The study conducted by Science Daily reveals that men and women have completely different perceptions around infidelity and that different issues within a relationship are what gives rise to this.
According to the study, “women were more likely than men to identify both sexual-based and emotion-based acts as constituting infidelity.” This means that a woman will be concerned about the relationship between her partner and another woman – whether the relationship be emotional and/or sexual.
In total, 354 participants were surveyed about how they approach cheating, be it sexually, intimately and through fantasy.
The findings were clear: men don’t consider ‘interpersonal’ bonds as a means of cheating and the exact opposite is true for women. They care about more than sex and become concerned if their partner so much as strikes up a heartening conversation with someone of the opposite sex.
A study conducted in 2015 produced similar results, revealing that most men are likely to be affected and upset by sexual infidelity (54% v 35 %), while women are moved by emotional infidelity (46% v 65 %.
In a previous interview with DESTINY in which the topic of infidelity was discussed, a Johannesburg-based clinical psychologist Mthetho Tshemese, dismissed the common belief that men find it more difficult than women to forgive a cheating partner. “In my work with couples, not every experience is the same and people respond differently.”
Themese further explained: “men tend to process their partner’s infidelity by wanting abrupt solutions instead of dealing with all the emotions involved. This may have something to do with the fact that men are not encouraged to deal with negative and painful experiences, in any way other than by being aggressive.”
