This Is The Real Cost Of Being A Cheater

Did you find yourself rooting for the relationship of Amy Adams and Christian Bale in American Hustle? Well, maybe you shouldn’t have, because a new study found that relationships formed by cheating don’t last.

Three separate studies that looked into mate poaching, or stealing someone else’s partner, found that couples made this way have more challenging relationships than couples formed without cheating. John Foster, lead researcher from University of South Alabama, published these findings in the Journal of Research in Personality . Foster conducted three separate studies, interviewing men and women who were in relationships for varying amounts of time that had formed in various ways. Across all three studies, Foster found that 10-30 percent of those surveyed said that they had been poached from a previous partner.

Foster also found that throughout all three studies, the poached partners reported more dysfunction. Overall, these partners reported more dissatisfaction with the relationship, less commitment, and less investment in their partner. Furthermore, those who were in a “poached” relationship reported more interest in romantic alternatives, thought higher of their potential romantic alternatives, and engaged in higher rates of infidelity than other study participants. After all, previous studies have found that if someone cheats once, they are 3.5 times more likely to cheat again.

And these studies seem to make sense. If you have cheated on your partner once before, what’s to stop you from cheating on your next partner? Hello, The Other Woman. The moral of the story is that if you are looking for a functional, healthy and happy relationship, its not going to be be born out of infidelity. If you are just looking for a good time, then poach at your own risk.

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