It's devastating to discover that your partner is a cheater, but unfortunately, it happens more often than we'd like to believe. According to 2016 survey by YouGov, around one in five people say they have cheated on at least one partner. There are countless reasons why people decide to stray, and it's impossible to know for sure if your partner could betray you, but research has found that there are some common traits among cheaters. In fact, one study found that men with one money habit are five times more likely to cheat: If you're financially supporting your partner, you might want to keep an eye out.
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A 2010 study presented at the 105th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association found that the more economically dependent a man is on his female partner, the more likely he is to cheat on her.
Study author Christin Munsch, PhD, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Connecticut, examined data for more than 1,000 men and 1,500 women aged 18 to 28, who were either married or cohabitating with the same partner for at least a year. She found that the men who were completely dependent on their female partner's income were five times more likely to cheat than men who contributed an equal amount of money to the relationship.
At the same time, men who made significantly more than their partners were also more likely to cheat. A man was least likely to cheat when his income was higher than his partner's, but his partner still made around 75 percent of that income.
"At one end of the spectrum, making less money than a female partner may threaten men's gender identity by calling into question the traditional notion of men as breadwinners," Munsch said. "At the other end of the spectrum, men who make a lot more money than their partners may be in jobs that offer more opportunities for cheating like long work hours, travel, and higher incomes that make cheating easier to conceal."
Women who were more financially dependent on their male partners were not more likely to cheat, on the other hand. "For women, economic dependency seems to have the opposite effect: The more dependent they are on their male partners, the less likely they are to engage in infidelity," Munsch said in a statement.
According to the study, women who were completely dependent on their male partner's income were 50 percent less likely to cheat than women who made the same amount of money as their partner. Meanwhile women who made most or all of the income household were 75 percent less likely to cheat on their partner.
"For women, making less money than a male partner is not threatening, it is the status quo," Munsch explained in a statement. "More importantly, economically dependent women may encounter fewer opportunities to cheat, and they may make a calculated decision that cheating just isn't worth it."
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