Why Millenials Cheat Less

When Amanda Chatel’s husband cheated on her after a year and a half into their marriage, she was flabbergasted. “I think cheating is one of the worst things you can do to a person,” said Chatel, who coped with the shock by throwing herself a lavish divorce party at The Plaza two years ago when she was 35.

She also never anticipated it. She explained that, “I was in my early 30s when I got married, so any interest I would have had to hook up was gone.

“There wasn’t a single ounce of my being that would have even considered cheating.”

Chatel’s attitude is in keeping with a younger generation that seems to view adultery as more cataclysmic than their predecessors.

A new study from the Institute for Family Studies claims 20 percent of those older than 55 years old reported having sex outside of marriage. That’s compared with only 14 percent of those under 55. (The study constitutes infidelity as having sex with anyone but your husband and wife.)

Millennials, generally defined as those born between 1981 and 1997, take a particularly dim view of cheating. While Generation X, born between 1964 and 1981, report a 17 percent extramarital-sex rate, those aged 37 and under claim a rate of 12 percent, according to the study.

Why are millennials so faithful? Could it be that we are all beautiful, pure-hearted people? Maybe, but it’s likely there are other factors at play.

For one thing, millennials are less sexually adventurous than their predecessors.

A 2015 study by Jean Twenge that ran in Archives of Sexual Behavior noted that baby boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964) averaged an estimated 11 sexual partners throughout adulthood, while millennials averaged just eight.

Perhaps today’s youth isn’t as hot to trot as the over-55 free-love crowd was in their day.

Baby boomers came of age during the “Summer of Love” in 1967, when people were encouraged to “make love not war.”

Mate swapping was a fad in the ’70s. Meanwhile, millennials grew up watching the president get impeached for receiving extramarital oral sex. We learned early on that there might be some pretty bad consequences to adultery.

Plus, when you’re surrounded by devices like Tinder ensuring that a hookup is just a swipe away, a fling may seem less exciting than when you had to go to a bar with the mere hope of meeting someone.