At some point in all our lives we deal with a cheating boyfriend/girlfriend or spouse. Maybe we have known someone who has been cheated on or has been the cheater. It's the age old question that plagues the mind. Why do people cheat? I knew a man who said his girlfriend was his best friend, but throughout their entire 2 year relationship he cheated on her. Why, not just leave her?
I know of several women and men who have cheated in past relationships. They were at that moment head over heels for their significant other. When I say head over heels I mean the "Hopelessly Devoted" by Olivia Newton-John kinda love. The love you see on the sidewalks and say "OMG get a room!" They say they're happy and utterly in love, but something happens as it always does.
So, why do we do it? Is it our basic primal instinct, is it genetic, or are we simply just bad people?
We were put on this earth to grow and multiply. In an article written by Robert Wright entitled "Devotion and betrayal, marriage and divorce: how evolution shaped human love" he talks about the premises of evolutionary psychology on cheating, it is as he says simple. It states that our ancestors needed to feel hungry to eat and live longer. With sex, feelings of lust were needed to help in reproduction. Because ultimately we were given this gift/burden(depends on your mood) of sex to reproduce and pass on our genes to our children and so on.
Cheating can then be viewed as an aide in reproducing. Be married to one person you put all of your eggs in one basket, and all of your chances for spreading your genes depends on that one person. For a woman it may be a basic instinct to protect herself and future young by always having a plan b, c or however many it may take. As women can only have one child per year, she has to be very picky on what kind of man is to be the father. Is he healthy, smart, strong, and wealthy? Why wealth, who better to provide you and your child with a home, food, and security.
But then what about love?
It could be a little of both, at least I think. There is an attachment, an attraction to someone you sleep with. We feel the need to express our feelings and sex happens to be the best one we come up with. If sex is suppose to be used to populate the earth, then why do we armor when a guy shoots? The key is to get pregnant isn't it? Cheating can get you guests that may never leave. STD's are rapidly spreading, we wear protection, we play russian roulette with our sex lives and ourselves.
Women define sex with love, and men define sex as being a physical need. If what the prior paragraph holds truth, than love came out of the need to have sex in order to reproduce.
Cheating lets us fulfill our soul purpose to evolve, to spread our genes and better the human genetic pool. Love is just an aide. It was and still is a competition, a race on who can get the best looking mate, and our emotions are the dice.
1.
Wright, Robert. "Devotion and betrayal, marriage and divorce: how evolution shaped human love." TIME August 15, 1994
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