June 01, 2015
Money can't buy you love.
A recent study suggests that the more someone is economically dependent on his or her spouse, the more likely he or she is to cheat.
"People don't like to feel dependent on another person," Christin L. Munsch, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Connecticut, told NJ.com. Munsch examined more than 2,750 married people over a 10-year period.
"You would think that people would not want to 'bite the hand that feeds them,' so to speak, but that is not what my research shows."
For example, men who are not the primary breadwinners may feel their masculinity is threatened.
"Engaging in infidelity may be a way of reestablishing threatened masculinity," Munsch told NJ.com. "Simultaneously, infidelity allows threatened men to distance themselves from and perhaps punish, their higher-earning spouses."
Men who are completely dependent on their wives run a 15 percent chance of being unfaithful. That's three times the rate of women in the same situation, five percent of whom cheat.
The study revealed that women are unlikely to have an affair if they primarily support the couple. Those who earn 100 percent of the income are the least likely to cheat.
"The findings indicate people like feeling relatively equal in their relationships," Munsch said.
Read the full report.
