Today, Explained - Why people cheat

Episode Date: May 31, 2026

Our fears about infidelity reveal a lot about us. And so do our reasons for cheating. This episode was produced by Kelli Wessinger and Hady Mawajdeh, edited by Jenny Lawton, fact-checked by Melissa Hirsch, engineered by Bridger Dunnagan, and hosted by Jonquilyn Hill. Jay-Z and Beyonce attend a gala in 2014 in New York. Photo by Kevin Mazur/WireImage. If you have a question, give us a call at 1-800-618-8545 or email [e-mail]. Listen to Explain It to Me ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This program is both dedicated to the faithful and presented to the false-hearted to encourage their renewal of temperance and virtue. Something don't feel right because if a man can cheat on Megan the Stallion, what? A few weeks ago, I was zoning out, scrolling through Instagram, dinner recipes, museum pictures, selfies, and then I saw something that shook me to my core. Cheating. Had me around your whole family playing house, got cold feet, holding you down through all your horrible mood swings and treatment toward me during your basketball season, and now you don't know if you can be monogamous? Rapper Megan the Stallion said her boyfriend basketball player Clay Thompson cheated on her. Bitch, I need a real break after this one. Bye y'all. Next. The group chats activated immediately. My friends and I were stunned, shocked, and then enraged.

The thing is, we don't actually know these people. And it's not the first time I've gotten worked up about a stranger's cheating scandal. Arianna Maddox and Tom Sandoval. Fuck yourself with a fucking cheese grater. Hallie Barry and Eric Bonae. This is the failure of my life. I love this man. And I thought I gave the best I had to give.

Jay-Z and Beyonce. Are you cheating, cheating on me? Even random Reddit situations that may be made up will still definitely. raise my blood pressure. I'm John Glyn Hill, and this week on Explain It to Me from Vox, the lowdown on our strong feelings about infidelity, and how the rules may be changing. So why does cheating piss us off so bad, even when it's not happening to us? That's the question I asked sexologists and dating coach, Maisha Battle.

I think specifically with high-profile couples, it's because we want to see them succeed, or we're excited by the prospect of the drama that unfolds from a cheating story like the Coldplay executive cheating scandal. Oh, look at these two. You're okay? Oh, what? Either they're having an affair or they're just very shy. We quickly want to identify who the villain is, who's been hurt, and then rally around

the person that we want to support in that situation. Often it's very cut and dried. If you cheated, you're a bad person. If you were cheated on, you're a good person. And that's not obviously always the case. But because cheating happens so much, I think that's a really quick assumption that we can make and then kind of jump to our own conclusions and want to jump to the aid of the person who's been cheated on. And then, of course, jump on the person who has cheated. Do we know why people cheat? Is there research on why people do this? That explains this behavior. People cheat for so many reasons. From boredom to insecurity in the relationship, to wanting to exert power or revenge in a relationship. I really love the book, The State of Affairs by Esther Prym. Often, when you are attracted by the gaze of another, it isn't just because you want to leave the person that you are with, but it is because you want to leave the person that you have yourself become. She really talks about the importance of delving into what the cheating meant for the person who cheated.

What did this affair mean for you? Were you thinking about us? Did you hope I would find out? Did you think about the children? and what the impact was on the person who was cheated on. These questions are actually going to calm you and they give you a different sense of power over your life and over your relationship.

If you can't really understand both sides of that and give space and process both, then it's not likely that you're going to get to a happy outcome on the other side of cheating, which is why it is one of the main reasons why people split up. It's a huge fractal. and trust, and to rebuild that means that you have to do the work to understand why did this happen in the first place. Cheating is a choice. Monogamy is a choice. Non-monogamy is a choice.

So when people are making these choices in relationship, they have consequences and you have to be able to have conversations about why and how you repair from that. Yeah, can we talk about the non-monogamy piece? I think especially ethical non-monogamy. It's a phrase that's, you used more and more. It's tossed around quite a bit. Can people who are non-monogamous cheat as well? Oh, yeah. Yes. Because at the core of cheating is betrayal. So when I work with non-monogamous couples or people that are exploring non-monogamy, one of the first things that I do is talk about whether or not they want to create relationship agreements. Some people do. Some people don't. And the people who don't maybe would identify with a more relationship anarchy style of relationship, as opposed to

someone who is wanting something that is very codified and making agreements that people say they're going to adhere to, hey, we're going to be open, but you can only have sex with people who are not in our friend group and only one time, right? That would be an example of having relationship agreements, Whereas relationship anarchy is like, I'm going to do my own thing. We're going to see each other when we see each other. There's some intentionality about that. But it's not necessarily that you have these structures around who can do what with whom. Have you ever been cheated on?

I have been cheated on. Yeah. And actually kind of a similar, I hate to compare myself to Megan the Stallion and Clay Thompson. But this person cheated. were living together. It was uncovered on Valentine's Day. It was pretty rough. And the way that he sort of told me that he had started seeing somebody was by saying, well, I'm not sure if I want monogamy. Right. And so that was a piece that came up in the Megan the Stallion post on Instagram. And I totally related to that. And I do think that there's definitely a person who is trying to

figure out whether they can handle monogamy or non-monogamy, and they find themselves in a situation where, oh, shit, you know, I can't handle monogamy, right? There are people for whom that happens, of course, but are there people that use non-monogamy as an excuse for their behavior? Absolutely. For anyone who's listening, who's going through this, who's gone through this, what are some first steps towards healing? It is a trauma. and I think recognizing it and labeling it as such is a great first step. It's not just something that happened in your relationship. It has an impact on you. It may have an impact on whether the relationship continues. In my case, it was my living situation. You know, I couldn't stay there.

You know, it impacts so many things. And you're feeling all of that in your nervous system. It can create a PTSD response. It can certainly diminish it. your feelings of trust and safety in relationships of all kinds. So really having a lot of support during this time, whether that's family and community that just takes you in, no questions asked, like mind it, or friends saying, you know, I've been through the same thing and whatever you need, let me help, like my friend coming with garbage bags to just dump all my stuff and get me out of the house. Or, you know, starting therapy when you're ready. So yeah, it's, it's, it's sometimes takes a village to get through this. And I think that's actually really important to

remember because most people will feel shame having gone through this experience. I think on both sides, you know, if you're not a complete monster, you do feel ashamed of being a cheater on some level. And that is an opportunity for healing as well. So I don't want to forget those folks that like it's important to think about why you did what you did and what help you can get to make sure that you don't inflict that harm on other partners in the future. I think for a long time, the definition of cheating has been pretty straightforward. Oh, you're dating someone who is not your partner. You're having sex with someone who is not your partner. But I think the internet and our online lives have even shaped infidelity

differently. Has the definition of cheating changed? The definition hasn't changed. I think that is still very much aligned with what we expect. It's a betrayal. It's a romantic betrayal, but the mode has changed, the modes, I guess I should say. And things that we don't even really think about because they're so second nature to us, specifically related to technology, can cause issues in relationship. And that's why I'm a big proponent of people talking about what their definition of monogamy is. If that's your expectation, I think now more than ever, it's important to talk about what it means to have fidelity in your relationship so that you can then define infidelity with a partner. So, you know, everything from following X's on social media to maybe you had some subscriptions to OnlyFans before you got into a committed relationship, what do you do with those?

do you continue? Is that okay? In some relationships, it would be fully above board, and in others, it will not be. And so if you continue those behaviors and your partner finds out, that may be something that leads to feelings of betrayal. So you can avoid that by being honest and having a conversation about, hey, this is what monogamy means to me. These are the things that are really important for me to feel trust and safety in the relationship. What about you? The definition of monogamy is changing, and so is the definition of cheating. That's next. Support for this show comes from Quince. You make difficult choices each and every day, so why does your outfit need to be one of them? Instead, you can try effortless, comfortable, sleek, and well-put-t together clothes

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code explained. For a free welcome kit, five free travel sachets plus 10% off your order, I-M8health.com slash explained. Code explained. These statements have not been by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. I'm JQ. Back with Moore. Explain it to me. Okay, so I told my friends I was working on this episode about cheating and all the different ways people define it. And I was like, can you believe some people think liking an Instagram story counts as infidelity? They weren't shocked at all. In fact, a few of them thought

I was being naive. To get fact-checked there, I called up Zoe You. She's about a decade younger than me, and she recently pinned an article about something called micro-cheating for the Atlantic. Just like regular cheating, micro-cheating is sort of nebulous and really hard to pin down, because what goes for cheating in, like, one relationship

might not actually count as cheating in another one. And I think it's very much, dependent on the two people in the relationship to litigate what the, you know, proper boundaries of behavior are. One person might think that flirting with someone over text is cheating. Another person might not. And this varies, I think, a lot from relationship to relationship. So is it purely digital thing? It's not purely digital. But I think also just because of how tech-driven a lot of our relationships now, are. A lot of these small behaviors that might constitute a breach in like the exclusivity of a

relationship are very much digital. So this can mean having a online dating account or subscribing to someone's only fans. And then there are these emerging very little behaviors like hitting like on someone's Instagram posts or, you know, sliding up on someone's story. Sliding up on a story? Sliding up on someone's story. And I think this is like something that as someone who's like firmly in like the Gen Z cohort, I was explaining to like one of my older millennial friends

just how much meaning that is effused into something as tiny as a story like where a lot of Gen Ziers and even my friends like will sit around and be like What does it mean that he liked my story? Like what does it mean that he like slid up? and responded with so-and-so emoji. And I think it's because a lot of the times, the first ways that we were, like, socialized with each other, at least in, like, the Gen Z demographic,

was actually through, like, tech. You know, okay, it's interesting, because on one hand, I think it's very easy to sort of roll your eyes that, like, really, you think liking a story, you think liking a profile. But, you know, I'm not above. You see someone cute and you're like, let me go back to that post from like a year ago, hit like and, you know, see what's happening.

You know, I think we've all received the like little looking sideways emoji on a cute story on a picture of ourselves we posted. But it also seems like a lot to track. Does this mean people are tracking their partner's likes and other online activity? Yeah, I think like one defining feature of microcheting is how one-sided it is, where people are very much in an investigative mindset, where you have all of these reels where girls are like, ladies, if he liked another woman's pose, it's because he liked what he saw.

It's about respect. You're saying not only to me, but to the world, I think this girl's hot and I'm letting her know. You have no sexual discipline that you can. can't control your desires, that what you have is not enough, they're always seeking for more. That's a weak show of character. What's really interesting about microcheting is that people are attempting to assign meaning to something that is actually a lot more complex. And I don't deny there is information that

you can glean from someone's online behavior in the way that they present themselves publicly on a profile. But also, the human reality is, you know, much more complicated and much more hairy. And I think one aspect of microcheting is that it sort of boils down all of the human contradictions and irregularities and things that you might understand about a person into these very reductive data points. What's interesting is that the entire premise

of microcheting is sort of couched on the assumption that if you snoop and you find something, this is kind of like uncorrupted evidence. Yeah, how much of this is actually less about the relationship itself and more about embarrassment? Like, everything is very public facing. And I think of conversations with my friends where it's just like, I really like this guy. I hope he doesn't embarrass me. I don't know.

It feels like... It's like a Sabrina Carpenter song, right? Yes. Please, please, please. You might not actually object to your boyfriend liking some girls' post. What you actually might be concerned about is the message. that it's sending to this person, given the social meaning that we've now assigned collectively to likes and comments and follows.

And so you might not actually think, oh, like, my boyfriend might be attracted to this person because he's following her on Instagram. And it might actually be the fear that, like, how is this going to reflect on me? How is this going to embarrass me? And how is it going to affect the way that other people see my relationship and whether or not, my significant other is sufficiently loyal. Is it possible to have a full online life without microcheating? I mean, is it reasonable to expect people not to post or share memes or do whatever it is we do online if we also want to be in a relationship?

I think the bar for exclusivity has gotten inordinately high to the point where people are demanding an exclusivity of emotion. of attraction. And you can't actually like share a laugh or share the private moment with anyone outside of this romantic relationship, which is supposed to be at the center of your life. And I think this is actually super damaging because it sort of closes off all of these really, really great relationships, friendships, friendships that are outside of a romantic concept, but you can't really reach for if you think that, you know, every kind of small behavior might be potentially suspect. Dang, does this mean that, like, in order to find love,

I'm going to have to stop commenting, need that on Michael B. Jordan's Instagram photos. Like... In my opinion, by all means, go ahead. This might vary from person to person. The reasons we fear cheating reveal a lot about us. So do the reasons we cheat. Up next, the other side of the story. In Toronto, every arrival is a statement,

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That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair.cair, every style, every home. This is explained it to me. I'm JQ. We asked you for your stories about cheating,

and we heard from a listener named Vicky Etchison, who navigated infidelity with her husband. I had been married at that point for about 25 years. Wasn't an amazing marriage, but it wasn't terrible. My husband at the time was a good man and an excellent father. But, yeah, we just had a lot of tricky things happening in our lives. My mother-in-law and nephew had just moved in with us because of an unexpected death in the family. My mom was very sick, and I was a caregiver for her.

her. We had one child that was getting ready to graduate high school and move out of state, and another one that was navigating the nightmare that is middle school. And on top of all that, we were having some financial issues. And so I was already working in a homeless shelter, and I had to add a part-time job at a, like, just a retail job on top of that. That job turned out to be an escape. It was like every time she clocked in, she was walking into a different world. I made some friends, and there was one woman in particular that I started hanging out with a lot after work.

And when I would hang out with her, you know, we didn't talk about dying parents or teenage children or financial struggles. We gossiped about our coworkers, and we, you know, complained about customers. Eventually, that friendship grew beyond work. We had been friends for four or five months, and we'd gotten to a place where we were doing things like snuggling while we were watching movies. And she would massage my shoulders when my neck was hurting. And I think if she had been a man, these would have been huge red flags for me. But she was a woman.

And at that point, I had no idea that I was gay. Like, it had never occurred to me to even consider it. Like, I was married to a man. And so none of those things were red flags to me. And then eventually the snuggling just became more and more until it became a sexual relationship. How did that relationship make you feel when you were in it? Yeah, it's a tough question. It's hard to say how I felt in the moment out loud.

because in the moment, it felt really good. I felt desired, but at the same time I was able, my brain was completely relaxed. And honestly, I didn't feel the pain of it until, like, only two months into the affair part of things, my ex-husband found out and confronted me with it all of the pain and the guilt and the reality of what was. happening hit me just like a tidal wave all at once. I was just in a panic. Because as stressful as my life was, I just felt like now I'm going to lose everything. I'm going to lose my kids and I'm going to lose my job.

And he was my best friend. Like we grew up as young adults together. He was, yeah, it was absolutely terrifying to me. But ultimately, I knew that I was never going to be content in a sexual relationship with a man again. And he knew right away that it was not just the infidelity that caused everything. But he knew that he wasn't ever going to get that trust back. And so we just knew that it just wasn't going to be worth trying to hold on to. I want to thank you for sharing this. You know, it sounds, it sounds so hard because there's this

relationship. You're also finding out more about yourself and your sexuality. You know, you're dealing with family. What's the aftermath been like for you? Probably about the first year was really rough. I lost a lot of relationships. My sister was very close to my ex-husband and her two children were very close to him. And so they cut me out. And my children were really upset. But now, you know, it's seven years later, almost eight years later. And I have rebuilt most of the relationships. Things are great with my kids. And even my ex-husband now is with a woman that can actually appreciate the fact that he likes to work out all the time, which I never could. And we're still good friends. You know, we're getting

ready to plan our daughter's college graduation together and we, you know, put together our son's 21st birthday. So we're still doing all of the big events together. And Vicki fell in love again too with another woman. Three years ago, they got married. But she still struggles to forgive herself for what happened. I still feel the guilt of it, honestly, every day. Why do you think that is. I don't know. Because there's like if something happens to the kids or even to my ex-husband, I feel like if I wouldn't have done this, if I wouldn't have had the affair, this wouldn't be happening. You know, the kids wouldn't be struggling with whatever it is. I just, I take that guilt on and blame it on me having the affair and I know that it's not real, but I just, I can't seem to

let go of it and I've been through therapy for years, but my brain just wants to keep going back to, but if you wouldn't have done this, this bad thing wouldn't have happened. Definitely, if I could go back and do it again, I wouldn't do it that way. I would have some hard conversations, but also both of our lives are in a much better place now than they would have been if we would have kept trudging through. And that's our show. We're doing an episode about the joys of home maintenance. Is there something you tried to fix and you wish you didn't?

How's that TikTok tutorial working out for you? Tell us about it. 1-800-61848-8545 or email AskVox at Vox.com. Also, a quick plug. If you like what you hear, consider becoming a Vox member. You get perks like ad-free podcasts, and you get to help us make the show. Head over to Vox.com slash members to learn more. This episode was produced by Kelly Wessinger and Hattie Milwaukee.

It was edited by Ginny Lawton and fact-checked by Melissa Hirsch with engineering by Bridger Dunigan. Our executive producer is Miranda Kennedy, and I'm your host, John Bullent Hill. Thank you so much for listening. Talk to you soon. Bye!