Statistics show that women in relationships increasingly stray. Photo: Li Hao/GT

If you thought only men stray, think again. Women also "step out" on their marriages and committed relationships. But men's stories are told publicly, so why do cheating women hold back.

This is not the case for Skye Chavis, 22, an American student from Xuzhou in East China's Jiangsu Province. She supports women being more open about the fact that they, too, cross relationship boundaries.

"That's why I'm always so free to say I've cheated."

It happened with her first boyfriend in high school.

"The guy [I was with] treated me well but I felt suffocated. Having grown up without a father, I needed the attention from other guys," she said.

It started with flirting and ended up in cheating. Her boyfriend found out over social media. They broke up two years later.

In the context of Chinese and expats, infidelity seems to be omnipresent. Popular media reports predominantly mention men's sexual affairs.

The Telegraph writes about the toll relocating to another country can exert on a marriage and how it often results in the male partner having an affair.

The New York Times reported that it is so common for Chinese men to have mistresses that a new profession called "mistress dispellers" has emerged.

But how frequently does infidelity happen?

According to the US' most consistent data, the General Social Survey, between 1991 and 2016, roughly 10 percent of people were having sex with someone other than their husband or wife. A 2008 New York Times report gave a further breakdown of the survey findings which indicated that 12 percent of men and 7 percent of women admit to marital infidelity.

But women are catching up quickly.

Among younger couples, women appear to be "closing the adultery gap." About 20 percent of men and 15 percent of women under 35 have been unfaithful, the New York Times report said, citing the findings of University of Washington researchers. This number has increased for both sexes between 1991 and 2006, but more so for women. According to the Atlantic, the rate at which women cheat has risen by 40 percent in the past two centuries.

In China, research conducted by the Social Survey Center of Peking University in 2015 found that 20 percent of married couples stray and infidelity was equally distributed between men and women.

Some women do not feel guilt nor shame until the forbidden affair comes out in the open, experts say. Photo: Li Hao/GT

Sexual liberty

Anindita Das, global coach and emotional intelligence trainer from Globalexpatscoachworx.com in Beijing, said that men historically had more opportunities to stray as the breadwinners.

"Nowadays, working women have the power and access, so they cheat more and more," she explained. "They have the same wants and needs for love, intimacy and appreciation as men."

In today's modern society with the trend of dating apps, choices and possibilities are everywhere, and sexual liberty is becoming a common value for both young Chinese and foreigners living in China. Almost 80 percent of 21-year-olds living in large Chinese cities are estimated to have had sex before getting married, the Economist reported.

As famous psychotherapist Esther Perel puts it in her TedTalk, "We used to marry, and had sex for the first time. But now we marry, and we stop having sex with others."

Monogamy can sometimes feel like putting a chain on this generation's perceived right to self-fulfillment, love and happiness.

If straying is so common among both genders, why do we not hear more women's stories?

Perhaps they might be better at keeping it a secret.

"Women are raised to obey, so they are more apprehensive and conditioned to follow family and social rules than men," Das explained, adding that men think less about these things when straying and are, therefore, less reluctant to talk about it in public.

"When it comes to sex, the pressure for men is to boast and exaggerate, but the pressure for women is to hide, minimize and deny, which isn't surprising when you consider that there are still nine countries where women can be killed for straying," explained Perel in the TedTalk.

In Taiwan, adultery is a criminal offense punishable by up to one year in prison, and the law is more commonly applied to women, The Week, a British news magazine, reported on its website.

On the Chinese mainland there are no legal provisions to punish a person for adultery. However, social norms and moral obligations seem to be no less sanctioning.

The stigma of Madame Bovary

Presumed unfaithful or promiscuous women are sometimes given the nickname Pan Jinlian, as seen in the 2016 film I Am Not Madame Bovary by Feng Xiaogang. Pan Jinlian is a fictional character appearing in The Water Margin, one of the four great classical novels of Chinese literature, comparable to Emma Bovary in Madame Bovary by French author Gustave Flaubert.

Pan is the village beauty who married a kindhearted but ugly and poor man. She gets courted by a rich and handsome playboy and eventually gives in.

When Pan's brother-in-law finds out, he kills her, the handsome lover and the neighbor who plotted the whole affair.

The fact that her name is still a byword for cunning, weak and faithless women today shows how harshly society views cheating women.

Violet Zhang (pseudonym), 30, did not tell a soul about the secret affair she had with her teenage love while being happily married to another man whom she describes as a "good husband, both physically and mentally."

Still, Zhang has no regrets about cheating on her husband. In the first place, she did not marry him for love. It's a practical decision she made in her early twenties.

"For me, marriage is a social link similar to a workmate," she said.

"I married a suitable guy and live a good life now in Beijing. But deep in my heart, there is still another guy I love. I never stopped thinking about having an affair with him even at the very beginning of my marriage."

Therefore, one day, she traveled to his city and asked him out. Zhang was his first love, and he could not forget her either. Being with him after all those years reminded her of who she was before she got married. She said it was like a dream come true. But she decided to return to her "old life" with her husband in Beijing.

"I can now accept my life in a more optimistic way," she said. "Without the pressing urge to see the other guy, I feel better now in my marriage."

Unfulfilled desires

The reasons women step out on their relationships are manifold. For Chavis, it was about recognition from the opposite sex. For Zhang, it was about the love she did not find in her marriage. For Jessica (pseudonym,) it was about sexual adventure and fulfillment. She had been with her boyfriend for two years when she decided to have sex with a stranger she met on the street in Shanghai. The relationship with her boyfriend had always been more platonic than physical.

"I tried to tell him that I was unsatisfied with our sex life. But nothing changed," Jessica said.

She cried before she went to see the other guy. But she felt strongly entitled to sexual pleasure. The first time was only the beginning. She started to have more affairs, sometimes two at the same time. But then, the regrets grew stronger.

"It felt like I was leading a double life. I was not only destroying my relationship but also myself," she said.

Jessica broke down one night in their Shanghai apartment and told her boyfriend everything. She wanted to break up with him. But he would not let go.

Can a couple heal from such a big trauma?

Das believes that they can. "The major emotional damage of affairs is the loss of trust. Romantic relationships are based on it," she said.

"Every couple has its own relationship theory, and infidelity is an issue depending on their life situation too."

Das believes that a woman misses something in her relationship when she decides to see a third party and does not do it out of weakness but unfulfilled desires. She said some women only feel guilty and ashamed about it when the affair comes out in the open and they see how deeply hurt their partner is.

A relationship is able to recover from an affair. "But the couple has to want it. Forgetting is not easy, but forgiving and moving on is possible," she said.

It also needs a lot of awareness, communication and conscious action to work on the relationship. These are things Das said coaching can help with.

"Before taking an important decision in life, it is very helpful to talk to a coach. I will not give advice. I will figure out with the person where they stand in their life, career and relationship, set a vision and then work toward it," Das said.

Infidelity also does not have to be repeated. Chavis never cheated again after her first relationship came to an end.

"I learned to not even put myself in the way of temptation," she said.

To her, even flirting is taboo when she is dating someone. That is why she does not think the saying "once a cheater, always a cheater" is right. She reflected on her actions and drew conclusions.

Chavis had her reasons for straying, as have the men that cheated on her later on. The only difference is in how they are judged by society.

"When men cheat it's a mistake, but when women cheat they are called a whore," she said.