7 reasons people cheat

Text: Karen Khng
Photos: Getty Images

Jill emailed Ethan when she found him on Facebook. They've reminisced the past and it's getting a little heavy. She hasn't told him she's attached and not sure she wants to. Meanwhile, Sian and Sean were old college pals but there was always an undercurrent of mutual attraction. Years later, Sean got in touch and they've picked up where they left off. Their emails have become increasingly suggestive. They both belong to someone else but Sian now wonders if they should meet. And just last week, the world found out that Kristen Stewart cheated on Robert Pattinson with her Snow White and the Huntsman director Rupert Saunders, who is married with two children.

Cheating is no laughing matter. Statistics estimate that some 40 per cent of females and 60 per cent of males become unfaithful at some point in their relationship. It also guesstimates that 2-3% of all children are by products of infidelity. Given infidelity's clandestine nature, actual numbers are unattainable. But research indicates that infidelity is rising and becoming popular with people from all walks of life, regardless of their legal status.

Infidelity vs monogamy
Traditionally, infidelity meant someone fell out of love with someone else. But in reality, infidelity has little to do with love. It usually pinpoints to unmet needs and how one or both persons are unable or choose not to fill that gap. While some resolutely believe monogamy should be a way of life, others believe it's against our biological nature to be sexually and emotionally exclusive to one partner over an extended period of time. Some biologists even say we're biologically predisposed to be unfaithful, and that given certain conditions, we will all cave and have affairs that destroy what was valuable to us in the first place.