Eternal Sunshine Posted November 21, 2011 Posted November 21, 2011 I am curious to find out what do you think are personality traits/behaviors that make someone more prone to cheating in a relationship (male or female). Tell me if you are talking about male or female and then give me the list
Nexus One Posted November 21, 2011 Posted November 21, 2011 (edited) I am curious to find out what do you think are personality traits/behaviors that make someone more prone to cheating in a relationship (male or female). Tell me if you are talking about male or female and then give me the list Hypocrisy. Hands down. Every guy I know that cheats and have known to cheat was hypocrite, especially when it comes to the topic of women and how women should behave. Those guys don't behave themselves along the standards to which they hold women. What's up ES, do you suspect your boyfriend is cheating? Edited November 21, 2011 by Nexus One
ThsAmericanLife Posted November 21, 2011 Posted November 21, 2011 A habit of telling lies of omission Double standards for behavior... ie 'everyone does it, so it is ok'. Revenge fantasies 'I've been done wrong, so it is ok to do someone else wrong'. The perfect example is the person who will imagine their partner is cheating, then go out and cheat themselves. Lack of accountability in general ...and one thing to add to the mix (my mix at least).... multidating. Practice for cheaters or potential cheaters, IMHO. Lots of going on about 'biology' and how certain people are just hardwired to cheat no matter what. Like they can't help themselves. These people are more or less asking for permission to cheat on you when they talk like that.
tigressA Posted November 21, 2011 Posted November 21, 2011 Pretty much everything (except the multidating, I don't personally believe that is 'practice' for cheaters) that was said above. I have been on both sides of the coin, so I should know.
Author Eternal Sunshine Posted November 21, 2011 Author Posted November 21, 2011 Hypocrisy. Hands down. Every guy I know that cheats and have known to cheat was hypocrite, especially when it comes to the topic of women and how women should behave. Those guys don't behave themselves along the standards to which they hold women. What's up ES, do you suspect your boyfriend is cheating? No, not at all. We spend all free time together, he truly wouldn't have the time lol It's just that if I choose to stay in a low passion relationship I need to be on the lookout.
ThsAmericanLife Posted November 21, 2011 Posted November 21, 2011 The reason why I believe multidating is practice for cheaters is because I've never met one who didn't lie to cover up their multidating. Telling you they are dating multiple people is where the honesty ends... Now, if someone wants to talk about negotiating a legitimate 'open' relationship, that is a different story... but that is not what most multidaters do. What most multidaters want is no rules. Oops! I slept with this person. Oops! I slept with another person... They make up stories or develop lies of omission to cover their daily activities. Dating a multidater becomes a game of don't ask don't tell... until the magical 'exclusive' talk. Talk about a buzz kill. then they wonder why the relationships they decide to go 'exclusive' with almost always go nowhere. Because they didn't start out with a foundation of trust and respect to begin with. The fact that 'everyone does it' doesn't change the fact that they are establishing horrible relationship habits. Just my opinion...
daisydukes Posted November 21, 2011 Posted November 21, 2011 This is coming from experience.... Cheaters always end up blaming it on you like you are the bad person and making you look like it is all your fault when in reality it is totally their fault. Cheaters are liars and they do not even know they are lying and they keep lying and lying.
cdm369 Posted November 21, 2011 Posted November 21, 2011 People who just say "I just get along better with the OS." I feel most cheating is because people simply put themselves in bad situations.
Woggle Posted November 21, 2011 Posted November 21, 2011 A lack of accountability A negative attitude towards the opposite sex A lack of self control and an impulsive nature
loversquarrel Posted November 21, 2011 Posted November 21, 2011 impulsiveness, lack of self control, detachment, selfishness (does whatever regardless of how it may make you feel), low self respect, low self esteem, insecurity, people with borderline personality disorder, narcissistic behavior.
2sunny Posted November 21, 2011 Posted November 21, 2011 inflated ego - sense of entitlement - selfishness - no honesty
EasyHeart Posted November 21, 2011 Posted November 21, 2011 I think it's mostly a matter of impulsiveness. If a person tends to do whatever he/she feels like doing without considering the long-range consequences, I think they are more likely to cheat.
rsh Posted November 21, 2011 Posted November 21, 2011 inflated ego - sense of entitlement - selfishness - no honesty sense of entitlement. youre a ****ing ******* for saying that. everybody deserves love and those who can't get it are accused of having a sense of entitlement. your a dumb bum. asswipe.
Taramere Posted November 21, 2011 Posted November 21, 2011 People who regularly get drunk (alcohol is used as an excuse for all kinds of things). Use drugs regularly. Tend towards rebellion. Likely to place partner in that "parental figure to be rebelled against" at some point...even if their partner thinks they're a happy team. Insecure about their attractiveness to opposite sex...plus partner who attracts a lot of attention from opposite sex, might create a situation oc resentment plus competiteness ("I can be attractive too!") Tendency to disregard social norms rules. "I live by my own set of principles" (but will be able to rationalise departure from own set of principles quite easily).
xxoo Posted November 21, 2011 Posted November 21, 2011 No, not at all. We spend all free time together, he truly wouldn't have the time lol It's just that if I choose to stay in a low passion relationship I need to be on the lookout. You are concerned about your own risk factors for cheating?
ThsAmericanLife Posted November 21, 2011 Posted November 21, 2011 People who regularly get drunk (alcohol is used as an excuse for all kinds of things). Use drugs regularly. Tend towards rebellion. Likely to place partner in that "parental figure to be rebelled against" at some point...even if their partner thinks they're a happy team. Insecure about their attractiveness to opposite sex...plus partner who attracts a lot of attention from opposite sex, might create a situation oc resentment plus competiteness ("I can be attractive too!") Tendency to disregard social norms rules. "I live by my own set of principles" (but will be able to rationalise departure from own set of principles quite easily). I like your list... especially the one about being insecure about their attractiveness... forgot about that one. tendency towards rebellion... I can see that one too. Very interesting!
BeyondtheClouds Posted November 21, 2011 Posted November 21, 2011 Person who is constantly slinging the word insecure around when any discussion, implicit or explicit, about boundaries occurs. Person who sees nothing wrong in things they do such as sexually charged chat sessions with people of the opposite sex (or if they're bi, lesbian or homosexual, then of the same sex.)
Taramere Posted November 21, 2011 Posted November 21, 2011 I like your list... especially the one about being insecure about their attractiveness... forgot about that one. tendency towards rebellion... I can see that one too. Very interesting! It's a guy who cheated on me...to a tee. I'm exaggerating my own attractiveness to the opposite sex, of course, but it did tend to be an issue that people (mainly men) saw us as being quite an illl matched couple and would quite often make "what are you doing with him?" comments. Although he was extrovert, albeit in a strange kind of way, and always acted as though he thought that was hilarious...I don't think he did really. I'm pretty sure cheating was one of the ways he decided to address the balance. And of course it's always easier for a male to cheat if he has a girlfriend....as that can inspire the competitive instincts of a certain type of (his)female friend. After he'd confessed to cheating, we were out somewhere (we were at the point where we were half trying to work things out) and met up with a friend of his. One of the guys with that friend was cracking on to me....obviously not picking up that we were a couple. My then bf reacted in a really jealous angry way that I'd never seen before. The guy was shaking everybody's hand as he left, and when he took my hand he said something like "I certainly hope to see you again. Cheatscum actually snatched my hand away from this guy really aggressively and made some "she's taken" comment - even though by that stage we were on a horribly drawn out break-up. I'd never seen him throw that kind of jealous tantrum before. Everybody looked very awkward, and I thought to myself "he's not jealous as far as losing me goes. He's jealous because he knows how easy it would be for me to cheat if I wanted to." Which made me wonder if that was an element in it.
stillafool Posted November 21, 2011 Posted November 21, 2011 I think people who cheated on you when you were dating will definitely cheat when married.
EasyHeart Posted November 21, 2011 Posted November 21, 2011 People who regularly get drunk (alcohol is used as an excuse for all kinds of things). Use drugs regularly. Tend towards rebellion. Likely to place partner in that "parental figure to be rebelled against" at some point...even if their partner thinks they're a happy team. Insecure about their attractiveness to opposite sex...plus partner who attracts a lot of attention from opposite sex, might create a situation oc resentment plus competiteness ("I can be attractive too!") Tendency to disregard social norms rules. "I live by my own set of principles" (but will be able to rationalise departure from own set of principles quite easily).Besides the drugs and alcohol, you've described me pretty precisely -- but I've never cheated on anyone!
ThsAmericanLife Posted November 21, 2011 Posted November 21, 2011 It's a guy who cheated on me...to a tee. I'm exaggerating my own attractiveness to the opposite sex, of course, but it did tend to be an issue that people (mainly men) saw us as being quite an illl matched couple and would quite often make "what are you doing with him?" comments. Although he was extrovert, albeit in a strange kind of way, and always acted as though he thought that was hilarious...I don't think he did really. I'm pretty sure cheating was one of the ways he decided to address the balance. And of course it's always easier for a male to cheat if he has a girlfriend....as that can inspire the competitive instincts of a certain type of (his)female friend. After he'd confessed to cheating, we were out somewhere (we were at the point where we were half trying to work things out) and met up with a friend of his. One of the guys with that friend was cracking on to me....obviously not picking up that we were a couple. My then bf reacted in a really jealous angry way that I'd never seen before. The guy was shaking everybody's hand as he left, and when he took my hand he said something like "I certainly hope to see you again. Cheatscum actually snatched my hand away from this guy really aggressively and made some "she's taken" comment - even though by that stage we were on a horribly drawn out break-up. I'd never seen him throw that kind of jealous tantrum before. Everybody looked very awkward, and I thought to myself "he's not jealous as far as losing me goes. He's jealous because he knows how easy it would be for me to cheat if I wanted to." Which made me wonder if that was an element in it. You've touched on a couple of interesting areas... the idea of people who see cheating as a way to address what they view as a power imbalance... This is one big reason I don't date people who view relationships as a one-up/one-down arrangement. They aren't that hard to avoid. They are the ones always keeping score. and yes, I'm also very familiar with the kind of people who target those in relationships. On the flip side, I tend to be amused by the women who think that my mere presence in a working environment with their SO necessarily equates as a threat from me. This has had some negative implications for my career advancement... as I have to work with these guys.... The wife of my advisor in college tried to convince him not to let me travel to a conference with him, for instance. Even though I was lead author on the paper being presented. He demurred of course (good thing for him)... it was only after the fact that I found out about her attempts to have me sidelined. She even tried to recruit his own mother in trying to convince him not to let me go!! When I found out, I said loud enough for a very experienced colleague of his to overhear "It is a good thing he let me go, because if I found out after the fact that he didn't let me go because of THIS, I'd have his *ss on a plate." Never had a problem with her again.
BeyondtheClouds Posted November 21, 2011 Posted November 21, 2011 And of course it's always easier for a male to cheat if he has a girlfriend....as that can inspire the competitive instincts of a certain type of (his)female friend. This is why I want to see them interact with their female friends before getting hitched.
fortyninethousand322 Posted November 21, 2011 Posted November 21, 2011 People who regularly get drunk (alcohol is used as an excuse for all kinds of things). Use drugs regularly. Tend towards rebellion. Likely to place partner in that "parental figure to be rebelled against" at some point...even if their partner thinks they're a happy team. Insecure about their attractiveness to opposite sex...plus partner who attracts a lot of attention from opposite sex, might create a situation oc resentment plus competiteness ("I can be attractive too!") Tendency to disregard social norms rules. "I live by my own set of principles" (but will be able to rationalise departure from own set of principles quite easily). I never though I'd have a high risk of cheating on anyone (should I ever actually date anyone), but that's interesting, the whole insecure thing. I guess that explains why women run the other way: they know I have a high tendency to cheat, even if I never knew this.
Taramere Posted November 21, 2011 Posted November 21, 2011 Besides the drugs and alcohol, you've described me pretty precisely -- but I've never cheated on anyone! I can be a bit rebellious too - and although I was hot in comparison to that bf, I can think of men I dated who were in a higher league than me..and I felt less than secure about the way I looked then. I wouldn't have cheated on them in an effort to raise myself up though. However, with that particular individual I think there was more at stake. On the face of it he was very chilled out, but I think there was a passive aggressive side to him. He was into smoking spliffs a lot, and was apparently drunk and stoned with this female friend (who also enjoyed her dope) when he cheated. If somebody's the type to put themselves in that position (ie drunk, stoned and alone with an opposite sex friend) then I think they're probably going to cheat.
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