Why People Have Affairs
Why People Have Affairs
The reasons are more complex than most people think, and more important to understand than most people realize. Here is what the research shows, why it matters, and what it means for recovery.
Learn About Infidelity Counseling →This is one of the most searched questions about relationships on the internet, and most of the answers people find are unsatisfying. They tend to land in one of two places: either "because something was wrong with the marriage" or "because the person who cheated is selfish." Both of these contain a grain of truth. Neither is adequate. The research on why people have affairs tells a more complicated and ultimately more useful story.
Understanding why matters, and not for the reason most people assume. It is not about excusing the affair or finding someone to blame. It is about developing the kind of clarity that makes genuine recovery possible, whether the couple stays together or not. Couples who build a shared understanding of what the affair was about tend to have significantly better outcomes than couples who skip this step, regardless of what they decide about the marriage.
What the Research Has Found
The most comprehensive research on affair motivations comes from several sources. Esther Perel, whose clinical work and research on infidelity has reshaped the field, found that many people who have affairs describe their marriages as satisfying. This challenged the prevailing assumption that affairs are primarily about marital deficiency. Her work demonstrated that affairs are often about the self as much as the relationship, about what a person is seeking or fleeing within themselves, not only what is missing at home.
Shirley Glass, whose research at the University of Maryland provided some of the earliest empirical work on infidelity, found that the most common pathway to an affair is not a dramatic decision but a gradual erosion of boundaries, often beginning with friendship. Her finding that 82% of the unfaithful partners in her studies had initially been friends with the affair partner fundamentally changed how clinicians think about affair prevention.
More recent work, including research published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, has identified eight primary motivations for infidelity, including anger, self-esteem, lack of love, low commitment, need for variety, neglect, sexual desire, and situation or context. Most affairs involve more than one of these factors operating simultaneously.
Why "Something Was Missing" Is Not the Whole Story
The most common narrative about affairs is that something was missing in the marriage and the affair filled the gap. This is sometimes true. And it is often incomplete in ways that matter for recovery.
Many affairs happen not because something was missing from the relationship but because something was missing from the person's experience of themselves. A sense of aliveness, novelty, possibility, or freedom that had dimmed over time. The affair provides a context in which the person feels like a different version of themselves, a version they had lost access to inside the structure of their daily life.
This is not the same as the marriage being deficient. It is about the human experience of long-term partnership, which requires a negotiation between security and novelty that most couples have never discussed directly. Perel's work on this tension, which she describes as the fundamental paradox of intimacy, has been one of the most important contributions to understanding why affairs happen in otherwise functional marriages.
The affair is rarely about the affair partner. It is almost always about what the affair allowed the person to feel, or become, or escape.
— The reframe that changes the conversationSix Motivations the Research Identifies Most Often
Most affairs involve more than one of these. Tap each to see what the research shows about this motivation and what it means for recovery.
Emotional connection
The most commonly cited motivation in the research. The person felt emotionally distant in the marriage and found someone who made them feel understood, valued, or interesting again. What it means for recovery: the marriage's emotional architecture needs direct attention. The distance was real, even if the affair was not the right response to it.
Validation and self-worth
The affair restored something the person had lost access to within themselves: a sense of attractiveness, relevance, or vitality. This is often less about the marriage and more about what the person was experiencing internally. What it means for recovery: individual work on self-worth is essential, alongside the couples work. The affair was a symptom of an internal deficit, not only a relational one.
Escape
The affair functioned as an exit from emotional pain the person could not or would not address directly. Sometimes the pain was relational (a difficult marriage), sometimes it was personal (depression, grief, midlife reckoning). What it means for recovery: what was the person escaping from? That question has to be answered honestly before recovery can progress.
Novelty and desire
Long-term relationships are structured around familiarity and security, which exist in tension with novelty and desire. Some affairs are driven by this tension rather than by deficiency in the partnership. What it means for recovery: the couple needs to address how desire, novelty, and aliveness can exist within the marriage, not only outside it. This is some of the most important and most often skipped work in recovery.
Exit strategy
Some affairs are unconscious (or conscious) exit strategies. The person has wanted to leave the marriage for a long time and the affair forces the question they could not bring themselves to ask. What it means for recovery: this motivation requires honest assessment. If the affair was a way of ending the marriage, the question is not how to recover from the affair but whether the marriage is something both people want to be in.
Opportunity and boundaries
Research consistently shows that opportunity is a significant factor. This does not reduce responsibility. It does mean that understanding the circumstances that made the affair possible matters for prevention. What it means for recovery: the couple needs to build explicit, discussed boundaries, not just assume that love will prevent recurrence. What Glass called "walls and windows" in a marriage need to be designed intentionally.
Why Understanding Motivation Matters for Recovery
The most important reason to understand why an affair happened is not to assign blame or to excuse the behavior. It is because the couples who develop a shared narrative about what the affair was about, a narrative that both partners can recognize as true, tend to have significantly better recovery outcomes than couples who skip this step.
Research by Gottman and colleagues on affair recovery has consistently found that the "meaning-making" phase, where both partners develop an understanding of what the affair was about, is one of the most critical stages of recovery. Couples who rush past it or avoid it tend to cycle back into crisis. Couples who do the work of understanding, painful as it is, tend to build something more durable on the other side.
This does not mean the betrayed partner has to accept the unfaithful partner's explanation as sufficient. It means both partners need to arrive at an understanding they can both hold, even if it is uncomfortable, as the basis for whatever comes next.
What This Means If You Are Going Through This Right Now
If you are the betrayed partner reading this, the question "why" is probably one of the most consuming ones you are carrying. You may not get a satisfying answer for a while. The unfaithful partner often does not fully understand their own motivations in the early days. What they say in the first week is often incomplete, defensive, or genuinely confused. Understanding develops over time, usually with professional support.
If you are the unfaithful partner reading this, the question "why" is one you owe your partner an honest answer to, and one you may not fully have yet. A therapist who specializes in infidelity recovery can help you examine what the affair was about at a depth that casual reflection often cannot reach. The answer matters, not because your partner needs it to decide whether to forgive you, but because both of you need it to understand what happened and what comes next.
This is the work that infidelity counseling is built for. Not providing answers, but helping both of you find them together, with enough honesty and structure to make the answers useful rather than just painful.
Understanding what happened is the first step toward knowing what to do about it.
A free consultation is a place to start. No pressure, no commitment.
Schedule a Free Consultation →Online infidelity counseling available in Texas, Montana, Maine, and New Hampshire
Frequently Asked Questions
Research identifies multiple motivations including unmet emotional needs, desire for validation, escape from pain or conflict, novelty-seeking, the affair as an exit strategy, and opportunity combined with insufficient boundaries. Most affairs involve more than one factor, and the motivation often shifts over the course of the affair.
Not necessarily. Research by Esther Perel and others has shown that many people who have affairs describe their marriages as satisfactory or even good. Affairs can be about what a person is seeking within themselves, not only what is missing in the relationship.
Yes. Research consistently shows that couples who develop a shared understanding of what the affair was about tend to have better recovery outcomes. Understanding is not the same as justifying. It is a necessary part of the meaning-making process that genuine recovery requires.
Yes. Sagebrush Counseling specializes in infidelity recovery for couples and individuals. Fully online, licensed in Texas, Montana, Maine, and New Hampshire. A free consultation is available.
Understanding what happened is the beginning, not the end.
A free consultation with an infidelity recovery specialist. No pressure, no commitment.
Schedule a Free Consultation →Disclaimer: This blog post is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute professional mental health advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the guidance of a qualified mental health professional. If you are in crisis, contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988.
