Participate in the Largest Infidelity Study Ever
Make your chump voice heard and join the largest infidelity study ever! Where’s all the data on cheating and the likelihood of successful reconciliation? We’re about to FIND OUT, thanks to the University of Texas at Austin’s Study on Relationship Dynamics.
If you attended Chumpalooza in 2023, you might have met presenter Dr. Lauretta Reeves. She is a developmental psychology professor at the University of Texas. Her research team will look at how infidelity affects relationships. We’ve been waiting for this kind of deep dive for ages.
What are you saying Tracy? That Ashley Madison research isn’t cutting edge, peer reviewed science?
Yes. Imagine a study about infidelity that isn’t a sample of 100 male college students, or a questionnaire put to married daters about their happiness.
We need you, Chump Nation!
Do me a solid and take time out of your busy life to take this survey. I know marketers spam you daily about surveys. You can’t so much as buy a can of tunafish without getting survey about your tunafish satisfaction. But this research is in service of chump understanding and science!
I’m now handing over the blog reins to the University of Texas at Austin’s Study on Relationship Dynamics.
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Take the Relationship Survey
- Have you been married/cohabitating for at least one year?
- Are you divorced or broken up from a relationship that lasted at least a year?
- Did your partner/spouse cheat on you?
- Did you reconcile?
- Or decide to end the relationship because of the cheating?
Are you interested in contributing to research on relationship dynamics based on your relationship experience? We’re looking for participants for a survey about relationship dynamics of couples who fit one of the following categories:
- Married or cohabiting couples (no known infidelity)
- Married or cohabitating couples who reconciled after infidelity (still together)
- Married or cohabiting couples whose breakup/divorce was due to infidelity
- Married or cohabiting couples whose breakup/divorce was NOT due to infidelity
All data are CONFIDENTIAL.
We do not require names, and surveys can be taken anonymously.
You must be 18 years or older, and answer the questionnaire about a relationship in which you are/were cohabiting or married for at least 1 year.
How can you participate?
Click the link to our webpage OR Facebook page for instructions on how best to participate:
or
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Chump Lady here again. Your Friday Challenge this weekend is to find some quiet time in your hectic gain-a-life mightiness to help Dr. Reeves out. We know infidelity is abuse and that leaving cheaters leads to better life outcomes. But let’s put the muscle of academic research behind our collective experience. Viva la revolution!
Dr. Reeves,
I’m in!!!
Thank you for doing this important research to publicize and acknowledge the trauma that we have all been through. 👍👏
Your presentations at Chumpalooza were amazing and I felt so supported knowing we aren’t alone.
Is there a direct link to the survey that I might share with my non-Facebook friends?
Yes, I posted both links. The direct link is https://sites.utexas.edu/relationshipdynamicslab/
Just requested the link to participate in this Study! Thanks so much for making us aware of this & providing the links. Love to all as we ForgeOn! to more & more MIghtiness
I will gladly participate. There should be more studies like this.
On completion of the survey, will Mr. Chump Lady use his connections to score me tickets to the Texas~Oklahoma game at the Cotton Bowl in October…..or do I have to watch it on TV for the 50th time like all Broke Chumps?
LOL. The man has no such connections, but if he did, he’d be there. I guess you’ll both have to watch on TV and eat brisket and do manly Texas things.
Far too much research on “why they cheat” and far too little on how infidelity affects the duped.
Many thanks for this, Tracy!
❤️
Exactly!! As I look back, I realize that much of my (and our) therapy from the beginning focused on healing the marriage instead of healing me.
You may be right, Velvet. I answered the best I could for what I thought the cheater’s motivation/rationale was, but it is just that: simply my interpretation of what he was thinking and how he was reacting.
Perhaps a “how infidelity affects the duped” survey might eventually follow this phase of the study.
Yeah, I didn’t even answer those questions, because I know the cheater wouldn’t give an honest answer.
OHFFS, I had the same problem. Was i supposed to answer for what I think the truth is, or what I think he would answer if someone gave him this survey? It was phrased as the latter, but my cheater knows it’s not cool to say “I’m better than others, I was born for greatness,” so he would never choose that answer even though his actions belie the truth.
I answered cheater’s section truthfully from my perspective, then explained in the comment section that the answers I chose are what I thought were true of him, that he would have answered differently because he’s a liar who would choose answers that would make himself look good.
100 up votes if I could.
I am definitely in!
I requested the link.
On a side note, I was married to the asshole for 25 years and have been divorced from him for 14 years. I STILL have nightmares where I’m back with him. I had one last night. Does this shit ever end?
I had only one nightmare, that I was in bed with him and had had sex. It was all fine and calm in the dream like nothing was wrong, but my body woke me in a panic. I had to talk myself down like “it wasn’t real, it didn’t actually happen.” Eventually my heart rate returned to normal.
I couldn’t even IMAGINE having these for years. Sorry if someone already suggested this to you, but have you tried EMDR?
I have disgust and turmoil around my memories of having intercourse with him, now. In retrospect, I feel I was violated and went along with it willingly. Uch.
I feel this so much. Like you were assaulted, but didn’t know it at the time.
Probably not. 😞
I have those same nightmares. 24 years married, 5 years divorced.
Yay, better science at last. It actually terrifies me that those dating app polls are passed off as science in headlines and even occasionally cited in academic research. It’s like asking batterers why they batter and thinking the answers will be anything but pathological “neutralization.”
I hope the survey asks about specific forms of abuse and coercive control used to facilitate infidelity or that come in tow with it.
It like the stats you read that 70is percent of D’s are filed by women, but never delve in to the reason so many women are filing. Because the rat bastard cheats and acts like a jack ass until the woman has to file. They call themselves magnanimous, no they are cowards who don’t want to do the dirty work.
Exactly! They’re perfectly happy to stay married because it benefits them.
I have absolutely no doubt my fw would have stayed married, lying his ass off to me and everyone else if he hadn’t had an ethics complaint filed against me. At least for a couple more years to secure his position at work, and of course assuming he could have kept the whore quite for a little longer. (it was taking every penny we had to keep her quiet) I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t nudge someone to file the complaint. She likely was getting tired of hiding in the alley.
I don’t know who filed that complaint, but I know I am so grateful for it. I wish it had been several years earlier, but it would have been harder for me if I had been 50 instead of 40.
Just in solidarity with our international brethren, the revolutionary motto is Viva la revolución in Spanish, Vive la révolution in French, Go maire sibh an réabhlóid in Irish and Maisha marefu mapinduzi in Swahili. 😀
Proud to be even a small part of such ground breaking research!
There is strength in numbers to move the pyramids of infidelity narratives ever so slightly into the light of day. It’s an exciting start.
The harm that infidelity has inflicted on humanity through time is incalculable. It needs to be dragged out into the light of day to shine truth on the massive destruction it causes.
Be happy to assist in such an ambitious and noble project! Thank you Tracey and Dr. Lauretta for leading the revolution brigade!
I cannot wait! I emailed to get an account so I can take my time and use the full 2-3 hours to fill this out! Thank you for the opportunity.
I’m in. I requested the link. I hope loads of chumps do.
Just requested the link. We have all been waiting for something like this! Thank you!
I just completed and submitted the questionnaire. Thank you for making this possible, Tempest and CL.
Done, and done!
I support this and would participate except my FW has successfully hidden all evidence of cheating. At this point we are divorced and I will never know what he did. All I know is that he behaved the way cheaters behave, that he hid his bank and credit card statements with the help of his lawyer, that he lied like crazy when he left, and that he accused me of cheating and of wanting to kill him, which was projection. Four years of litigation and I don’t have any idea what he did, or for that matter what he is doing now, whether he is married, where he lives — nothing.
The survey actually asks those very questions, if you suspected, if he hid financial information, if he accused you of things. That’s all part of the abuse dynamic and it’s all covered in the questions. You would be adding valuable data.
To me it is not about what we don’t know. It is about how it affected us, how we were treated etc, to include the financial standing it put us in after D, and what was stolen from us. Our very agency to make decisions based on reality.
Granted, what I was trying to say is I can’t participate, because I still don’t have any proof except circumstantial evidence that he cheated. No admission and no evidence. So I’m not a candidate to participate in this, much as I would like to.
I understand the concept of not untangling the skein, but I wonder how many other chumps are in my position? I never got any proof, he successfully hid everything. I don’t know how bad or deviant he is, or how long it was going on. And he is around my kids — what if it was something seriously bad?
It’s ok, you can participate! They ask many questions to clarify your situation, and a lot of questions say “what happened/what you suspected.” I think the author fully understands the conditions under which we leave.
It is a time investment though. Set aside a couple hours if you decide to participate.
Chime. Part of the craziness is never being able to know the truth of what happened, when, with whom, etc. My ex told me after he abandoned me that he had been cheating, but refused to tell me anything more, no name, nothing. I later found out he also told my adult kids he cheated, so I assume it is true, but beyond that I have no evidence — it is so maddening.
Chumpty Dumpty, please consider taking a look at the survey before you declare that you can’t participate. I left some items blank, and a lot of the questions were very subjective; i.e., not requiring any documentation. You might even get a smidgen of some sort of closure by participating… who knows?
Count me in. I’ve already emailed and asked for the link to the survey.
I emailed for the link. Hopefully with more studies like this one, the public perception of infidelity will change. Until I discovered ChumpLady, I believed FW’s narrative that his cheating was caused by me being ‘a bad romantic partner’, along with his other accusations about my sucky performance as a wife. Of course, he didn’t mention ANY issues to me about our 30-year marriage until after he already started his affair. I am so lucky I discovered the affair and kicked him out knowing exactly what he was up to. He refused to end the affair and refused to say the words ‘separate’ or ‘divorce’, so naturally I had to be the grownup and tell him we would be divorcing. My heart goes out to everyone who was never able to find evidence of cheating. Now, thanks to ChumpLady, I know that cheating is about entitlement, infidelity is abuse, and the affair was NOT about me. I’ll give the study the full two hours this weekend! Onward, chumps.
This was fun to fill out from the Land of Meh! (some years back it would have broken me).
Just completed the survey. What a trip down memory lane. Glad someone somewhere is paying attention.
Approximately how long does the survey take?
Stopping and starting throughout the day, about 2 hours.
It took me about 45 minutes.
Thank you! It helps to know what to expect. But I’ll be doing it!
Whew, that one took it out of me!
Took me about 2.5 hours(to the shock and amazement of nobody, I write a lot!)
Have a Fuckwit Free Friday!
Done. Whew, that was long. One thing I found irritating is the asking how the cheater would answer a bunch of questions. Cheaters lie, so how are we supposed to know? So I wrote that I could not answer those questions. FW not only knowingly lies, he self-deludes and therefore lies unknowingly.
That section made me feel really uncomfortable. It required me to return to my wife mode of having empathy and feeling like I knew him, which I now know was delusional.
Maybe it’s to compare how we perceive how they’d answer vs. how they answer themselves? It must be difficult to create a proper survey.
The study is asking for people “at least 18 and in a relationship where they have been living together and/or married for at least a year.” I am one of many of us who is not in a current relationship after the previous disaster. I think a lot of us will be sadly left out 🙁
It can be a past relationship so long as that relationship lasted for a year or more.
In the survey itself, it states that “You may answer this questionnaire about either a current relationship OR a past relationship (as long as you were married and/or cohabitating for at least a year).”
I was thrown by that at first, but then I interpreted it as I’m not in a current relationship, but the cheater and I were together for longer than a year. I really had to think about what that instruction meant, though, as that directive wasn’t very clear to me either.
Yes, that is correct.
I urge everyone to take the time to participate in this survey. I just finished it. Although it was painful to recall events and circumstances around the infidelities, I found it validating to know that a university is taking infidelity and betrayal seriously enough to devote academic research to it. And you get to TALK about it ALL without seeing a friend’s eyes glaze over as you need to talk for the one-millionth time. Do this for you. It will be interesting to see what the goal of the research is and whether they find common threads in all of the stories. I suspect that they will.
Done. I did have to take emotional breaks, but it’s done.
Her talks at Chumpalooza were amazing. So much BAD information out there that contracts the experiences of us who lived it.
Kudos to Dr. Reeves!
Yes I sent for the link! Don’t forget to look in Spam as Tracy said. It is an honor to do this survey but I’m betting that it won’t have the enough paper for 2 cheaters 36 years apart. I’m pretty much a rare creature at least I hope so. Or maybe ask for 2 surveys? What shall I do. What a gift to be able to spill to researchers!! When I have nightmares I wake up and say….. was that the husband who left me with 2 kids including a newborn, or is that the guy who said he was taken advantage of by a coworker and she forced herself on him. My nightmares get confusing!! We got this!!!
There is a section for multiple D-Days, but you should read carefully to know if that means multiple D-Days with one partner only? I’m not sure – in any case you can look at the survey and then not complete it if it is too confusing.
I’ll read it carefully but I bet there is not enough for 2 events with 2 men. Maybe there is an essay section haaa!!!
I would agree, I believe you will need to take it twice if you want both cheaters counted. I would email the researcher.
Still waiting for the survey..bet my double taking that survey…one will get thrown out. Who gets 2 cheaters in one life time?
Me- and at least one other I know.
We’re out here!
2 surveys from me too.
I completed the lengthy survey. Focuses on experiences at first D Day and final D Day (fortunately not all those in between). Questions are asked in multiple ways, so just push through with first thoughts. If the link is sent to your email, you can save incomplete survey to return to it.
Can survey and link be part of CL blog’s front page?
I’m excited about this! I’d love to see some actual studies about how cheating affects chumps. Emailed them just now.
I took the survey; it took at least three hours, and was both illuminating and triggering. It brought back things I had forgotten about. But I’m very happy to contribute to a study done by an actual university rather than a dating site.
Complete! 🙌
Whew, that was a slog. But it’s for science!!
Thank you, CL, for sharing the opportunity. Can’t wait to see the results!
I filled out the survey yesterday and encourage participation – we need to share our truths! A few posts have referenced the challenge of answering questions about how the cheater would respond. Like others, I wrote in the comment section that I wasn’t sure how he would answer because he lies endlessly.
An opportunity to pay it forward!
The website doesn’t work for me. When I click on “Sign up” it sends me to another page on their website. When I click on “Contact us,” nothing happens. No way to contact them.
Young Crone, DontFeelLikeDancing and Eirene, thanks for encouraging me to respond, I did.
I wrote this at the end: “Abandonment means there is no knowledge of my former husband’s true activities. He successfully hid them by refusing to provide bank and credit card statements, hiding all personal information post-abandonment , and by lying. He also conducted a highly effective smear campaign against me. There was sophisticated and subtle emotional abuse over many years and it appears he led a robust double life of which I was unaware on any conscious level. I was increasingly isolated and unsupported in ways that were not as crude as physical violence and other behaviors described here and elsewhere; there was elaborate secrecy, and there was a decline into unexpressed contempt on his part and a gradual slide into loneliness and a profound sense of being unsupported and not understood or liked on mine. When he ruptured with me and the children, it was unprovoked and vicious beyond anything I could have imagined.”
Yes YES YES!! I Just finished my second survey, one for each husband/ cheater over my life time. Not once did I look back but this survey opened my eyes to the horrors of infidelity x2..I could see each marriage collapse in sections. It was mind altering to look back 35 years and then again only 3 years since # 2 D day!! It took me 4 hours total to do both surveys..and I did them 3 days apart to save my back. I feel like I gave a blood transfusion and perhaps made a difference. Please log on to their survey monkey. I did write them about how to do 2 surveys but didn’t hear back so I just did 2 and hope they can figure me out.
Thank you UT AUSTIN and much 🙌 success putting all the data together. Happily I never joined the RICA NOR gave or had any second chances. It was pretty clean in that respect. Thank you CL for getting us into this and I encouraged every Chump to dive in. It’s like a free therapy session where you see all the things you didn’t see before!! Happy days ahead!!!