Mr. & Mrs. Cheat

BanguIzai SG

Are men truly professionals at the cheating game or are women the (af)fairer sex? Hidayah Salamat looks beyond the statistics.

Let’s play a game of Taboo, shall we? Jack Neo, Tiger Woods, Jude Law, Jesse James, John Terry—have you guessed it already? If you guessed “cheating,” “scandals,” “affairs” or anything else related to the dastardly topic of infidelity, you’re right. Unless you’re currently serving time (hell, even word gets around in there) or participating in the gazillionth season of Survivor, you should be the slightest bit aware of, if not very familiar with some of the biggest names in the celebrity cheat sheet. In fact, we are willing to bet that the mere mention of our dear local director will probably set off some alarms in your head. Neo and his more famous Hollywood male counterparts have made headlines at home and all over the world with their tales of deceit and scandal while news of natural disasters and the unpredictable economy have taken a back seat. Somebody please blow the whistle on the whole dramatic press conference shebang; it’s getting old. Did you notice that all the celeb cheats we mentioned (plus some more you can Google real quick) are males? Can we assume then that men are more likely to cheat on their partners than women? If so, does that make them better cheats? We thought of something even more fun than assuming; we went to find out.

The Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE) has reported that out of the 400 infidelity-rated cases they have received through their helpline over the past year, 97 percent cite men as the culprits. Sounds like the men are kicking arse right? Well, don’t be so quick to judge. “More men than women cheat, for sure,” reveals Associate Professor Norman Li of the Singapore Management University’s School of Social Sciences. “The statistics have confirmed that. It’s generally two to five times more likely for men to cheat on their spouses than women but that’s not to say that women aren’t cheating.”
Damien*, 29, can testify to this. “I was dating this girl for about six months when I decided to meet up with an old friend from school. Naturally the conversation led to the girls we were dating. Turned out there was only one girl and we were both dating her.”

“Since the beginning of time, men have proliferated by finding different mates. In this way, the genes that cause men to be more sexually promiscuous get spread throughout and all of a sudden, thousands of generations of men have a higher desire for sex,” says Professor Li.
Many men find it impossible to fulfil their desires with just one woman and look elsewhere for sexual variety. They aren’t necessarily attached to a new partner and can have sex with someone new without knowing anything about them, including their name. The reason why men cheat isn’t rocket science. Many women spend all their lives deciphering “mixed messages” when it comes to figuring men out but the message is simple—men are superficial. “A study showed that when men were exposed to pictures of attractive women for five minutes, they later began to feel dissatisfied with their partners,” Professor Li explains.
Men have less of a moral problem with “shopping around” for a new partner as compared to women. To them, this is just an issue of sexual dalliance. In most cases, men who cheat don’t do so with the intention of replacing their wives.
It is evident that the first humans OK-ed the idea of multiple sex partners. But according to Professor Li, “Men who allowed sexual transgressions naturally never gave birth to their own kids and died out. Today’s men react more violently and get more upset than women do when they are cheated on. In fact, up till about 30 years ago in the US, it was legal for a husband to murder his spouse if she had committed adultery.” In fact, an article in UK newspaper The Times discovered that several American states used to have statutes that allowed men to kill adulterous wives without fear of prosecution. These were only abolished in the 1970s. But even now, there are remnants of this loophole in the law.
“You only need to look at the papers to see that men who are discovered to have committed crimes of passion with regards to an adulterous spouse tend to be given more leniency in court. In fact, it almost seems like an excuse they use for murder,” observes Juliyanti Jalil, a former executive for the Centre for Caregivers of the Asian Women’s Welfare Organization (AWWA). “Men deem sexual infidelity more hurtful than emotional betrayal. Watching their spouse fall for someone else is without a doubt, a hundred times less painful than watching their spouse have sex with another man. It is unforgivable,” she elaborates.

While men are sexual deviants, women rarely look for new partners to satisfy their sexual urges. Says Professor Li, “Women have developed a different mentality over time because when they were randomly having sex, they found themselves pregnant and having to support their child without help from the men because they just took off. The women today are descendants of the women who generally became more careful about whom they select as mates. They tend to look for mates who can invest in them.” So, women are born opportunists; they’re only interested in affairs to remember and that have much to offer.
Professor Li cites a study similar to the one conducted on men, in which women become dissatisfied with their partners after reading stories about successful men. “They’re thinking how there are all these other people out there and they start to wonder why they’re with this one person.”
“Many of the women we’ve spoken to cite loss of income as a reason for deviating from their husbands. They feel like they’re not being supported financially. We also have women sharing about their men being emotionally unstable so they look for another guy who can support them emotionally,” reports Corinna Lim, Executive Director of AWARE. It’s very rare for a woman to say she did it because she felt horny and wanted more options in terms of sex; that’s more a male thing to say.
Unlike men, women who find someone better equipped to provide for them may leave her partner altogether. Johnson*, 32, had been married to his ex for close to two years before she started seeing someone else. “We were trying to have children and by the second year of trying, we had both become so exhausted we stopped having sex altogether,” Johnson explains. “On some nights we didn’t even talk much; we just went to bed. Even if we did talk, we’d end up quarrelling. It became such a chore to spend time with each other. One day, on my way home from work, I saw a man drop her off at the car park. I asked her about it but she kept quiet. She didn’t even bother explaining. We ended up fighting about stupid things I can’t even remember now. After a while, things got out of hand. Friends were coming up to me asking me what was going on after they’d seen her with the same man a few times in public. Of course I was angry. I kept demanding that she explain herself. I even confronted the guy after finding out who he was. He said he’d stop seeing her, but eventually, she left me. She said she had grown tired of me being so detached from our marriage and ignoring her all the time. She wouldn’t even listen to reasoning, not even from her parents. They have since gotten married and now have a kid.”

Let’s face it; women are better liars than men. Studies leading to this discovery have even led to the publishing of the book Little White Lies, Deep Dark Secrets: The Truth About Women and Deception by Susan Shapiro Barash, where the author cites an online survey of 500 women in her assertion that women lie about everything—love, sex, money and even plastic surgery. In the book, Barash also reveals that women lie better than men, or are just cleverer about it. Her assertions created an uproar and have been fodder for talk shows.
As men are more prone to acting drastically upon a cheating spouse, women have to take extra care in covering up their tracks. This is not the case with men as women are more forgiving towards cases of sexual transgression; the mindset is that as long as he invests, it’s all good.
When women cheat, chances are their partners are the last to know. And when they do find out, it doesn’t usually come right from the horse’s mouth. Max*, 25, reveals, “She was pretty much what I fell for throughout. If it wasn’t for the dude cluing me in, I probably wouldn’t have known—ever. It was only afterwards that I started noticing little weird things here and there that I thought nothing of before. She was (and probably is) pretty damn good at hiding shit. In fact, she still remains sketchy about the whole affair.” Still not convinced? The late Farrah Fawcett of Charlie’s Angels fame reportedly cheated on long-term partner Ryan O’Neal for over 10 years. And we only heard about this after her passing. Ryan denies this adamantly but then again, who wouldn’t?
Women are also aware of the material consequences of infidelity in marriages. “Usually, when women come to us, we determine first what they want to achieve, be it grounds for divorce, the husband’s assets or custody of the children,” explains Jaycee Choy, Project Manager of private investigation company JP Knights Consultancy Pte Ltd. “Most women already know about the affair and just want to make sure they don’t end up with nothing.” So you better believe that if she’s the one doing the cheating, she’d have exercised a bit of damage control first to make sure she doesn’t end up high and dry.

So it all boils down to one thing: While statistics confirm men still cheat more often than women, the (af)fairer sex is much smarter about it. Not only are they lying about every little thing, including stuff they don’t need to lie about, they are also capable of maintaining the lie for as long as they need to.
While having a natural affinity for distorting or hiding facts is one of the reasons why women are better at cheating, it isn’t the only one. “A woman’s intuition is a very strong and admired quality,” explains Ilinadiah Ismail, a family counselor for a voluntary welfare organization and a psychology major from SMU. “We can sense when something is about to happen and are able to pre-empt an outcome to a situation, which makes it easier for us to exercise damage control. We tend to see what needs to be hidden and hide it before it is found, and try not to put ourselves in situations where our credibility may be compromised. Women are also known to be excellent multi-taskers. We perform many roles in society and can easily hide behind each role we play in order to throw off any suspicions.”
Also, women are perceived to be very emotional so even if a cheating wife does express some emotion due to her guilt, her behavior is not seen as being out of the ordinary and does not arouse suspicion. “It makes women sound so manipulative and yet, to us, it’s only natural,” Ismail explains further.
This makes us wonder. Could it be possible that women are cheating more than men but they’re so good at manipulating facts that it never shows in the statistics? Who knows? Maybe nobody ever will. After all, the one charm about marriage or a relationship is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties, or so says Oscar Wilde.

*Not real names

When entering into a new relationship, it is important to know where to draw the line between cheating and normal social behavior. It may be normal for you, but it could be a deal‑breaker for your partner. Go through this list together and mark the ones that you both feel constitute cheating so that you’re on the same page.

Your intuition tells you something’s up but you don’t know when to speak up. Here are some tell-tale signs your partner is probably cheating on you and that you’re not just being paranoid.

1. You have significantly less sex or stop having sex altogether.

2. She comes home one day looking all dolled up when she’s usually plainly dressed, claiming she’s been doing makeovers at her girlfriend’s. Unless your wife is 15 (which makes you a criminal), that’s probably not the case.

3. When your man stops trying to make you laugh, or when your wife stops laughing at your jokes.

4. He/she brings the phone everywhere; even to the toilet and claims it’s for playing Tap Tap. Yeah, right.

5. You find tickets to movies you’ve never gone to see. In most cases though, spouses become immediately suspicious the moment they see movie tickets lying around. When was the last time you actually went to a movie together anyway?

6. There is an increase in credit card bills. Note the restaurants your partner goes to.

7. Whenever you think you’ve got sufficient evidence (we recommend hiring a professional investigator) to wring the bastard/bitch dry of all his/her assets.

If you’ve both gone through the nitty-gritty and decide that the marriage is worth saving, the marriage counsellors at AWARE are unanimous in saying that your best bet is to stop making excuses and get down to it. “Many couples say they have no time to work on their relationship. But you see, there are no shortcuts. If you want the marriage to work, make the time. Find the time to talk—like when the football match is not on, when the kids are not doing their homework, and when both of you are alone.”
What about romance? Screw romance. “You know what women are going to say if we mention date night?” asks one counsellor. “They’re going to say, ‘I don’t want a date night, I just want him to bloody do the dishes! I just want him to look around the house and see what needs to be done.’ Taken for granted is a common problem for both men and women.”
So if you want your marriage to work, forget flowers and expensive presents (though no one will say no to these, we’re sure). Try being considerate (gasp!).