Chip of the old block

When we enter into relationships, we like to believe we’re starting with a clean slate, that whatever happened in our families has nothing to do with how we love or who we choose. But the truth is, a lot of how we handle love, trust, and even betrayal is shaped long before our first real relationship, often just by watching how our parents treated each other.

So it brings up a tough question: if his dad was a cheater, does that mean he’ll be one too?

If you just look at the numbers, the answer is yes, it makes it much more likely. A guy can grow up with parents who fought all the time or even got divorced, but nothing predicts him cheating later in life as strongly as having a parent who was unfaithful.

This isn’t a new idea; researchers have seen this pattern for decades. As far back as the 80s, studies found that having a parent who cheated nearly doubles the chance a man will cheat in his own relationships. Think about it like this: imagine twenty guys in a room. Ten of them had dads who cheated. Out of those ten, about five will probably cheat themselves. Out of the other ten guys, maybe only two will.

So why does this happen? It isn’t about DNA. There’s no “cheating gene.” It’s about what he grew up seeing as normal. We don’t learn about love in a classroom; we learn it at home by watching the people around us. And for most boys, the first man they learn from is their dad.

A boy notices everything: how his dad talks to his mom, the jokes he makes about other women, how uncles might slap him on the back for being a “ladies’ man.” He sees his mom go quiet or make excuses when his dad doesn’t come home. All of these things sink in and create a blueprint in his mind for what being a man looks like.

Most boys see their dad as their first role model, so of course they want to be like him. They copy how he talks, how he tells stories, how he moves through the world. They want to drive the same car, do the same kind of work, wear the same clothes. Without even trying, they start shaping their idea of manhood based on him.

But finding out their dad is a cheater shatters that idea. He sees what his dad’s choices did to his mom, the crying behind closed doors, the silence at breakfast, the way she moves through the house like a part of her has died. And suddenly, it’s not just the marriage that feels like a lie. It’s the man himself. His confidence, his charm, everything that once seemed admirable now feels tainted. Cheating doesn’t just break a marriage; it makes a boy question the very man he wanted to become.

When a father cheats, he isn’t just betraying his partner. He’s betraying his kids too. Some fathers tell themselves the boy will “get over it,” but the truth is, it can change the entire course of his life. It’s no surprise that most kids in that situation grow up angry at the parent who cheated. In her book Parents Who Cheat, clinical psychologist Ana Nogales surveyed over 800 adults whose parents were unfaithful. Eighty-eight percent said they felt anger toward the cheating parent.

The tragedy is that these kids grow up knowing exactly how much damage cheating causes. They saw it. They felt it. So when they get into relationships of their own, they promise themselves they’ll never be like that.

And still, half of them will cheat anyway.

Look at Tiger Woods. His father, Earl Woods, was rumored to be a serial philanderer. In Tiger’s 2018 biography, he described the shame of growing up in a house where “women came and went.” He knew it was wrong. He hated what it did to his family.

And still, years later, he repeated the same patterns.

So why does this keep happening?

When a boy sees his dad cheat, it teaches him something, even if he doesn’t realize it. It teaches him that when things in a relationship get hard, you don’t talk it out. You run from it. You cheat. Even if he remembers how much it hurt, even if he swears he’ll never be like his dad, the blueprint is already there. He can hate what he saw. He can want to be different. But if no one ever showed him a healthier way to handle stress, temptation, or emotional distance, he might still repeat it.

Of course, none of this is an excuse. A man is always responsible for his own choices. Plenty of men with the exact same family background never cheat. They’re the other half, the ones who took a long, hard look at where they came from and made a deliberate choice to be better. They didn’t just say, “I hate what my dad did.” They learned from it. They dug into it. They figured out healthier ways to handle their emotions and their relationships.

So when you’re with a man who grew up around infidelity, the real question becomes: which half is he in? Has he done the work to break the cycle, or is he still running the same old blueprint without realizing it?

Start by noticing how he talks about his parents’ relationship. Research shows that 82 percent of faithful men describe their parents’ relationship in mostly positive terms. Meanwhile, men who cheat are split. Half describe it negatively, and the other half barely talk about it at all. If he can’t name anything good about how his parents treated each other, or if he gets uncomfortable when the topic comes up, that’s worth paying attention to.

Listen, too, for how he talks about cheating in general. Does he sound disgusted by it, or does he minimize it as a “mistake” or “just something that happens when people aren’t happy”? And pay attention to how he handles stress and conflict in his own life. Does he face problems directly, or does he avoid tough conversations, shut down, or distract himself when things get hard? The way someone handles stress tells you a lot about how they’ll handle problems in a relationship.

The men who have consciously broken the cycle tend to have a few things in common. They’ve thought about their family history. Some have gone to therapy, some haven’t, but all of them have spent time unpacking what they came from. They know what kind of partner they want to be and can explain why loyalty matters to them. They’ve learned healthier ways to deal with conflict. They don’t just say, “I’ll never be like my dad.” They’ve backed it up with real effort. They can talk about their family honestly because they’ve processed the hurt and turned it into motivation to be better.

Intergenerational patterns run deep, but they’re not destiny. A man who’s truly done the work to break the cycle can become one of the most loyal, emotionally grounded partners you’ll ever meet, because he knows exactly what betrayal costs.

But a man who hasn’t looked at any of this, who’s still living out the old blueprint without realizing it, is far more likely to repeat it, no matter how much he loves you.

And here’s the part that matters most: it isn’t your job to fix him. It isn’t your job to break the cycle for him. Your job is to pay attention, ask the right questions, and decide if he’s already done the work before you hand over your trust.