I talk to a lot of people almost their relationships. And a lot of these relationships are most every bit salubrious every bit the Ebola virus: cold, afar, loveless, and mankind-eating.

I hear the stories near the heartbreak and loneliness, the lying and adulterous, and the hurting. E'er 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 ain way.one I suppose that's true. But I do remember the question of fidelity, of why some people choose to remain true-blue and others do non, is fairly straightforward and hands answered.

It turns out that infidelity is really non uncommon in both men and women. In fact, surveys estimate that almost one-quaternary of all marriages experience infidelity at some signal. And that's just counting the people who answered honestly or found out nearly it.ii

It's also very difficult for most people to be logical nigh adultery. They start raging all over the place and throwing people's shit out on the lawn. Or they get so pitiful and injure that they tin can't wait at the state of affairs reasonably and see all of the warning signs stretching out miles backside them.3

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

The Adulterous Algorithm is quite simple and goes every bit follows:

Cocky-GRATIFICATION > INTIMACY = Adulterous

In plain English: when one'due south need for cocky-gratification outweighs their need for intimacy, cheating is likely to occur. Let'due south suspension that down a little more and dig a little deeper:

  1. As humans, we all accept a natural desire for cocky-gratification. Skilful food. Good sex. Petty work. Lots of sleep. Porn and video games and corn flakes.four
  2. Every bit humans, we as well all have a natural desire for intimacy and to experience loved by somebody else, to feel as though we are sharing our lives with somebody.5
  3. Unfortunately, these 2 needs are oftentimes contradictory. To achieve that intimacy and love, y'all take to sacrifice your ain self-gratification at times. And to accomplish self-gratification, you ofttimes accept to sacrifice some love and intimacy. This can exist as simple as watching a picture you don't really like or attending some boring piece of work party yous don't intendance virtually. Just information technology tin can also exist deep and complex, similar beingness open almost your fears and insecurities to your partner or making a conscious delivery to be monogamous with that person for an indefinite amount of time.6
  4. If a person values self-gratification more the intimacy they gain from a relationship, so they will stop sacrificing for the human relationship and are likely to end up cheating. If a person values the intimacy they gain from a relationship more than self-gratification, then they will willingly sacrifice some of their cocky-gratification to remain true-blue.
  5. Recall of it like a scale. On i side you have cocky-gratification and on the other y'all have intimacy. If at whatsoever point the self-gratification side outweighs the intimacy side, well, then you become a cheater.why people cheat: the self-gratification vs intimacy balance scale

In that location are ii ways this can happen. The offset way is that a person is but shallow and selfish and needs to exist gratified constantly. The 2nd reason is that the relationship is failing to provide sufficient intimacy and desire.seven Allow's unpack these two reasons separately.

In my optics, the definition of maturity is the power to defer cocky-gratification in favor of more of import long-term goals.viii

Yous don't masturbate at work because that would get you fired. You don't eat chocolate block for breakfast every morning time because that would give you a centre attack past the age of 32. Y'all don't mainline heroin straight into your eyeballs before picking your kids upwards from school because, well, Jesus, practice I really take to explicate that one?

Sure, these things experience prissy, but you take larger and more important concerns and you're able to defer your own gratification to meet those concerns.

This is called "maturity." It's called "being an adult." It's called "not being a fuck upwardly."

Adulterous falls nether the same umbrella here. Sure, it may feel good to rub your genitals all over that beautiful stranger's face, just a mature person is capable of stepping dorsum and deferring their gratification in favor of a more of import life-long commitment.

Self-gratifying cheaters come in two flavors: miserable over-compensators and people in power.

The miserable over-compensators are constantly focused on their own gratification because they feel so miserable about themselves that they demand to make themselves feel skilful to cover information technology upward all the time. Chances are that if your cheating deadbeat of an ex-swain/girlfriend is a miserable over-compensator, cheating isn't the only destructive self-gratifying beliefs they pursue. They may be a heavy drinker, a hard partier, a drug user, or a social climber.

Or they may just effort to take over the world.

The people in power are but that, people in loftier 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 actions. Or in the instance of Khan, a man who merely slaughtered an entire province of innocent people and wanted to spend the side by side week having a blood orgy with all the local virgins. Knock yourself out, gnaw.

But these don't just demand to be people with social power. These tin can be people who are given complete power over the relationship, people who are shown no repercussions for their actions past their partners. Yes, yous can unwittingly enable your partner to cheat on you lot. Which brings us to the 2d reason.

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

The problem is that many people don't recognize the misery in their ain relationships. They come from a family full of miserable relationships and/or have a long history of miserable relationships, and so to them, information technology's not fifty-fifty miserable, information technology's just normal.

Then they get surprised when wifey is fucking the milkman. Everything was so good, what happened?

No, it wasn't so skillful buckeroo. Let me explain why.

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

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

The start situation is when one partner feels equally though they "exercise everything" for the other partner. They take care of them, give them everything they desire, and in some cases back up them. The person feels like a goddamn saint so what happens? They get cheated on.

The reason this is really a toxic situation is that when you do everything for your partner, when you take care of all of their problems and show them that no matter what happens you volition always make information technology better for them, you show them that at that place are essentially no repercussions for their actions. They lose their chore because they were masturbating at the office over again and you decide to support them. Then they spend the side by side six months loafing around on your burrow while you lot tirelessly send out their resume for them. What makes you call back they're going to change? What makes you think they will ever stop and question their ain behavior?

If y'all had a dog that continuously pissed on your rug and every time you just cleaned up the rug because OMIGOD I LOVE HER, why would the canis familiaris e'er stop pissing on it?

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

Believe information technology or not, a healthy and loving relationship requires that people say "no" to ane some other on occasion. Information technology requires that each individual stands upwardly for themselves and their needs. Considering merely then tin two people, equally self-respecting individuals, discuss what will work and what won't work for them in a human relationship.

The other state of affairs where cheating always ends up happening is when one partner is insanely possessive and jealous.

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

I mean, this person is essentially treating you like y'all already cheated, even though you did nothing wrong. And then why not cheat? It won't get whatsoever worse.

And that's exactly what happens. "Well, my husband yells at me every twenty-four hours anyhow, and now that I'g with my friends and nosotros've accept had a few apple-tinis, I realize I oasis't been happy with him in about a year, so yeah, why don't I kiss this beautiful guy striking on me right now? He's actually nice to me. And I'm going to become yelled at when I go habitation anyway. And so why not?"

And nail, the milkman strikes over again.

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

True, sexy confidence comes not from fighting for self-gratification, but rather from being comfortable with deferring gratification. Which brings us to…

There are simple steps you lot tin take to preclude getting cheated on. Note while they are "simple" they are not necessarily easy to practise.

Let me explicate.

Footstep i: Do Not Engagement Somebody Who Cannot Defer Cocky-Gratification Well

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

Wait, dating a self-gratifier tin exist awesome, as long as you continue to gratify them. Just you need to learn to look by the feel-goods and look at how this person actually lives their life. Are they capable of making sacrifices for those around them? Are they impulsive? Does their life appear to exist filled with unnecessary drama? Practice they take responsibility for their deportment?

The problem with people who base their lives around their own gratification is that they often appear confident to people who are anxious or insecure. I remember when I met my get-go girlfriend, one of the things I loved well-nigh her was that if she wanted something she just went and did it. I was and then insecure and inhibited at the time that I thought this was an astonishing display of conviction.

What I after found out was that information technology was really an amazing brandish of cocky-gratification. Equally shortly as she wanted another pair of genitals in her face, well, in that location they were.

As I described in this article, true sexy conviction merely exists when someone is comfy with what they don't have. True confidence comes from existence able to defer and give up ane'due south own gratification and desires and accept the appropriate actions when necessary.

The other consequence with people who date self-gratifiers is that they recollect to themselves, "Well, he'south then loving and happy when he's with me, why would he ever want to exist with somebody else?"

Yeah, information technology'southward considering he was dating y'all for the self-gratification, not the intimacy. So of course he loved being with you, every bit long as information technology was on his terms. As soon equally y'all quit providing gratification for him, he went and establish somebody else who did.

Footstep ii: Enforce Salubrious Boundaries

That means standing upwardly for yourself. That means declaring what is and is non acceptable in the human relationship both for yourself and your partner. That ways sticking past those declarations and following through on them. That means doing pretty much everything explained in this article.

That means yous recognize that you lot are not responsible for your partner's happiness nor are they responsible for yours. That you practise not have a right to demand sure actions from them nor do they have a correct to demand certain actions from yous.

That means that they are responsible for their ain struggles only as you are responsible for yours.

That means that you realize oftentimes the almost loving and compassionate thing you can do for a loved i is allow them to bargain with their struggles themselves.

The betoken of a relationship is non for you to have all of your life's problems fixed by your partner, nor is it for you to fix all of your partner's life bug.

The indicate of a relationship is to have two individuals unconditionally support each other equally they bargain with their own problems together.

Stride 3: E'er Be Willing to Leave

This comes up in a lot of my replies to those emails I become, and it frequently catches people off guard.

Simply a relationship is only as stiff as each person's willingness to leave. Notation that I didn't say desire to exit, but the willingness to leave. Every salubrious human relationship requires the occasional loving simply stern "no." Otherwise nil volition always change because in that location's no reason for it to change.

A wise friend of mine told me years ago that after two divorces the most important lesson he learned was that "the quickest way to kill a relationship is to have each other for granted."12

A relationship is not an obligation. It is a choice. Made every day. It is a option that says, "The intimacy nosotros share is improve for me than my own cocky-gratification." It is a choice that recognizes the short-term costs are worth the long-term benefits. It is a selection to appreciate what brought you two together in the start place. And then to let that keep you in that location.