Why people cheat—and can relationships recover, with Galena Rhoades, PhD

Infidelity can shatter trust and leave people questioning their relationships and themselves. Galena Rhoades, PhD, discusses why people cheat; infidelity in the age of dating apps, social media and AI chatbots; what makes some betrayals harder to overcome than others; and how psychologists help individuals and couples begin to heal after an affair. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 0:31Kim Mills?

  Discovering that a partner has been unfaithful is one of the most painful experiences that a person can go through. It can shake your sense of trust, security, and even identity. Today, we're going to talk with a psychologist who studies infidelity and commitment about why people cheat and what happens to relationships when they do. We'll talk about what the research says about infidelity. Is it increasing in the age of dating apps, social media, and chatbot companions? How do psychologists think about what constitutes cheating? Does there have to be a physical element? Can relationships recover after one partner cheats? And how do psychologists help individuals and couples navigate what comes next after a betrayal?

• 1:14Kim Mills?

  Welcome to Speaking of Psychology, the flagship podcast of the American Psychological Association that examines the links between psychological science and everyday life. I'm Kim Mills.

• 1:28Kim Mills?

  My guest today is Dr. Galena Rhodes, a research professor of psychology and director of the Institute for Relationship Science at the University of Denver. Her research focuses on romantic relationships, commitment, and relationship stability, as well as maternal mental health and relationship education programs. Dr. Rhodes is a licensed clinical psychologist, and in addition to her research, she has a small, private practice where she conducts individual and couples' therapy. She recently spoke with APA's magazine Monitor on Psychology for an article on how psychologists help patients heal from infidelity. Dr. Rhodes, thank you for joining me today.

• 2:04Speaker 03

  Kim, thank you for having me. I'm glad to be here.

• 2:07Kim Mills?

  Let's start with some context. How do you define infidelity? And do psychologists have an agreed-upon definition? Or do couples have to define that boundary for themselves?

• 2:18Speaker 03

  Well, I think the definition of infidelity is changing all the time. It's somewhat dynamic, right? Because as technology changes and the way people can connect with other people changes, I think it really is about the expectations that partners have for one another. And psychologists may be famous for not actually being able to agree on many definitions of many things. And I don't think there is a tried and true definition. I think the easiest way to identify it is when one partner feels as though there has been a betrayal of trust and expectations that have been broken.

• 3:03Kim Mills?

  So it's a kind of, you know it when you feel it?

• 3:06Speaker 03

  Right. Well said.

• 3:08Kim Mills?

  Now, I'm old enough to remember when President Jimmy Carter created a bruhaha by telling Playboy magazine that he had looked at other women with lust and had committed adultery in his heart many times. Is that infidelity? And I should note, he and his wife, Rosalynn, stayed together until the very end, and they were always seen as very devoted to each other. But does that constitute infidelity?

• 3:31Speaker 03

  Well, you know, today, as we hear that, it sounds sort of quaint, doesn't it? It sounds sort of sweet, hearing that. But I think it may have, right? In the way that he was describing that, he felt as though he was betraying his wife's trust in some way, that it crossed some boundary or expectation or agreement, spoken or unspoken, that they had between each other. And the fact that, you know, in the way that he said that, it was as if it was a confession, right? And we make confessions like that if we know we've done something that might hurt someone else.

• 4:11Kim Mills?

  Right. Although not usually to Playboy magazine.

• 4:15Speaker 03

  Excellent point.

• 4:16Kim Mills?

  These days, a lot of people talk about having a work husband or a work wife, right? Somebody at their job with whom they have a really close relationship. Is that a form of cheating?

• 4:27Speaker 03

  I like that question a lot because it does seem like that is a common phrase we hear these days that indicates some kind of close relationship. I think when people say that, what they typically mean is that they have a very close, collaborative, working relationship with someone, that they can kind of speak one another's language, finish one another's sentences, that there's a companionship in that. But we don't always know what that means, right? And I think if someone's saying that, it may be that to the other partner, it is clear what that means, but I think it would warrant some kind of conversation around, what are the expectations for that relationship?

• 5:08Speaker 03

  What does that mean to you, to say you have a work husband, a work wife? And does it include some kind of emotional or physical intimacy that does cross a line for the true, primary relationship?

• 5:24Kim Mills?

  I want to see if we can talk about some stats, if there are any. How common is infidelity? Is it possible to get any kind of good survey data on this question?

• 5:36Speaker 03

  You know, it's related to your first question. How do we define infidelity, right? So if we ask, have you cheated on your spouse? Historically, we saw levels around 10% to 20% of married spouses reporting that they had cheated. And over time, we saw a rise in women's cheating infidelity over time, and men sort of stayed at a similar level. But because it's so hard to define, you could ask, have you ever had sex with someone other than your spouse, right? You could ask, have you ever cheated on your spouse? And you could get wildly different answers.

• 6:20Speaker 03

  You could ask the spouse, right? Has your spouse ever cheated on you? And you might get a different answer in one direction or the other, whether that's related to knowledge of the infidelity or the definition of infidelity. So we do know that it happens, and we do know that oftentimes, I think the data from national survey from the early 2000s showed that about half of those couples who were married then ended in divorce. But that number is maybe not as high as you would think in some ways, right? That it is not an absolute, if there's infidelity, it's going to lead to divorce.

• 7:00Kim Mills?

  Are there demographic differences? I mean, you mentioned that the prevalence among women seems to be increasing. Do people of, say, higher socioeconomic status cheat more than those at the lower end of the scale? Are there any other differences that we know of?

• 7:16Speaker 03

  I don't think so. Not that are measured in reliable ways. And it may be in part related to the definition and that it is something that is so secretive that people don't really want to report, even if they believe their answers will be kept confidential or anonymous. So we don't see big differences that we can regularly see over time or that seem to be reliable.

• 7:44Kim Mills?

  So women and men cheat at similar rates?

• 7:47Speaker 03

  You know, I haven't seen national data recently. I would bet that women's rates are still a little lower, but they had been climbing up closer to where men's rates were. And it's also important to recognize, you know, most of the research that's been conducted around infidelity has been with married couples.

• 8:11Speaker 03

  But so many people are in significant relationships today, whether it's before marriage or as an alternative to marriage, that, you know, are symbolized by a strong commitment to one another. And we know even less about non-married relationships and what infidelity might look like in them, or if there are differences between married and non-married relationships around infidelity. And it certainly doesn't mean that it hurts any less if it's in a non-married relationship.

• 8:43Kim Mills?

  All right. Well, there's an area of research for someone's PhD.

• 8:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's right.

• 8:49Kim Mills?

  I want to talk about how people react to discovering infidelity. Do women and men react differently? Because I've read that heterosexual men are more distressed when their partners have a sexual affair, and that heterosexual women are more distressed by emotional cheating. Is that borne out by any research?

• 9:08Speaker 03

  It is. And it doesn't mean that the other type, for either men or women, in opposite-sex relationships, isn't important. You know, if you're a man, you're welcome to have a physical relationship that won't bother your wife, or vice versa. But I think what is important in that is recognizing that there are some differences between men and women and what may constitute a closer emotional relationship or more intimate relationship. And the role of physical versus emotional closeness may be important in different ways to men and women.

• 9:47Kim Mills?

  Do you believe, have you seen research showing, that cheating has increased or not in this era of dating apps and social media?

• 9:57Speaker 03

  I think if we broaden the definition of cheating, right? If cheating today includes having a relationship with someone that could be a close relationship, even though you don't see them in person or see them often, yes, we have the opportunity today to connect with many, many more people than in prior generations, right? And that could be people that you're meeting, you met at a conference, and continue to have some kind of, you know, relationship with via social media or texting or phone calls, right? But don't see that person.

• 10:40Speaker 03

  It could be an old flame, right? We stay connected to exes much more today than what was ever possible, right? You can Google, you can... Be friends on Facebook. You can connect in a multitude of ways with people that you may have known in your past, or may have had a relationship with in your past, or that you've may have met only once, or not even at all, but met online in some way. And those kinds of relationships certainly can hurt the other person and feel like a betrayal. I think the flip side of that is that technology also means that there are some additional

• 11:24Speaker 03

  checks and balances in that, right? That if you're trying to hide something that's happening online, it's possible. But there's also more eyes on those relationships, right? It's easier to know where your partner is because of FindMy and other apps that, you know, you may share and track one another on. So in some ways, I think that's related to the definition sort of changing and being more about, as you said, if it feels like it, it likely is infidelity. But I do think there are some ways that there is a higher level of monitoring one another that can build both trust in some ways and a sense of concern in some other ways.

• 12:09Kim Mills?

  I want to talk a little bit about why we think people cheat. I mean, there have to be scores of reasons why people are unfaithful. But what does the research tell us? Is it mostly because of relationship dissatisfaction, or boredom, or maybe a desire to get back at a partner you're angry at? And are there warning flags that might tell us that someone is highly likely to cheat?

• 12:34Speaker 03

  I think all of those reasons that you just gave are reasons that someone may wind up cheating in a relationship. But oftentimes, it's really more about the availability of another partner. And that's a little harder to explain in some ways, right? That in fact, it's not just dissatisfied people who cheat in their marriages, in their relationships. It may be that someone else comes along that they are really taken by, or that they wind up spending a lot of time with, and it slowly develops over time. And it may not actually be reflective of being deeply unhappy in their relationship. Now, I will

• 13:18Speaker 03

  say, oftentimes in therapy, if they're coming to therapy, that winds up being part of the narrative, because we're trying to explain our own behavior to ourselves in some way, right? So, well, if I'm cheating, I must be deeply unhappy or angry at my spouse. I just think we sort of create that narrative sometimes to justify the behavior when it was really more happenstance that someone wound up cheating.

• 13:54Kim Mills?

  So the opportunity presented itself, and it was just too tantalizing?

• 13:59Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 14:00Kim Mills?

  Does the reason behind an affair influence whether couples are able to recover? And are there some types of betrayals that are harder to move past than others?

• 14:11Speaker 03

  It not only matters for the depth of the betrayal, but it matters in part for the person who is participating in the affair, the one who is cheating. If they are very strongly connected to this person, it's going to be harder for them to end the affair, to close that relationship, and to recover from the breakup and the grief that they may feel when that affair ends, and then be able to reconnect well with their primary partner. So what we sometimes see in that is if the motivation, or the reason, or I

• 14:54Speaker 03

  think it may be more related to the strength or the depth of the connection and the affair, if it's very hard for someone to end, that not only is going to hurt the primary partner more, but it may be that it takes longer for the person participating in the affair to get over it and move on. That there's some real pain that they may be experiencing in that, which the, you know, their partner, primary partner, is not ever going to understand, right? That that's going to be really hard for someone who's been hurt by an affair to understand that the participating partner is also going through some pain in ending the affair.

• 15:39Kim Mills?

  Right, yes. Be pretty hard to say, gee, I feel bad for you.

• 15:43Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 15:44Kim Mills?

  We're going to take a short break. When we return, we'll talk about whether psychologists can predict who's likely to cheat, and whether there are characteristics or relationship patterns that make infidelity more likely.

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• 16:55Kim Mills?

  Now, can you, as a psychologist, predict who's likely to cheat? Are there characteristics or relationship patterns that make infidelity more likely?

• 17:04Speaker 03

  Not well, but isn't this a thing about psychology? So much of our work is trying to predict human behavior, and we explain very little in outcomes and human behavior. I will say, one thing that does precede infidelity is an increase in what psychologists and social psychologists call alternative monitoring. How much someone is looking at the availability of other partners, or their awareness of other people who they may have some connection with, have some attraction to. So we do see that there is an increase

• 17:48Speaker 03

  in that concept of alternative monitoring before infidelity happens. And we think of that as a type of commitment. If you're highly dedicated, committed to your partner, you're just less likely to be thinking about and looking around at other people, essentially. So the more, you know, we might see that in ourselves, right? We could do a self-assessment, you know, how much am I kind of just paying attention to how much I like my friend's partner, or like this person at work, or huh, that person seems really attractive?

• 18:29Speaker 03

  You know, how much sort of headspace is that taking up is one tiny predictor of infidelity.

• 18:38Kim Mills?

  What about people who have serial relationships that keep breaking up because the other person cheated? Are there characteristics of those people who are more likely to get involved again with cheaters? It's sort of like people who have abusive relationships will connect with abusers. Does the same thing happen with cheaters?

• 19:01Speaker 03

  It does. In fact, some of our work shows just that, that if someone cheated in their last relationship, they're more likely to cheat in their next relationship. This was among unmarried couples. Similarly, if a person was cheated on in their last relationship, they're more likely to be cheated on in their next relationship. And I think part of that second question around, you know, if you were cheated on before, or you're more likely to be cheated on again. It's really tragic that that may be the case, right?

• 19:39Speaker 03

  And I think it may be related to some internal kind of models around relationships and whether people are able to identify healthy, safe partners for themselves, whether they may wind up staying in relationships past a point where other people may have turned back and did the relationship. So they might find themselves either not being able to identify partners well, maybe in some cases even seeking out partners who kind of seem similar, right?

• 20:19Speaker 03

  It may feel natural, it may feel normal to them to be with someone who has some of those traits, even when it is not really healthy. So there may be some kind of internal reasons why people could find themselves with similar kinds of people. And then this part about staying with people, part of what happens, I think, in relationships, whether it's around cheating or other kinds of stay and go ambiguous behavior or ambivalent commitment, is that if you're in a relationship with someone who is not as committed as

• 20:57Speaker 03

  you are, part of what can happen is that you lose your own ability to evaluate whether this is a good partner for me, because it becomes about trying to win the validation, the commitment, the attachment from the other person, rather than being able to really, from a more, kind of in a more secure way, evaluate whether this person is treating me the way I deserve to be treated, whether I truly feel connected and loved by this person. So I think there are some processes that may be hard to undo for people when they've

• 21:42Speaker 03

  experienced some of those negative kinds of behaviors and experiences in relationships.

• 21:48Kim Mills?

  Speaking of Psychology did an episode earlier this year on chatbot relationships, and there's been a lot of reporting in the mainstream media on people having emotionally intimate relationships with chatbots. Are you encountering this in your practice? And would you think of it as cheating? How do you approach it with couples?

• 22:07Speaker 03

  You know, I think this is so interesting to think about what it means, really whether it's cheating or not, to have a relationship, an AI or chatbot relationship. And as a psychologist, I really believe in true human connection. And so it really throws me off thinking about what it means to have a potentially meaningful relationship with a non-human computer AI person, identity.

• 22:38Kim Mills?

  Thing, yeah.

• 22:40Speaker 03

  Yeah. And there may, there could be some benefits. I'm open to the idea that you could learn some good things in those relationships, perhaps. But I think it comes down to it's gonna feel like betrayal to someone else. If you're sharing parts of yourself that we typically think of are really only meant for your partner, it will hurt the other person, right? And so if you're having an in-depth relationship, whether it has some sexual overtones or not, that kind of relationship may mean, likely means, I think, that you are missing out

• 23:24Speaker 03

  on a true connection with your partner and that your partner will likely be hurt by that, that you're sharing parts of yourself that are typically reserved for that primary relationship.

• 23:38Kim Mills?

  And chatbots tend to affirm what you want them to say. I mean, the thing is, maybe you're having some tension with your partner, you go to a chatbot, which will always say, oh, you're all right, you're right, you know, what you did was right, what she did was wrong.

• 23:51Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 23:52Kim Mills?

  You work with couples in your practice. What is your approach? I mean, how do you deal with people who come to you because there has been infidelity in the relationship?

• 24:03Speaker 03

  So when I work with a couple who has had infidelity in therapy, I use a model that was developed by colleagues of mine, Christy Gordon, Don Bachem, and Doug Snyder. And there are three stages of that treatment approach. It includes the impact stage, or I kind of think of that as containing the damage, and the affair. Think about who you're gonna talk to about the affair, if anyone, right? So that you're not telling your mother, and then your mother's telling her friends, and this is getting more and more out of control, right? But think about what do you need as a couple to get support that you need, but also be sure that, you know, you're not totally erratic in how you're responding to the news of

• 24:48Speaker 03

  the affair. The second stage is really understanding why the affair happened. So getting at some of those things you and I have talked about today around motivations, access to another partner, what it meant to the participating partner, what it feels like to the injured partner, the person who was hurt by the affair, really understanding it. So that phase can be really difficult for couples to move through, because they've got to talk about the affair, the impact it had, what was happening in the relationship

• 25:30Speaker 03

  that they may need to change if they decide to move forward together, that kind of allowed the affair to happen. And then the third stage is really about what do we do next to move on? For some couples, that means ending the relationship, but they've done the work to process it well and understand that together, which will make their next relationship experiences better. Or if they're going on to co-parent together, it'll make their, you know, new relationship, co-parenting relationship better. For many couples, it means not allowing the affair to control their lives and their

• 26:11Speaker 03

  relationship anymore, and really thinking about what do we want for our new relationship? It's gonna look different for many different reasons. We want it to look different. We want to make sure this doesn't happen again. We want to make sure it's fulfilling to both of us. So it gives a couple an opportunity to really redefine their relationship and set new expectations around communication, around talking with other people, all of those components, and really make decisions together, which they may not have done for many years, if ever. What I like about this model is that it also has the overlay of thinking about an affair as trauma.

• 26:56Speaker 03

  And that's part of what we often see for the person who's been hurt by the affair, is that they have some traumatic responses to it. It might mean not driving by the hotel, that you know your partner met the affair partner at, right? It might mean a lot of checking behavior, right? I need to check his phone, I need to know where she is at every moment. Some of that, I often say, we're just gonna do that. We're gonna decide to do that for a short period of time, because in some ways, those behaviors can build trust, right? But nobody wants that long term in a relationship.

• 27:39Speaker 03

  But I think it's a nice way to think about how hurtful it is and that we need reassurance. We're gonna go through some waves of, you know, feeling really off because of an affair. And I really like that this model gives us a clear way to progress through treatment after an affair.

• 28:03Kim Mills?

  So I want to close by just asking you what you're working on now. I mean, what are the big questions that you're trying to answer at the moment?

• 28:10Speaker 03

  Well, somewhat related to what you were asking about in terms of chatbots, AI, robots, I'm really interested in how people are using AI today to learn about relationships. And there may be some things that people are looking for in terms of advice, you know, answering, should I stay with this partner who's treating me like this? Or I feel this way, what do you think about this? And there may be some concerns to have about AI and what that means for gaining relationship advice or education. But I think there are also some ways that AI can help elevate our conversations around

• 28:54Speaker 03

  relationships and support people in making decisions that are wise around relationships and what's best for them. So I'm excited to learn more about that and see how it evolves over time. So that's one of the projects that I'm really interested in today.

• 29:13Kim Mills?

  All right. Well, I want to thank you so much for joining me. This has been very interesting and I'm sure helpful to some of our listeners.

• 29:20Speaker 03

  I'm glad. Kim, thanks very much for having me.

• 29:24Kim Mills?

  You can find previous episodes of Speaking of Psychology on our website at speakingofpsychology.org or on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you like what you've heard, please follow us and leave a review. If you have comments or ideas for future podcasts, you can email us at [email protected]. Speaking of Psychology is produced by Lee Weinerman. Thank you for listening. For the American Psychological Association, I'm Kim Mills. Kim Mills.

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