How to Screen Out a Cheater (feat. Traits of Men Who Are Likely to Cheat)

Traits of men who cheat!

Knowing just these can help you spot a likely cheater before you ever get married.

To be honest, there are quite a few people who see these signs and pretend not to, or who start dating without knowing them at all.

I'm writing this piece in the hope that you, at least, will catch them early and build a stable relationship that carries all the way through to marriage.

First, a quick introduction (a little late, I know): I'm a counselor at a company with data from thousands of dating and relationship-recovery counseling sessions.

Through those sessions I've encountered all kinds of cases, including affairs and cheating, and I've been able to identify the traits you really need to check in order to screen out people who are likely to cheat.

First, the work environment.

How likely is a dentist to cheat?

Those of you preparing for marriage: you do know which professions carry a high probability of cheating, right?

Sadly, the reality is that most people never fact-check something this important. They come in having been introduced through a matchmaking agency simply because the guy is a "professional" or because his specs look good.

Looking at specs when it comes to marriage? Of course, that should be the very first thing you look at.

But at some point, the idea took hold that if you look at specs, you have to give up on character and affection.

Why do we start out assuming we have to make such absurd compromises to meet the person we'll spend our whole life with?

No one wants to end up with someone who will divorce them or cheat on them just because he has a good job.

For example, the probability of a dentist cheating in the course of his work is as high as 75%.

Of course, concluding that every dentist cheats would be a hasty generalization.

The reason I'm bringing up this number is the "environment."

That 75% figure was derived simply by looking at the ratio of men to women working together.

So while I used dentists as the example, you can infer that male flight attendants, another job with a similarly skewed gender ratio among coworkers, are just as exposed to an environment where cheating is easy.

You can also infer that in a workplace with a lopsided gender ratio, it's usually the members of the minority gender who are more exposed to the temptation to cheat.

In fact, setting gender ratios aside, most affairs reportedly happen at "work," simply because that's the space where men and women spend their days together.

That doesn't mean we should conclude that whenever men and women are together, someone is bound to cheat.

It just means these environmental factors can raise the odds of cheating, so we need to be able to anticipate and prepare for the possibility.

Second, working hours.

Depending on the nature of the job, some professions don't have fixed hours, or involve so much business travel that it's hard to pin down when someone starts and finishes work.

Quite a few people exploit these kinds of schedules to cheat.

If work ends early, they simply don't mention it, which makes it easy to set up a meeting,

and since they travel for work, it's easy to meet someone at the destination, too.

They know their situation well and have the excuse of "going to work," so when they're suspected,

they often get angry instead, or paint the person suspecting them as paranoid.

In cases like this, rather than reacting emotionally the way they do, you need to be able to wait until you catch the "opportunity" to actually prove the cheating.

Unless you present evidence or circumstances they can't refute, they will obviously deny it to the very end.

Third, the man's income level.

This one may surprise you: when a woman earns two to three times more than her partner, the probability of him cheating goes up.

Why is that?

It's usually a problem faced by highly educated, high-earning women, but many men simply don't feel much attraction toward a woman who is more capable than they are.

When his income falls below hers, his sense of fulfilling the role of provider in the family drops sharply, and that creates a feeling of lack.

To fill that void, he becomes even more drawn to women with a lower income than his, or women who look up to him.

Stay-at-home dads in particular are said to have a lot of affairs through kindergarten drop-off and pick-up, since it gives them regular, frequent contact with other parents.

So far we've walked through the traits of men who cheat.

If the person you're seeing fits any of the above and his recent behavior has been bothering you, I'd recommend sitting down and giving it some serious thought at least once.

Think your partner may already be cheating but don't know what to do?

Or want to screen out that kind of person before you even start dating?

Then I recommend getting expert help through the diagnosis questionnaire below!