If you catch your partner cheating, it’s probably not the first time they’ve been having an affair, a shocking new survey reveals.
Most adulterers are only caught during their third affair, according to experts.
It takes an average of four years before infidelity is exposed, the survey of more than 1,000 adults by Illicit Encounters found.
A shocking new study reveals that most adulterers will have three affairs before they are caught by their partners
Despite this trend of serial cheating, the study also revealed that an affair only leads to a break-up in an astonishing 15 per cent of cases.
Experts say this may be because British lovers are becoming more like the French, with affairs seen as a ‘natural reaction’ to relationships going stale.
More than two-thirds of adulterers were found out by their partners at some point in their marriages, the study found.
However just one in 10 were caught out during the first affair, with one in eight during their second.
Serial cheaters will betray their partners for four years before being found out, the survey reports
It is only the third affair where the likelihood of being caught increases to one in five, according to the survey.
The study found that most love rats were caught out by phone messages to a secret lover, with 39 per cent being found out this way.
Emails were the second biggest reason at 22 per cent, while lying about their whereabouts caught out cheats in 20 per cent of cases.
The study found that those who cheated early on in a relationship were likely to continue having affairs after getting married, with 86 per cent admitting to having slept with someone other than their partner before their wedding.
IllicitEncounters.com spokesman Christian Grant said: ‘What this new research shows is that a leopard never changes their spots.
‘If your partner is unfaithful to you before tying the knot that pattern of cheating will continue after matrimony.
‘Cheats need to be extra careful around the time of their third affair because this is when they are most likely to get caught – probably because they have got over-confident and give too many clues away to their partner who will be getting suspicious.’
He added: ‘As a nation, we are becoming a lot more like the French who often see an extra-marital affair not as a reason for divorce but the natural reaction to a relationship going stale.’