Affair

What is an affair?

An affair is a sexual or romantic relationship outside an existing one that runs for a longer stretch and is kept secret. The duration and the secrecy are what set it apart from a one-off slip, and the secrecy is usually the part that does the most damage.

How often does an affair happen, and with whom?

Less often than the impression magazines leave you with, and closer to home.

Lindsay Labrecque and Mark Whisman, in Journal of Family Psychology, used nine waves of the General Social Survey, an American sample gathered through home visits. Lifetime prevalence among the ever-married dropped slightly but significantly, from 17.8 percent in 2000 to 16.3 percent in 2016. Yearly prevalence held steady at 3.0 percent.

The figure that sticks is about the other person. In 53.5 percent of cases the extramarital partner was a close personal friend, and in 29.4 percent a neighbor, colleague, or long-standing acquaintance. Someone from outside the circle is the exception.

Over the same period the judgment on it shifted. The share who called cheating “always wrong” fell, and the share who called it “only sometimes wrong” rose. Men reported extramarital sex more often than women, both in the past year and over their lifetime.

Who is more prone to an affair?

Not who you would think, and it runs through commitment.

Nathan DeWall and colleagues, in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, ran eight studies on whether avoidant attachment is linked to infidelity. It was, right across the board. People with a strongly avoidant style thought about cheating more tolerantly, paid more attention to attractive alternatives, rated those alternatives more positively, and over time were more likely to actually cheat.

In four of those studies the link ran through commitment. So not more lust, but less attachment. What attachment style is exactly, and why it isn’t fixed, is on that page.

What you can do with this

• Look at the circle around you, not at the outside world. In the research the other person was usually someone you already knew.
• Watch commitment, not attraction. That is the link that carried the connection.
• Find a systemic therapist if it has happened. What relationship therapy measurably delivers is on that page.

Sources

• Attitudes toward and prevalence of extramarital sex and descriptions of extramarital partners in the 21st century. Lindsay T. Labrecque & Mark A. Whisman, Journal of Family Psychology 31(7), 952–957, 2017 (DOI 10.1037/fam0000280). Supplies the source (nine waves of the General Social Survey among the adult household population of the United States), the drop in lifetime prevalence of extramarital sex from 17.8 percent in 2000 to 16.3 percent in 2016, the stable yearly prevalence of 3.0 percent, the breakdown of the extramarital partner across close personal friends (53.5 percent) and neighbors, colleagues, or long-standing acquaintances (29.4 percent), the shift in judgment from “always wrong” to “only sometimes wrong,” and the gender differences in it.
• So far away from one’s partner, yet so close to romantic alternatives: avoidant attachment, interest in alternatives, and infidelity. C. Nathan DeWall, Nathaniel M. Lambert, Erica B. Slotter et al., Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 101(6), 1302–1316, 2011 (DOI 10.1037/a0025497). Supplies the eight-study design and the finding that a strongly avoidant attachment style was linked to more tolerant thinking about infidelity, more attention to attractive alternatives, a more positive judgment of those alternatives, and more actual infidelity over time, and that this link was explained by a lower degree of commitment.

Related terms

• Attachment style. The tendency most strongly linked to infidelity in this research.
• Monogamy. The agreement an affair is measured against, and what Dutch law fixes about it.
• Relationship therapy. Where couples end up after an affair, with the figures on what it delivers.