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'What was the reason?': An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis on the views and experiences of those who have performed extra-dyadic behaviours in the past$13.21
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'What was the reason?': An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis on the views and experiences of those who have performed extra-dyadic behaviours in the past
Infidelity (cheating) is an act that is widely experienced but minimally understood. It can have severe negative consequences for people who are both directly and indirectly involved. Previous studies have identified gender, relationship quality and religion as common predictors of infidelity. Howe...
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‘What was the reason?’
An interpretative phenomenological analysis on the views and experiences of
those who have performed extra-dyadic behaviours in the past.
Abstract
Infidelity is a common act that can have severe negative consequences for people who are
both directly and indirectly involved. Previous studies have identified gender, relationship
quality and religion as common predictors of infidelity. However, the motivations behind
people’s behaviour requires further exploration. This qualitative study sought to explore
how individuals made sense of their infidelity and their reasoning for their behaviour.
Adopting a phenomenological approach, semi-structured interviews were conducted on
Microsoft Teams with ten participants who had engaged in infidelity. Four master themes
were identified using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA): Searching for love;
Experiencing infidelity as escapism vs. entrapment; A lack of autonomy, experiencing
contextual influences and the Inability to suppress one’s impulsions. The findings reveal a
complex interaction between one’s upbringing and how they navigate relationships as well
as other novel reasons for participants’ infidelity. Therapeutic applications of the results are
explored.
Introduction
Infidelity is an act that is widely experienced, yet the rationale behind one’s behavior is
minimally understood (Brand et al., 2007; Jones & Paulhus, 2012). Concordantly, this research
project aims to explore individuals’ reasoning for their infidelity. This literature review
progresses from exploring the variability in defining infidelity, to looking at the predictors,
theories and consequences of the act in order to provide an overview of the research that has
informed the field thus far.
According to the dictionary, ‘infidelity’ is defined as “the act or fact of having a romantic or
sexual relationship with someone other than one’s husband, wife or partner”. Whilst at face
value this definition may appear to encapsulate all degrees of the phenomenon, research into
the field reveals that there is a lot of variability in how people define the concept. Qualitative
research on experienced couple counsellors found three main ways of defining infidelity
(Moller & Vossler, 2015). Whilst the definition referring to sexual intercourse is most common
(Whisman & Synder, 2007), swinging couples (de Visser & McDonald, 2007) and polyamorous
couples (Duncombe, 2004) tend not to agree with this definition due to the open nature of
their relationship dynamic. Within this definition, the meaning of ‘sexual intercourse’ also
varies depending on context and culture (Randall & Byers, 2003). Secondly, some people
consider things like pornography, masturbation or having sexual fantasies about someone
outside of the relationship as infidelity (Whitty, 2003; Yarab & Allgeier, 1998). In the online
realm, cybersex, exchanging sexual images and online flirting is considered unfaithful by some
(Hertlein & Webster, 2008). Lastly, ‘emotional infidelity’ refers to having a ‘deep emotional
attachment’ (Buss et al., 1999), feeling ‘deeply connected’ or discussing complaints about the
primary partner to someone outside of the relationship (Shackelford, LeBlanc & Drass, 2000).
Whilst researchers have suggested that new work should focus on the qualitative experiences
of clients (Moller & Vossler, 2015), the inconsistency amongst definitions has therapeutic,
empirical, and theoretical implications as it’s not always clear which behaviours researchers
and participants are referring to. For the purpose of this paper, the phenomenon will be
referred to as infidelity to remain neutral on the topic.
There is a numerous amount of research to show that perceived relationship quality has a
strong impact on the chances of infidelity. Nowak et al. (2014) demonstrated that general
relationship satisfaction, sex and quality of love were the best predictors of infidelity. More
specifically, individuals are more inclined to perform infidelity when the quality of the
relationship is low (Rodrigues et al., 2016), and especially when there are less problems in the
secondary relationship (Fisher et al., 2009). A recent paper by Vowels, Vowels & Mark (2021)
used a machine learning algorithm to predict in person and online infidelity. 891 individuals
answered a questionnaire that assessed 95 predictor variables of infidelity. Questions were
based off pre-established inventories related to relationship (e.g. Sexual Desire Inventory:
Spector et al., 1996 and Halbert Index for Sexual Desire: Yousefi et al., 2014). Results found
that infidelity can be predicted to an extent and factors like satisfaction, love and desire were
the biggest predictors of online and in person infidelity. This demonstrates that the strongest
predictors are still relevant in the present day and suggests that good communication is
intrinsic of a strong, committed relationship (DeMaris, 2009). Additionally, it has been shown
that there is a positive correlation between relationship quality and negative attitudes
towards infidelity, particularly in men (Silva et al., 2017). The experience can be very painful
(Luo et al., 2010) as it can lead to low self-esteem, mental problems and loss of trust for the
individual (Shackelford., 2001) and feelings of worry, fear and anxiety in children (Lusterman,
2005). The consequences of infidelity enforces the importance of investigating this field for
therapeutic application. Qualitative research on Iranian women who had engaged in infidelity
found that they attributed their behaviour to boredom within the marriage, suppressed
excitement and the non-fulfilment of emotional needs (Ahmadi, Jazayeri, Etemedi &
Messripour, 2016). Similarly, semi structured interviews conducted by Apostolou (2019)
found that frequent fights, sexual urges and the desire to break out of the mundane routine
of their relationship were all reasons that participants proposed for their infidelity. The
current research suggests that if couples improve their relationship quality it will reduce the
chance of infidelity occurring, there is a lack of research identifying the specific things that
people from different demographics believe reduce the relationship quality to begin with.
Therefore Fincham & May (2017) recommend that researchers should not limit research to
investigating the predictors but should look at how they work with each other. This is
addressed by the current research as it seeks to understand individuals’ perception of how
different elements work in conjunction with each other to lead to their infidelity as well as
how they believe their needs can be addressed.
Religion has consistently been shown to be a strong predictor of infidelity, as religious people
are less likely to have an affair compared to non-religious people (Liu, 2000; Treas & Giesen,
2000). However, some research is limited in that it solely focusses on attendance at religious
services (Allen et al., 2005). Atkins & Kessel (2008) addressed this gap in research by using
items from the 1998 General Social Survey (GSS) to develop a multidimension scale of
religiousness and gain a deeper understanding of the relationship between religion and
infidelity. Although their research covered a breadth of religious factors such as nearness to
God, prayer, doubts and forgiveness: attendance was still the greatest predictor of infidelity.
A revised version of the survey should include questions specific to individuals’ religious
communities as religions vary in their teachings so this may reveal contextual influences and
differences in responses. Nonetheless there is research to suggest that there is a 38%
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