Why do people cheat and lie about cheating?

Starts with selfishness, then irrational rationaliization, followed by guilt, then the lies commence. The feedback loop continues in ever increasing intensity till crisis makes it untenable.

Because they’re human.

I’m human and I don’t cheat.

@missjena – you are capable. everyone is, but they make a choice.

Yeah that’s my point. So what type of person does it take to make the choice to betray?

@missjena – it just takes one that doesn’t think through his actions. who first thinks about himself, not the longterm.

At least, that’s how I see it.

Cheating: Loneliness, emotional abuse, definitely POOR SELF-ESTEEM, definitely INSECURITY, etc. etc. etc. but last and certainly least- alcohol.

As for the lying: Self-preservation or the hope of saving their partners from a very painful ordeal.

Edit: Some potential insight- I have only ‘cheated’ once and it was in a relationship with someone who had previously and consistently betrayed my trust. I believe (not to make excuses) I was motivated by my own serious insecurities and lack of self-esteem.

People cheat because they are weak in the face of temptation, immature and self-centered, or have a tendency to be impulsive.

They lie about it because they know its wrong, don’t want to get their partner angry with them, or want to keep on cheating but wouldn’t be able to if their partner knew that they cheat.

I don’t cheat on my husband because I made a promise in front of a judge and witnesses and I intend to keep it. It has worked for twenty years and I have no reason to believe it won’t work for the next twenty years.

I don’t cheat on my girlfriend because I am not a douche-bag. How is this so hard? <insert penis joke>

@Darwin, Seriously, I’m starting to think there are two different schools of personality that lead to cheating. Those who are essentially hedonistic in their actions or those who are basically self-destructive in their actions. It’s a generality but hey…

I know people who cheat habitually because they can’t control their sexual impulses and don’t care how other people might be hurt. Personally, I don’t understand this problem.

Because two is better than one.

Actually there appear to be two kinds of survival techniques at play in human (other primates as well) evolution and social behavior.

One technique is that of the family. Many mammals use the strategy of having a child and raising it as a family. The father, if present protects the family while the mother raises the child. The tendency of humans to develop love for their partners is a method of obtaining this goal. The protection of the father and social upbringing of the child raises the probability that the child will survive.

The other technique is to create a large number of children at once. Since female humans do not usually have more than one child at a time this can be achieved by humans being attracted to multiple partners at once. This increases the probability that more children will be born if the male or female has more than one parter at a time.

These methods are encouraged by hormonal tendencies and social behaviors in humans brought on by evolution.

Nowadays we lie about cheating because our social behaviors have evolved to the point where we deem having multiple partners as bad. However, our tendency to be attracted to other people is still there.

Sometimes it’s about hedonism. Sometimes it’s about desperation. Sometimes it’s a kind of mental illness. Sometimes it’s a lack of self-control. Sometimes it’s selfishness. Sometimes it’s a lack of empathy. Sometimes people don’t have enough love, and need other lovers. Sometimes it’s a symptom of a much deeper problem. Well, usually it’s a symptom of a much deeper problem.

Why can’t they control themselves? Have none of you ever been unable to control yourself? Do you know why? Do you attribute it to some moral failure on your part? Some weakness you have? Sometimes we do things and we have no idea how we could do them or why we do them.

Maybe it’s our genes. Maybe there are some people with subconscious motivations they can not control. People need different things, and they don’t always think they are going to hurt someone else. They think they can keep it secret and no one will notice. Who knows how many people like that there are? Can we all be sure we know what our spouses are doing?

If you can’t tell the difference, then how can the cheating matter? Maybe people lie about it, because they hope it won’t matter. They hope their spouse won’t know the difference.

There’s probably as many reasons to cheat as there are cheaters. The same with lying. I think people have different needs, and many probably don’t believe in exclusivity, but society just doesn’t support non-monogamous ways of being. Trapped in a system they don’t believe in, they try to hide what they are doing.

Fact from fiction, truth from diction, the core reason for people to be unfaithful or cheat is they become unfulfilled; how it manifest itself is different from one person to the next. No one really cares to be the bad guy at least most of the time, so they do not want to hurt or upset their partner they are cheating on. Part of the lying is the fear of loss vs the desire to gain. They are not fulfilled in the relationship they are in but don’t want to be totally out of a relationship which they know is more than likely if they admit the cheating. It is like sticking with a lousy job you hate because you need the money to pay for rent, food and gas etc.