Does Cheating Run In The Family?

Worried that your partner may be unfaithful? Look to his parents for hints — cheating may run in the family. And while a recent poll (of users of a married dating site, let's keep that in mind) suggests that the sins of the father are passed on to his son, the sins of the mother are even worse. As reported in the Daily Mail, the poll of over 2,000 Brits found that, while about half of unfaithful men report cheating in the male side of their families, about three-quarters of unfaithful women report that cheating runs in the female side of their families.

Only one-quarter of both men and women say that, if their unfaithful parent told them to break off an affair, they'd do it. So the larger lesson here may be that marriage problems don't fall far from the tree, and if you want your kids to have healthy relationships, you'd best model that yourself.

Since the poll looked at users of a married dating site, though, those are some pretty deliberate cheaters — the men report cheating 2.5 times each in the first year of unfaithfulness (on average), and the women cheated three times. More general statistics about cheating in marriage include different cases (e.g. one-night stands on business trips). Maybe the poll results reflect that men are kind of opportunistic cheaters (and may still represent a greater fraction of total cheaters, including those not polled), while women who are bored and unhappy in their marriages and who had maritally-troubled parents cheat on purpose, as via a married dating site.

In light of this evidence, if you're a man with a large penis, you might want to avoid women whose moms cheated (as if there were any good way of casually figuring that out up front?) Alternatively, you can hold your partner fully responsible for her own behavior (and not for anyone else's!) while following more constructive advice for having a great relationship.

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