Why Women Cheat

Are men or women more likely to cheat? While men have always had a worse reputation for being unfaithful, recent studies show that women are catching up fast - but they are a lot more likely to lie about it, and a lot less likely to get caught.
Simply put, it seems that women are better at having affairs than men.
The news that Farrah Fawcett had a secret affair for 11 years without telling a soul is a classic example of the way a woman cheats: discreetly, in secret, and while carrying on with the rest of her life as normal.
According to Dr David Holmes, a psychologist at Manchester Metropolitan University, women are having more affairs than ever - recent studies say the figure is around 20 per cent for men and a bit over 15 per cent for women - but they behave very differently from men when they cheat.

'The biggest difference is that women are much better at keeping their affairs secret,' he says. 'If you look at the studies into paternity, even conservative figures show that between eight and 15 per cent of children haven't been fathered by the man who thinks he's the biological parent.'

That's a lot of women keeping a lot of secrets. One woman I know - let's call her Amaka - has been married to Adam for ten years, and having an affair with Tayo for the past two.

She has told me and her sister - otherwise, she says, she's '100 per cent certain' that nobody else knows.
'I won't allow Tayo to call me on my mobile or email me, ever. Mobiles and email leave a trail. I insist we talk on our office landlines, and when we meet for drinks or dinner, we pay with cash.

'We work in the same field, so meeting for lunch doesn't look suspicious. If we meet in the evening, I tell Adam I'm with my sister, and meet Tayo a few miles away, where we won't bump into anyone.'

Does she feel guilty about the affair? 'Not so long as Adam doesn't find out. You know the 11th commandment: don't get caught.'

Women have always had affairs, but over the past 20 years that number has risen dramatically.

Jobs outside the home - with the ready-made excuse of working late or business travel - financial independence and changing social attitudes mean that modern women simply have more opportunity to meet other men and start affairs.
Mobile phones, internet chat rooms and email also make it easier to fuel intimate encounters.

But while women's lives and sexual behaviour might have changed, their willingness to be honest about it hasn't.
Women lie so much that often they don't even think of it as lying at all, but as 'relationship management'

The truth is that women have always lied about their sex lives. British men consistently claim to have had more partners than women - the current average is 13, while women claim to have had only nine.

Plainly, someone is lying here. While men might exaggerate their sexual conquests, the bigger liars are women.
When studies about sexual partners or fidelity use a mixture of face-to-face interviews and anonymous computer questionnaires, men will give the same answers to both, but women will report much higher numbers when the answers are anonymous.

Why do women lie? Because they must, and because they can. In spite of apparent equality and a more sexually open society, they are still more harshly judged for their sex lives than men.

Can you imagine a leading female politician having an affair and her husband standing loyally by her?

Or the reaction to a female CEO having a public affair with her young male assistant?

There is something particularly humiliating for a woman about being made a cuckold. So they lie to protect theirselves from the judgments of others, and because sexual 'reputation' still matters more to women, whether they like it or not.

But they also lie naturally and instinctively, as a way to manage and control their relationships, to protect their partners and their families, and to keep their options open.

In fact, they lie so much and for so many reasons that often they don't even think of it as lying at all, but as 'relationship management'.
Women are taught to lie from childhood. Those simple, altruistic lies such as saying they've had a lovely time when they haven't, that someone looks nice when she doesn't, or that they're delighted with a gift they don't really like, are just some of the small ways that lying oils the wheels of their social lives, keeps the peace, and makes other people happy.

Girls will lie to protect someone's feelings or to build a relationship. Honesty, in these circumstances, looks highly overrated, and they quickly learn the value and power of being economical with the truth in relationships.

Many women also develop a habit of secrecy about smaller issues in their relationship as a way of maintaining some kind of control.

It's common, for example, for women to lie to their partners about how much money they have spent - even when they don't need to.