Broadly defined, an intergenerational pattern is a belief that is passed from one generation to the next. It can range from something fairly simple and benign, such as, we always eat turkey on Thanksgiving, to something far more complex and devastating, such as, we do not speak of the incest that occurs in this family. The understanding and discussion of intergenerational trauma and epigenetics has exploded over the last few years (thank goodness). 

Like anything else, infidelity carries its own set of beliefs, which begs the question, what is the intergenerational nature of infidelity? There have been few studies done on how infidelity is replicated through generations. This post will summarize these studies. 

For a more detailed look at three of these, check out my In Plain English blog series, where I endeavor to summarize each study in simple terms. Specifically, check out Platt’s 2008 study, as well as Weiser’s in 2015 and 2017.

The biggest takeaway

Children who grow up with knowledge of their parents' infidelity are twice as likely to cheat in their own romantic relationships.

Why?

To answer this question, researchers looked at many aspects of the family. Specifically:

• Parental infidelity

• Parent relationship status (married, separated, divorced)

• How much the parents fought

• How happy were the parents together?

• The role of the child’s own beliefs about infidelity

• The role of the child’s trust and confidence in their own adult relationship

Here is what they found:

Parent infidelity plays the biggest role

Compared to both conflict between parents and relationship status (meaning, parents are together, separated, or divorced), parent infidelity is the greatest predictor of a child’s future infidelity behavior. What does this mean? A child can grow up with parents who fight a lot, and/or parents who divorce, but neither of these predict that a child will cheat as concretely as parent infidelity does.

Parent happiness plays a surprisingly large role

As compared to parent conflict, a child’s perception of their parents’ happiness with their relationship played a larger role. That is, children who cheated on their own partner were more likely to report that their parents were unhappy together. 

A BElief that Cheating is Wrong does not Stop the Cheating

A child who grows up with cheating parents may well grow up to believe that cheating is wrong. They may find a partnership in which they have great trust, and they may feel that they are good at relationships.

Statistically, they are still twice as likely to cheat. 

These studies found that a belief that infidelity is wrong does almost nothing to stop people from cheating. Researchers also found that trusting in a partner and believing in the relationship also does not mitigate the cheating. 

How can this be?

Researchers do not know for sure. But they did make some pretty good guesses, based on these studies. Parent infidelity sends memorable messages to kids about the acceptability of infidelity. Additionally, and equally important, are the messages that kids learn about family communication when the family is in conflict (such as when an affair comes to light). These are internalized and used to form the kids’ belief system about relationships even if they are not conscious of them. 

What do we do with all of this information?

There is still plenty to be studied about the intergenerational nature of infidelity, particularly, as I said in the last paragraph, how the experience of parent infidelity impacts the child’s own love relationships.

For now, it is important to keep in mind that there is a link, and approach family healing with this link in mind. Perhaps the answer to treating infidelity on a large scale lies less with the couple, and more with the kids.