I talk to a lot of people about their relationships. Many of them are like the Ebola virus: cold, distant, loveless, carnivorous.

I hear stories of heartbreak and loneliness, of lies and betrayal, of pain. Pain always.

Inevitably, these conversations end with some sort of question: “Why?” Why is he doing this to me? Why doesn’t he care about me anymore? Why won’t he change?

Tolstoy said that all happy relationships are alike, but every unhappy relationship is unique in its way. 1 I think that’s true. But I think the question of fidelity, why some people choose to stay faithful while others don’t, is an obvious and easy one to answer.

It turns out that infidelity is not uncommon among men and women. Surveys estimate that about a quarter of marriages experience infidelity at some point. And that’s just people who answered honestly or knew about it.

It’s also very difficult for most people to be rational about infidelity. They start getting angry all over the place and throwing other people’s shit on the lawn. Or they feel so sad and hurt that they can’t look at the situation logically and see all the warning signs miles behind them.

So let’s break it down logically. I know algorithms aren’t exactly romantic or sexy. But cheating isn’t either. So, no need to talk about the algorithm.

CheatingAlgorithm

The cheating algorithm is pretty simple and goes like this:

Simply put: When a person’s need for self-gratification outweighs their need for intimacy, cheating is more likely to happen. Let’s break it down a little bit and dig deeper:

As humans, we all have a natural desire for self-gratification. Good food. Good sex. Too little work. Too much sleep. Porn, video games, and cornflakes.

As humans, we all also have a natural desire for intimacy, to feel loved by another person, to feel like we’re sharing our lives with someone.

Unfortunately, these two needs are often at odds. To achieve this intimacy and love, you sometimes have to sacrifice your gratification. And to achieve self-gratification, you often have to sacrifice some love and intimacy. This can be as simple as watching a movie you don’t like or attending a boring work party that you don’t care about. But it can also be as deep and complex as opening up about your fears and insecurities to your partner or consciously committing to monogamy with that person for an indefinite period.

Related : Why We Stay in Bad Relationships

If a person values ​​self-gratification more than the intimacy they gain from the relationship, they will stop sacrificing for the relationship and will likely end up cheating. If a person values ​​the intimacy they gain from the relationship more than their gratification, they will willingly sacrifice some self-gratification to remain faithful

Think of it like a balance. On one side you have self-gratification and on the other you have intimacy. If the self-gratification side ever outweighs the intimacy side, well, you’re a cheater.

The Two Main Reasons People Cheat

There are two ways this can happen. The first is that the person is shallow, selfish, and constantly needs gratification. The second is that the relationship fails to provide adequate intimacy and desire.7 Let’s look at these two reasons separately.

The First Reason: Excessive Need for Self-Gratification

In my eyes, the definition of maturity is the ability to postpone self-gratification in favor of more important long-term goals.8

Don’t masturbate at work because it would get you fired. Don’t eat chocolate cake for breakfast every morning because it would give you a heart attack at age 32. Don’t do heroin right before you pick up your kids from school because, well, Jesus, do I have to explain this?

Sure, those things sound nice, but you have bigger, more important concerns and you can delay your gratification to meet those concerns.

That’s called “maturity.” It’s called “being an adult.” It’s called “not failing.”

Cheating falls under the same umbrella here. Sure, you might feel happy rubbing your genitals all over that beautiful stranger’s face, but a mature person can step back and postpone gratification in favor of a more important lifelong commitment.

Self-gratifying cheaters come in two varieties: miserable overcompensators and power players.

Self-gratifying cheaters are constantly focused on gratifying themselves because they feel so miserable about themselves that they need to make themselves feel good about themselves to cover it up all the time. Cheaters who cheat on you are likely miserable overcompensators, and that’s not the only destructive behavior they engage in. They might be heavy drinkers, partying hard, drug users, or social climbers.

Or maybe they’re just trying to take over the world.

Power players are simply people in high places. 9 They’re Genghis Khan. Or more recently, Bill Clinton and Arnold Schwarzenegger. They’re people who have no one to say “no” to, or who face no real tangible consequences for their actions. Or in Khan’s case, the guy who just slaughtered an entire county of innocent people and wants to spend the next week having a bloody party with all the local virgins.

GetYourselfOut, Champ.

But these don’t just need to be people with social power. They can be people who are given complete authority over the relationship, people whose partners show them no consequences for their actions. Yes, you can unwittingly enable your partner to cheat on you. Which brings us to the second reason.

Reason2: Lack of Real Intimacy

It’s not hard to say that the likelihood of infidelity in a relationship is directly proportional to how miserable the relationship is.

The problem is that many people don’t even realize how miserable their relationships are. They come from a family full of miserable relationships and/or have a long history of miserable relationships, so for them, it’s not miserable, it’s normal.

Then they’re surprised when the wife sleeps with the milkman. Everything was fine, what happened?

No, it wasn’t fine, bro. Let me explain why.

Look, two types of relationships usually end with one partner cheating. Both involve weak boundaries.10 And both create the illusion that “everything is great,” when in reality it’s a festering pile of cow dung with big red hearts drawn on it.

The first situation is when one partner feels like they’re “doing everything” for the other. They care for them, give them everything they want, and in some cases support them. They feel like a saint and then what happens? They get cheated on.

The reason this situation is toxic is that when you do everything for your partner you take care of all their problems and show them that no matter what happens, you’re always going to make them better, you’re showing them that there are no consequences for their actions. He loses his job because he was masturbating in the office again and you decide to support him. Then he spends the next six months hanging out on your couch while you tirelessly send out his resume. What makes you think they will ever change? What makes you think they will ever stop and question their behavior?

Related : Attachment Styles and How They Affect Your Relationships

If you have a dog who constantly pees on your carpet and every time you clean the carpet because oh my god I love it, why would the dog stop peeing on it?

This is what happens when these people cheat on you. You’re surprised when you tolerate the same behavior that led to their cheating all along and allow it to happen. No, it’s not “your fault,” but you certainly didn’t help matters.

Believe it or not, a healthy, loving relationship requires people to say “no” to each other sometimes. It requires each of us to stand up for ourselves and our needs. Only then can two people, as self-respecting individuals, discuss what will and won’t work for them in a relationship.

Another situation where cheating almost always ends is when one partner is insanely jealous and possessive.

Let me ask you this, if you’re dating someone who regularly checks your phone without permission, demands to know where you are at all times, gets extremely angry every time you hang out with your friends without him/her, and yells at you until your blood vessels explode if you go a single day without calling or texting, why wouldn’t you cheat?

I mean, this person is treating you like you’ve already cheated on them, even though you’ve done nothing wrong. So why not cheat? It won’t get any worse.

And that’s exactly what happens. “Well, my husband yells at me every day anyway, and now that I’m with my friends and we’re eating apple pie, I’ve realized that I haven’t been happy with him for about a year, so why don’t I kiss this handsome guy who’s flirting with me now? He’s nice to me. I’m going to get yelled at when I get home anyway. So why not?”

And then, suddenly, the milkman hits on me again.

Possessive/jealous behavior is a sign of extreme insecurity and low self-esteem. How can your partner respect you if you can’t stand any discomfort in the relationship at all?

Indeed, self-confidence doesn’t come from struggling to please yourself, but from feeling comfortable delaying gratification. Which brings us to…

How to Prevent Cheating

There are simple steps you can take to prevent cheating. Note that while it’s “simple,” it’s not necessarily easy to do.

LetMeExplain.

Step 1: Don’t Date Someone Who Can’t Delay Self-Gratis

It goes without saying, but don’t fall in love with the first person who looks at you without frowning.

Look, dating someone who pleases themselves can be great, as long as you continue to please them. But you have to learn to look beyond the good feelings and look at how that person lives their life. Are they able to sacrifice for those around them? Are they impulsive? Does their life seem filled with unnecessary drama? Do they take responsibility for their actions?

The problem with people who build their lives around pleasing themselves is that they often come off as confident to anxious or insecure people. I remember when I met my first girlfriend, one of the things I loved about her was that if she wanted something, she would go and do it. I was so insecure and shy at the time that I thought this was a great display of confidence.

What I later discovered was that it was a great display of self-gratification. Once she wanted another pair of penises in front of her face, well, there they were.

As I described in this article, true confidence in attractiveness only exists when a person is comfortable with what they don’t have. True confidence comes from the ability to postpone and let go of self-gratification and desires and take appropriate action when necessary.

The other problem with people who date self-gratifiers is that they think to themselves, “Well, he’s so loving and happy when he’s with me, why would he want to be with someone else?”

Yes, that’s because he was dating you for self-gratification, not intimacy. So of course he loved being with you, as long as it was on his terms. Once you stopped pleasing him, he went off to find someone else who would.

Step Two: Setting Healthy Boundaries

This means standing up for yourself. It means declaring what is and isn’t acceptable in a relationship, both for you and for your partner. It means sticking to those statements and following through. It means doing pretty much everything I outlined in this article.

This means that you realize that you are not responsible for your partner’s happiness, nor are they responsible for yours. You have no right to demand certain actions from them, nor do they have any right to demand certain actions from you.

This means that they are responsible for their struggles, just as you are responsible for yours.

This means that you often realize that the most loving and compassionate thing you can do for a loved one is to let them deal with their struggles.

The goal of a relationship is not for your partner to solve all of your life’s problems, nor for you to solve all of your partner’s life’s problems.

The goal of a relationship is for each person to support the other unconditionally as they work through their problems together.

Step 3: Always Be Ready to Walk

This comes up in a lot of my email responses, and it often surprises people.

But a relationship is only as strong as each person is willing to walk away. Notice that I didn’t say willing to walk away, but willing to walk away. Every healthy relationship requires a loving but firm “no” from time to time. Otherwise, nothing will ever change because there is no reason to change.

A wise friend told me years ago that after two divorces, the most important lesson he learned was that “the quickest way to kill a relationship is to take each other for granted.”

A relationship isn’t a commitment, it’s a choice we make every day. It’s a choice that says, “The intimacy we share is better for me than my gratification.” It’s a choice that recognizes that the short-term costs are worth the long-term benefits. It’s a choice to appreciate what brought you together in the first place. And then to let that keep you together.