnold Schwarzenegger. They are people who don't have anyone to say "no" to them or those who don't face any real tangible repercussions for their deportment. Or in the case of Khan, a man who only slaughtered an unabridged province of innocent people and wanted to spend the next calendar week having a blood orgy with all the local virgins. Knock yourself out, champ.

But these don't just demand to be people with social power. These can be people who are given complete power over the relationship, people who are shown no repercussions for their deportment by their partners. Yes, you can unwittingly enable your partner to crook on you. Which brings united states to the 2d reason.

It's not rocket science to say that the likelihood of adultery in a relationship is straight proportional to how miserable the relationship is.

The trouble is that many people don't recognize the misery in their own relationships. They come up from a family full of miserable relationships and/or have a long history of miserable relationships, and so to them, it'due south not even miserable, it's merely normal.

So they get surprised when wifey is fucking the milkman. Everything was then proficient, what happened?

No, information technology wasn't so good buckeroo. Let me explicate why.

Damn you milk man. Always stealing away our women.
Damn yous milkman. Always stealing our women.

Look, there are two relationship patterns that usually end up with somebody adulterous. Both involve poor boundaries.10 And both create an illusion that "everything is great," when really it's a festering pile of cow shit with big red hearts painted on information technology.

The first state of affairs is when one partner feels equally though they "do everything" for the other partner. They take care of them, give them everything they want, and in some cases support them. The person feels like a goddamn saint and then what happens? They get cheated on.

The reason this is actually a toxic situation is that when you practice everything for your partner, when you take care of all of their bug and evidence them that no thing what happens you will always make it better for them, you show them that there are essentially no repercussions for their actions. They lose their task considering they were masturbating at the office once more and you decide to support them. So they spend the adjacent six months loafing around on your couch while you tirelessly transport out their resume for them. What makes you call back they're going to modify? What makes yous think they volition ever stop and question their own behavior?

If you had a dog that continuously pissed on your carpeting and every fourth dimension yous just cleaned up the rug considering OMIGOD I Love HER, why would the canis familiaris ever stop pissing on it?

That's what happens when these people cheat on you. You lot're actually surprised when you lot've been tolerating and enabling the verbal behavior that led to them adulterous all forth. No, it'south non your "fault," merely you sure every bit shit weren't helping the matter.

Believe it or non, a good for you and loving relationship requires that people say "no" to i another on occasion. It requires that each individual stands up for themselves and their needs. Because only then can two people, as self-respecting individuals, discuss what volition work and what won't work for them in a human relationship.

The other situation where adulterous always ends up happening is when i partner is insanely possessive and jealous.

Let me enquire y'all this, if you were dating somebody who regularly looked through your phone without permission, demanded to know where yous were at all times, got ripshit pissed off every fourth dimension you went out with your friends without him/her and screamed at you until claret vessels popped in their face if you lot get a single day without calling or texting, why wouldn't you crook?11

I mean, this person is substantially treating y'all similar you already cheated, even though y'all did nothing wrong. So why not cheat? It won't get any worse.

And that'southward exactly what happens. "Well, my husband yells at me every day anyhow, and now that I'm with my friends and we've have had a few apple-tinis, I realize I haven't been happy with him in about a year, and then yeah, why don't I kiss this cute guy hitting on me right now? He'due south really nice to me. And I'm going to get yelled at when I get habitation anyway. So why not?"

And boom, the milkman strikes again.

Possessive/jealous behavior communicates extreme insecurity and a lack of cocky-respect. How can your partner respect you if you are incapable of tolerating any sort of discomfort in the relationship whatsoever?

True, sexy conviction comes not from fighting for cocky-gratification, only rather from beingness comfortable with deferring gratification. Which brings u.s. to…

There are simple steps you can take to foreclose getting cheated on. Notation while they are "simple" they are not necessarily piece of cake to do.

Let me explain.

Step 1: Do Not Date Somebody Who Cannot Defer Self-Gratification Well

This goes without saying, but don't fall in love with the first person who looks at y'all without grimacing.

Expect, dating a self-gratifier can be awesome, as long equally you continue to gratify them. But you need to learn to await past the feel-goods and look at how this person really lives their life. Are they capable of making sacrifices for those around them? Are they impulsive? Does their life appear to be filled with unnecessary drama? Do they take responsibility for their deportment?

The trouble with people who base their lives around their own gratification is that they often appear confident to people who are anxious or insecure. I recall when I met my kickoff girlfriend, one of the things I loved about her was that if she wanted something she just went and did it. I was and so insecure and inhibited at the time that I idea this was an amazing brandish of confidence.

What I later constitute out was that it was actually an astonishing display of self-gratification. As soon equally she wanted another pair of genitals in her confront, well, there they were.

As I described in this article, true sexy confidence only exists when someone is comfortable with what they don't take. True confidence comes from being able to defer and requite up ane'southward ain gratification and desires and take the appropriate actions when necessary.

The other issue with people who date self-gratifiers is that they think to themselves, "Well, he's so loving and happy when he's with me, why would he ever desire to exist with somebody else?"

Yeah, information technology'due south because he was dating you for the self-gratification, not the intimacy. Then of course he loved existence with you, every bit long every bit it was on his terms. As before long as you quit providing gratification for him, he went and found somebody else who did.

Footstep 2: Enforce Salubrious Boundaries

That means standing up for yourself. That means declaring what is and is not acceptable in the relationship both for yourself and your partner. That means sticking by those declarations and post-obit through on them. That means doing pretty much everything explained in this article.

That ways you recognize that you are non responsible for your partner's happiness nor are they responsible for yours. That you practice not have a right to demand certain deportment from them nor exercise they have a right to demand sure actions from yous.

That ways that they are responsible for their own struggles just as y'all are responsible for yours.

That means that you realize often the most loving and compassionate thing y'all can do for a loved one is allow them to deal with their struggles themselves.

The point of a relationship is not for y'all to take all of your life'due south problems stock-still by your partner, nor is it for y'all to fix all of your partner's life problems.

The signal of a relationship is to have two individuals unconditionally support each other every bit they deal with their own issues together.

Step 3: E'er Exist Willing to Get out

This comes upward in a lot of my replies to those emails I get, and it often catches people off guard.

But a relationship is only as strong equally each person'due south willingness to go out. Annotation that I didn't say want to leave, simply the willingness to exit. Every healthy relationship requires the occasional loving but stern "no." Otherwise nothing will ever alter because there'due south no reason for it to change.

A wise friend of mine told me years agone that afterward two divorces the most of import lesson he learned was that "the quickest style to kill a relationship is to take each other for granted."12

A human relationship is not an obligation. It is a option. Made every solar day. It is a choice that says, "The intimacy we share is meliorate for me than my ain self-gratification." Information technology is a choice that recognizes the short-term costs are worth the long-term benefits. It is a choice to appreciate what brought y'all two together in the first place. Then to let that go along you at that place.