Being Healthy Essay, Research Paper

I don’t know what hurts

more: knowing he kissed

someone else or the fact

that he didn’t do a very

good job of covering his

tracks,” says Pam, a law

student at New York

University who learned of her boyfriend’s

indiscretion from a well-meaning friend.

When she confronted her guy,

he told her he still loved her and

it was “no big thing.” Pam isn’t

so sure about that. “I thought

we were in a committed

relationship,” she says.

Infidelity comes in many forms,

from a few stolen kisses or an

e-mail romance to a full-blown

affair. But no matter how it

happens, it hurts if you’re the

one who’s been cheated on.

When it happens to you,

chances are you’ll experience a

range of emotions from anger to

hurt to “Why me?”

Your Cheatin’ Heart

Your first question is likely to be, “Why did this

happen?”

People cheat for many reasons, some of them more

hurtful than others. They may be bored with the

relationship or they may have fallen for someone

else. Or maybe they simply can’t resist temptation.

They may even be trying to make their partner

jealous.

Gender plays a role, according to David M. Buss,

Ph.D., a professor of psychology at the University

of Texas at Austin and author of “The Dangerous

Passion” (Free Press, 2000). He studied the infidelity

track records of thousands of young adults and

discovered that men tend to cheat out of the desire

for sexual variety. “They go for immediate

gratification,” says Buss, “especially if the risks are

low.” For example, if they don’t think they’re going

to get caught.

Women, on the other hand, usually stray because

they are “unhappy in the relationship and are

looking to see if they can do better on the mating

market,” he says. He believes that the feminine

impulse to shop around may be a holdover from the

cave days when the men folk were often killed off

during hunts and it paid to have a backup on deck.

The only way to find out why your partner strayed

is to ask. The answer, as well as his or her

post-cheating attitude (begging your forgiveness

vs. shrugging it off) will help you sort through your

tumbled emotions and decide whether to stand by

your philandering squeeze or shout, “Next!”