Significant Others: Girlfriends & Boyfriends / Question
Published: October 13, 2008
Dear TeenHealthFX,
why do girls cheat on their boyfriends? why do guys cheat on their girlfriends? why does this happen?
Signed: Why Do People Cheat?
Dear Why Do People Cheat?,
There are so many possible reasons why people cheat. A person may cheat if:
- He/she is feeling scared about the closeness and intimacy they are feeling in their relationship – they may act out their feelings by cheating.
- He/she has agreed to see someone exclusively, but is really not ready for that level of commitment and wants to simply date for a while first. So they become torn between their commitment and wanting to be with others.
- He/she does not view a relationship with any kind of value, so it is not something that is respected in terms of staying exclusively committed to the person they are with.
- He/She is looking for revenge if their significant other cheated on them.
- He/she had parents who had affairs, and then repeat a way of being in relationships that was learned by watching their parents.
- He/she is not a particularly nice person – not caring very much for other people’s feelings and the hurt they may go through.
- He/she is insecure about himself/herself – being with other people sexually becomes the main way to feel special and valued as a person.
- There are problems in the relationship and, rather than directly dealing with those problems, the person acts out in some way or tries to escape from them through an affair.
There are many more reasons than this – the contributing factors as to why a person cheats definitely vary from person to person. But whatever the reason, it does not make the behavior okay, and it does not take the person who cheated off the hook from facing the responsibility that their actions caused their significant other a lot of emotional pain and put the relationship in serious jeopardy. In addition, a person can also put their significant other at risk for physical harm if they are sexually active. If someone has unprotected sex when cheating, and then has unprotected sex with their significant other it is possible that an STD can be transmitted.
If you are worried that your significant other may be cheating on you, talk to them about it. Let them know that this is a concern of yours and that you feel like you deserve the courtesy and respect of knowing the truth. If you know for a fact that your significant other has cheated on you, then you have to decide what you want to do with the relationship. You may just want to end it, or depending on how your significant other handles the cheating issue, explains the reason for the cheating, and demonstrates through his words and behavior a desire to do things differently in the future, you may want to give them one more chance and try to work the issue out. But it totally depends on the situation and how you feel in terms of what you decide to do – and FX suggests that you think about what will be best for you in the long run, as well as what the odds are of being able to work it out, in terms of whether you end the relationship or try to make it work.
“Reasons” aside, the fact is that no matter what the situation being cheated on feels awful. It is easy to feel angry, sad, betrayed, disrespected, and hurt when someone you care about does something like this. And while you sort through your feelings and decide how you want to handle the relationship, FX thinks it is very important for you to have peers and adults who you can lean on for support and guidance.
Signed: TeenHealthFX
Among male drivers between 15 and 20 years of age who were involved in fatal crashes in 2005, 38% were speeding at the time of the crash and 24% had been drinking.
