In other words, if the cheated-on take longer to start new relationships than cheaters do, as intuitively seems likely, the study will be more likely to capture a dissolved relationship through an interview with the cheated-on party than with the cheating party
As I mulled Frisco’s response, two limitations of the Add Health data struck me as particularly important. First, as she implied, there can be delays between 1) cheating, 2) getting caught, and 3) getting dumped-so cheaters interviewed before the final step may have reported doomed relationships as “intact,” whereas the study’s cheated-on respondents by definition had reached at least Step 2.
Second, cheaters interviewed after Step necessary hyperlink 3 may also have reported intact relationships, and may not have identified themselves as cheaters at all, so long as they promptly took up with someone else when the relationship ended-recall, the questions pertain only to respondents’ current or most recent union
- Cohabiting relationships were much more likely to break up with the other variables held constant-a whopping 12 times,2 in fact, for both men and women. Bear in mind, though, that these are the relationships of 24 to 32-year-olds.
- For women, each sexual partner in adolescence or early adulthood corresponded to a 3 percent increased chance of relationship dissolution. There was no effect for men: Forget about statistical significance; the result was 0.00.
- In the preceding wave of the survey (when they were 18 to 26 years old), the respondents overwhelmingly rated fidelity as important. On a scale of 1 to 10, the average was above 9.5 for both men and women. It’s possible that these young adults’ attitudes changed in the intervening years, though: In a recent YouGov survey when asked what kind of relationship they’d like, 23 percent of Americans under 30 chose one on the “non-monogamous” side of the spectrum (4-6 on a scale running from 0-6). Continue reading