The #1 Reason Good People Cheat, According To Their Attachment Style
There's no reason to allow dysfunction to dictate someone's choices.
Gorodenkoff via Shutterstock The reasons that people cheat are myriad. They might be unhappy, they might be depressed, they might be in constant need of something new, they might just cheat for cheating’s sake. Some people are to cheating because of a specific aspect of their personality, like their attachment style, the style in which they become attached to someone else.
For those who aren’t familiar with attachment theory and the attachment styles, there are four different kinds:
- Anxious (or Preoccupied) Attachment
- Avoidant (or Dismissive) Attachment
- Disorganized (or Fearful-Avoidant) Attachment
- Secure Attachment
It is important to note that data hasn't shown a difference between rates of cheating between the attachment styles during the dating phase of a relationship. However, the difference is significant when it comes to marriage, according to data collected in a comprehensive study from 2014.
Taking a look at the different attachments styles and how they might influence a person’s tendency to cheat could help someone avoid doing so. If you don't know yours, you can take this quiz.
Here are the #1 reasons people cheat, based on attachment style
Anxious Attachment Style Cheating
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People with anxious (or preoccupied) attachment styles tend to have very low self-esteem. They believe themselves not worthy of love and live with a deep fear of abandonment. As a result, anxiously attached people tend to be constantly in need of reassurance about the health of a relationship.
When they don’t get that reassurance, they can act out, becoming on one hand clingy or on the other dismissive.
Why anxious attachers cheat:
People with anxious attachments styles tend to cheat for a number of reasons. The first is their constant need for reassurance as to the health of a relationship. If an anxiously attached person is in a relationship where they aren’t getting that constant reassurance, they might look outside of the relationship for that reassurance.
An affair partner is someone who will happy to remind an anxious avoidant that they are worthy of love. After all, an affair happens inside a bubble and reassurance of this type is easy.
Another reason that someone who is anxiously attached would cheat is because they so fear being abandoned, they self-sabotage and do the abandoning first. They feel like if they can step outside of a relationship, even if its one they really want, then they will save themselves from the pain that will happen if/when their person walks away.
I know that when I was younger, I was anxiously attached and I cheated on almost everyone I ever dated. I was so sure that I was going to be left because I wasn’t good enough that I did the leaving first. Unfortunately, the cheating only made my anxious attachment tendencies worse because, every time I cheated, I just felt worse about myself.
Avoidant Attachment Style Cheating
A person with an avoidant (or dismissive) attachment style tends to have a very high sense of self-worth and a high degree of independence. Unfortunately, while these traits might seem like they would support a healthy relationship, this is not always the case.
Because of their independence, avoidants hesitate to become involved with another person, one to whom they might become attached to or become dependent on. They also tend to to shy away from emotional relationships where someone might become too attached to them and need them for reassurance.
Why avoidant attachers cheat:
Someone who has an avoidant attachment style might cheat for a myriad of reasons. They might believe that they are worthy of love and love from as many people as want to provide it. They might believe that if they have an affair, they will become less emotionally dependent on their partner, thereby saving themselves from pain. They might believe that if they cheat, they can get the temporary emotional connection from their affair partner without having to make a strong emotional investment in their partners.
One of my clients is an avoidant who constantly cheats. He is trying to build the perfect girl for him, someone who feeds his sense of self worth and also gives him the independence he craves. Unfortunately, it is impossible to do this, to create one person out of many and, as a result, his need to cheat is never sated.
Disorganized Attachment Cheating
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People with disorganized (or fearful-avoidant) attachment styles tend to have a combination of anxious and avoidant attachment styles. They are sometimes anxious and sometimes avoidant, and not only bring conflicting behaviors in their relationships, they often struggle with them internally. They crave closeness but also have a hard time trusting others.
Sometimes partners wish they could change their fearful-avoidant partner, but that is often a fool's errand, as nobody can ever truly cange another.
Why disorganized attachers cheat:
People with disorganized attachments styles often cheat because of the self-perceived ambiguity of their feelings. They struggle to understand how they feel about someone, and yet yearn for closeness. At the same time, are desperately afraid of being hurt so they push people away.
Having an affair is the perfect situation for them because they don’t have to definitively decide what their feelings are nor do they have to put all their eggs in one basket.
Unfortunately, people who have a disorganized attachment style are never truly secure in a relationship or an affair which makes it likely that they will hop to one after another, never truly developing a healthy connection.
Secure Attachment Style Cheating
People with secure attachment styles are people who are comfortable expressing their emotions, are happy to depend on their partners and are comfortable letting their partners rely on them. While they enjoy the closeness of a healthy relationship they are also okay being on their own. They don’t seek external approval but are able to derive approval from their own sense of self worth.
Why secure attachers cheat:
Not surprisingly, people with secure attachment styles are the least likely to have an affair. One meta-analysis of multiple studies (that included more than 13,000 total participants) showed that "higher levels of anxiety and avoidance in attachment were significantly associated with increased marital infidelity."
Because people who are securely attached are capable of having an open honest relationship based on mutual respect and support, they generally do not need to go outside of their primary relationship for validation or happiness.
That being said, even people with relationships that seem securely attached can, over time, allow their relationships to be taken for granted. Taking a relationship for granted can lead to a sense of separateness that, in turn, can cause fissures in that relationships. While people with secure attachment styles don’t usually need to seek out validation outside of their primary relationship, these fissures can lead to an affair if an opportunity is presented.
It is important for someone with a secure attachment style to maintain their relationship and not take it for granted that it will always be a healthy one.
Whatever the reason, whether you are cheating and mystified as to how you got to this place or have been cheated on and mystified as to why, understanding the ins and outs of why people cheat could help you figure out next steps.
Of course, knowing your attachment style is an excellent way to measure the likelihood that you will have an affair. Stopping infidelity before it starts is the best way to stay out of an incredibly painful and destructive situation and giving you the space to keep your primary relationship strong. Get to know yours so that you can get on the path to a healthy relationship instead of a destructive one.
Mitzi Bockmann is an NYC-based Certified Life Coach and mental health advocate who works exclusively with women to help them be all they want to be. Mitzi's bylines have appeared in MSN, Prevention, and Psych Central.
