With the festive season well and truly in full swing, it turns out some people celebrate in different ways. Clinical psychologist Shahn Baker Sorekli reveals why there’s a spike in the number of people who cheat over the festive period – and what it really means.
It’s the exact scene from Love Actually that women all over the world have watched in utter heartbreak. The scene where Karen (played by Emma Thompson) opens her Christmas gift from her husband, sparking a moment of realization that he is having an affair with another woman.
This betrayal is made even more gut-wrenching by the fact that it’s Christmas, where Karen and her husband were gathered around their family Christmas tree with their two kids. Though, it’s apparently not so uncommon.
Clinical psychologist Shahn Baker Sorekli recently revealed on the news.com.au podcast I’ve Got News For You, that adultery over the festive season is a trend that seems to be rising.
Baker Sorekli says that the trend is mainly dominated by workplace relationships, putting it down to the fact that, as a working adult, the majority of our time is spent with our colleagues.
“Relationships often happen at work – there’s a high proportion of people who actually end up in long-term relationships that meet at work,” the Sydney-based relationship expert said.
“So through the year…there’s tensions building, it’s kind of like there’s relationships ‘loading’. People might be into their colleagues, and there might be some kind of flirtation going on, people spend a lot of time with their colleagues.”
Baker Sorekli says that it is this confined relationship building which often lays the foreground for a heightened state of emotional connection or physical attraction. And when external factors such as social gatherings outside of the office and alcohol come into play, infidelity is almost inevitable.
“The Christmas party is like the trigger that can go off in that sort of situation, with alcohol and the festive season, that sort of thing,” Baker Sorekli explains to host Andrew Bucklow.
“I’m not saying if you have no intentions of ever cheating on your partner, and you’re falling in love with your partner, that the work Christmas party puts you at a higher risk of cheating,” he said, “[However,] anecdotally from my experience as a clinical psychologist for 18-odd years, it does tend to happen a bit more around this period.”
Some recent data collected by Datingroo, a UK-based review domain for online dating platforms, also reveals that the festive season seems to be a popular time for married people to expand their reach.
According to a survey of 1,000 users, 35% of women and 31% of men recorded that they have embarked on illicit sexual encounters during the Christmas period.
Even dating app Clover reported that it experienced a 300% increase in user sign-ups over the month of December, including a large sum of people recording that they were already in a relationship.
Given the evidence, Baker Sorekli confirms that there’s a lingering feeling surrounding the festive period that invites those who either have already cheated, or have heavily considered it, to engage in some kind of infidelity.
“Often when people cheat, it’s not necessarily about their partner – it’s quite often never about the partner in the sense that they’re not good enough or attractive enough. It’s often about how the person’s feeling in their own life,” he explains.
“Sometimes people aren’t feeling fulfilled in life, and the monotony of the year is catching up on them. And the monotony of going to the in-laws, and Christmas and all that sort of stuff, people can find themselves feeling quite unsatisfied, and they’re looking for something to feel more alive or exciting.”
However, that being said, Baker Sorekli asserts that cheating is never an appropriate solution to evoke some kind of excitement, especially when it is hidden from the partner.
