Infidelity May Be Genetic

A lot has been said about how essential it is to identify the causes of infidelity to catch your cheating spouse. Importantly, one has to look at infidelity like a coin with both sides. Why do women cheat? Why do men cheat? The collective reasons for both points of view are the same. All the reasons boil down to the lack of happiness within the relationship. Social factors ultimately come into play whenever someone commits adultery. However, about four years ago, a scientist claimed that genes may be responsible for some people’s infidelity.

This may seem outdated, but still warrants attention. According to Tim Spector of the Twin Research Unit at St Thomas’ Hospital in

London, there are evidences that would point to the genetic factors of cheating. He focused his study on women twins whereby when one of the twins had a history of infidelity, the chances the other twin would also commit infidelity were a staggering 55 percent. Twins who are identical have the strongest tendency to be either faithful or unfaithful due to their identical genes according to Spector.

Spector still stressed that genes alone do not determine somebody was likely to be unfaithful. Social factors still play a huge role in determining one’s likelihood to become unfaithful. Still, according to Spector, although there is no single gene to be the likely culprit for infidelity, “…there are likely to be genes that participate in it, a number of genes working together…”

The proof of all this remains to be seen in the future. Still, what we hold to be obviously true about infidelity remains: Disagreements, lack of contentment and happiness among spouses, sexual gratification and some financial problems contribute to the likelihood of spouses cheating on each other. Even in modern day science, scientists are still baffled by the thought of what element of behavior is inherited and what is picked up as humans develop.

However, we should not discount the prospect of it as being genetic. Hmmm…it’s only a matter of time before this plague can be completely eradicated.