PH
It's often claimed that women mainly care about emotional infidelity.
A study involving heterosexual and lesbian women as well as heterosexual and gay men found something more complicated.
Across participants, sexual infidelity actually produced more distressing feelings than emotional infidelity.
However, women reported stronger emotional responses to both types of infidelity than men.
Relationship intimacy and commitment also predicted some reactions.
So reducing women's reactions to “women only fear emotional cheating” misses a significant part of the research.
The nature of the relationship itself can influence how painful the betrayal feels.
© Journal of Marital and Family Therapy (2014)