Cheaters gonna cheat? The data might surprise you.

We tell ourselves the same old story about cheating. It goes like this: there are the ever-faithful people that never cheat and then there are the cheaters — irredeemable, selfish, narcissists who just can’t keep it in their pants and will never change. Once a cheater, always a cheater is an adage as old as time, and your only hope is to be smart enough or lucky enough to spot one before you do something as miserable as marry them.

If that is your view, then you might be surprised by what the data tell us.

More than 20 percent of married men and 15 percent of women say they have cheated. But that’s just the ones who admit it. If we extrapolate from the rate at which people lie about drug-use on surveys, the real number could be as high as 50 percent for married men and 40 percent for women.

As alarming as that may seem, the data could help you (I am assuming, dear reader, that you are an ever-faithful one) avoid at least some of the heartbreak that inevitably comes with the ultimate betrayal.

As Dr. Esther Perel says, “the affair itself is rarely the whole story. It is usually the final chapter of a story that began much, much earlier.” This is not an argument to let the cheater off the hook — actually quite the opposite — but by the end of this article, you might feel sincere pity for them.

Let me explain by going through some of the biggest misconceptions about cheating that are shockingly counterintuitive.

First, the data cut against the idea that sex is the primary driver of affairs. When friends of mine have been cheated on, our first activity — before settling down with multiple bottles of wine and a comforter — is to stalk the affair partner. Is she prettier? Is she cooler? “Of course not!” I invariably exclaim. “She’s a troll!”

We immediately reach for the physical explanations of infidelity — a moment of weakness at a bar, a workplace friendship gone way too far. While this might be the symptom, it most certainly was not the cause. Moreover, what will you be told in therapy? Well, you’ll be told that 70 percent of women and 50 percent of men cite emotional neglect as the primary driver of their........

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