It may also be a symptom associated with certain personality disorders, including narcissistic, histrionic, antisocial, and borderline personality disorders. Finally, people with substance use disorders may be more inclined to cheat when they're under the influence.
What Mental Illnesses Cause Cheating? Someone who struggles with insecure attachments from childhood trauma, for example, may have issues with infidelity, because they fear commitment. Someone with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) or ADHD may also struggle to remain faithful due to impulsivity.
Research in the field of infidelity reveals that there are three distinct personality types correlated with a higher likelihood of cheating: sociopaths, narcissists, and lonely hearts.
Poor mental health can lead to a lack of self-control and a need for intimacy. These may drive someone to cheat on their partner, especially when they are suffering from a nervous collapse. While mental illness can make maintaining a steady relationship difficult, it doesn't have to be impossible.
Borderline personality disorder relationships and cheating may occur due to the impulsivity associated with this mental health condition. Recent research has shown people with BPD are more sexually impulsive and likely to engage in risky sexual behavior than those without BPD.
Those who cheat for relationship reasons do so because they don't feel satisfied. "Researchers find that partnerships characterized by dissatisfaction, unfulfilling sex, and high conflict are at higher risk for infidelity," she says.
Those with bipolar disorder may also engage in risky behaviors such as unprotected sex or extramarital affairs while manic. During episodes of depression, your partner may avoid sexual contact altogether.
Because people with BPD often have very intense emotions, they may act impulsively and do things that they later regret. This can include cheating on their partner. While there is no sure way to know if someone with BPD is cheating, some signs may indicate that something is going on.
Cheating can be a sign of deep relational issues
A cheater might suffer from extremely low self-esteem and a narcissistic view of seeing things. Some people have a tendency for attention-seeking and once they are satisfied with one person they might go on to another to fulfil their needs and validate themselves.
Myth #5: People with BPD are unsuitable for intimate relationships. Fact: People with BPD have many positive things to contribute to fulfilling relationships. When trust and love has developed within a relationship, people with BPD can show high loyalty and trustworthiness.
BPD affects everyone differently, however; not all people with BPD cheat. But having unstable personal relationships is a hallmark symptom of this condition.
They often feel unloved and unwelcome, and, because of a poor self-image, think badly of themselves whenever something goes wrong. BPD also causes impulsive behaviors and a lack of self-control. Upon feeling abandoned, individuals with BPD may engage in risky behavior, such as gambling or unprotected sex.
Not only is BPD one of the most painful mental illnesses, but it's also intensified by stigma and being misunderstood by others. Fortunately, borderline personality disorder is a treatable condition, and the pain doesn't have to be endless.
Having low self-esteem, feeling unhappy with life or a relationship, trauma, fear, and unhelpful patterns of behavior learned as a kid or in previous relationships could all be reasons why people cheat, says therapist Brianna Brunner, LCSW, owner of Couples Therapy Services.
Depression can influence someone's behavior so greatly that they are compelled to act out of character and cheat on a loved one. However, this is not always the case.
Signs of emotional cheating
You confide in the other person about the intimate details of your relationship troubles. You've become more detached and emotionally disconnected from your partner. You think about the other person all the time. You are less intimate with your partner.
Someone who is a serial cheater often has unresolved childhood trauma stemming from factors like parental abuse, unhealthy attachments, unrealistic relationship expectations, and/or divorce. These may continue to affect how they view relationships, causing them to continue to cheat.
The way people feel about cheating on a spouse or partner can vary. Some feel really bad and truly regret it, others not as much. But no matter how much guilt or remorse a cheating person expresses outwardly, they all feel it inwardly to some extent.
Rejection Sensitivity
People with BPD are very sensitive to rejection. They may lie or exaggerate to cover mistakes or to maintain an overly positive image so that others will not reject them.
It's a technique often used by those with narcissistic and/or borderline personality disorders to deflect any responsibility from themselves.
A person with bipolar disorder can experience the world differently from other people. Inside Bipolar podcast host Gabe Howard, writing on the online community BPHope website, notes that people with bipolar disorder may lie to “fit in,” because expressing their true emotions makes them seem strange to others.
The cause of the infidelity is not so much about the person but about their symptoms, such as poor judgment, lack of impulse control and hypersexuality – all of which are hallmarks of a manic episode.