Do men cheat more Maybe not as women close the infidelity gap

Do men cheat mora Maybe not as women close the infidelity gapDo men cheat more Maybe not as women close the infidelity gapMen tend tocheat morethan women, but theres evidence theinfidelity gapclosing - not because men are having fewer affairs, but because women are having more. But there are some questions about this data, which is largely self-reported. Do respondents to the surveys used by social scientists lie? And do the numbers on who gets caught align with the numbers of cheating? According to couples therapist Tammy Nelson, author ofWhen Youre The One Who Cheats, theres a reason to suspect that women may be not only cheating more, but getting away with it a lot more frequently.We dont know if more men or more women are caught cheating, on average.But it would make sense that women are better at hiding their affairs. Traditionally women have faced harsher punishment for cheating, Nelson toldFatherly. They have lost their financial support, risked the loss of their children, an d in some countries even risked the loss of their lives.Follow Ladders on FlipboardFollow Ladders magazines on Flipboard covering Happiness, Productivity, Job Satisfaction, Neuroscience, and moreTwenty percent of men cheat compared to 13% of women, according to theU.S. General Social Survey. Men are more prone to casual and opportunistic cheating, which plays a big part in why they get caught. Infidelity, for many men, is evidence of recklessness. For women, it may be evidence of a more thought-out plan to address perceived needs. The potential costs of being sexually reckless is otherwise too high. Intimate partner violence, whichone out of three women experiences at some point, is often triggered by infidelity.Sex therapist Candice Cooper-Lovett agrees with Nelson that womens ability to hide infidelity is at least somewhat adaptive.A lot of women in my practice have shared that cheating was something that you take to the grave with you because men cant handle cheating in the way t hat women do, or are expected to, she explains.Its important to note that emerging data suggests this dynamic might change. One ongoing online survey conducted by the academic blogTruth About Deception,currently includes 61,901 women and 31,238 men (results are ongoing and updated daily). A total of 67.3% of male cheaters reported cheating on their spouses more than once, compared to 53.5% of women. Of those, 21.5% of men were suspected of cheating, compared to 40.1% of women. Finally, 39.2% of male cheaters said they eventually got caught, compared to 48% of women.But thats survey datathat hasnt been subjected to scientific controls. Its enough that Nelson acknowledges men may be getting better at sneaking around. But its a grudging acknowledgment.What we know is that men are better at compartmentalizing their affairs than women. They seem to be better at keeping their extramarital relationships separate from their primary partnerships than women, they can hide their outside behavi ors and seem to be less disturbed by maintaining multiple lives, Nelson says. How long they can keep the compartmentalization going is not clear.Its also possible that more women are getting caught cheating for the same reasons that more women are either admitting to infidelity and committing it in the first place - because its not as dangerous as it used to be. Since intimate partner violence remains a real problem, a less idealistic conclusion to draw may be that gender is not a good lens through which to look at the issue of infidelity. Nelson and Cooper-Lovett both say that the one thing most people who get caught cheating have in common is that they want to get caught - either on a conscious or subconscious level.Those who dont want to be caught take actions to ensure their affair goes undiscovered, says Nelson. It seems to be working.This article originally appeared on Fatherly.You might also enjoyNew neuroscience reveals 4 rituals that will make you happyStrangers know your social class in the first seven words you say, study finds10 lessons from Benjamin Franklins daily schedule that will double your productivityThe worst mistakes you can make in an interview, according to 12 CEOs10 habits of mentally strong people