ADHD and Relationships 101: Does ADHD make you more prone to cheating?

This question is usually asked by two different people. One is someone with ADHD who saw a headline online like "people with ADHD are unfaithful" and started doubting themselves. The other is someone who has just learned about their partner's diagnosis and now has a nagging worry. I want to start by telling both of them the same thing: ADHD doesn't doom anyone to cheating. Cheating is not a symptom of ADHD; there is no such item in the diagnostic criteria.

But I can't say the question is completely empty either. Some aspects of ADHD, especially impulsivity and stimulation seeking, can make certain moments more slippery. This post is part of the ADHD and Relationships 101 series, and it tries to answer this sensitive question, neither scaring you nor brushing it off, as far as the research actually goes.

The short answer first

The honest answer to the question of whether ADHD makes you more prone to cheating is this: we don't know, but the little data we have does not say "yes, definitely." There are very few studies that look at cheating directly together with ADHD. And the ones that exist are mostly online surveys or results that came up as a side finding while measuring something else.

What we know more solidly is this: ADHD can involve impulsivity, a pull toward what is new and stimulating, and difficulty regulating emotions. These can create moments on the road to cheating where the brake is weaker. The brake may be weak, but the steering wheel is still in your hands.

What the research actually says

One of the studies that gives the most direct data on this was published in 2023. The researchers gave an anonymous online survey to 1,392 people; 541 of the participants had reported being diagnosed with ADHD (Young et al., 2023). The results are interesting and mixed:

• The rate of people who said they had cheated in their current relationship was 23.2 percent in the ADHD group and 18.6 percent in the comparison group. The difference was not statistically significant.
• When women were looked at separately, the picture changed: women with ADHD had reported extradyadic sex more often, both in their current relationship and over their lifetime. No such difference came up among men.
• When those who said they had cheated were asked for their reasons, the ADHD group had checked not being able to control their impulses, the effect of alcohol, thrill seeking and feeling misunderstood more often than the comparison group. For example, those who gave impulse control as a reason were about a third in the ADHD group and around 14 percent in the other group.

You also need to know the limits of this study. The participants had come through announcements from ADHD associations and social media, so it was not a randomly selected sample. The diagnoses were also based on people's own reports, and the researchers could not verify them. A single survey, a single point in time.

An older and more robust longitudinal study followed boys diagnosed with ADHD in childhood into adulthood. These young people, aged 18 to 26, had become sexually active earlier, and had had more partners and more casual relationships, than their peers without ADHD (Flory et al., 2006). This study doesn't measure cheating. Risky sexual behavior and cheating are not the same thing; seeing more than one person doesn't break anyone's trust if no promise was made to those people. Still, it shows that impulsivity leaves a mark on close relationships too.

Research in the general population, meanwhile, reminds us that cheating can't be reduced to a single cause. In a study of more than 900 people in monogamous relationships, among women, low relationship happiness and incompatibility in sexual attitudes and values were linked to cheating. Among men, personality traits such as a propensity for sexual excitation stood out more. Demographic factors such as marital status and religiosity were less decisive (Mark et al., 2011). In other words, with or without ADHD, what is going on in the relationship itself weighs very heavily in this question.

To me, what these findings say is not "people with ADHD cheat." What they say is this: when someone with ADHD cheats, they may often be doing it less by building a planned double life and more through a momentary lack of brakes. That is very valuable information for someone who wants to take precautions.

Impulsivity: the gap between wanting and doing

As I explained in the post what is impulsivity, one of the difficulties at the center of ADHD is inhibition: being able to stop an incoming response for a moment and look at "what will this lead to" (Barkley, 2015). In most people there is a small but useful gap between wanting and doing. In ADHD this gap can narrow.

In daily life this gap shows up as interrupting people or unplanned spending. In a close relationship, though, it can take other forms: sending an overly intimate message late at night to someone you just met, crossing a line at a party without noticing, a sentence that runs "once won't hurt." None of these are inevitable. But someone who knows the gap is narrow can set up ways in advance to widen it from the outside.

Alcohol is especially important here. Alcohol weakens inhibition in everyone; it loosens an already weak brake even more. That is why it isn't surprising that alcohol was given as a reason more often in the ADHD group in the survey above. I covered the general side of this in the post why alcohol is risky with ADHD.

Stimulation seeking and the pull of novelty

For many people with ADHD, what is new is the brain's favorite stimulus. A new project, a new hobby, a new person. Stimulation seeking doesn't apply only to relationships, but it has its counterpart in relationships too. The familiar routine in the third year of a long relationship may not feel as bright as a message from someone you just met.

I explained this at more length in the post on getting bored in a relationship. In the same survey, boredom was also one of the reasons given more often in the ADHD group. Being bored doesn't show that the relationship is over or that the love has gone. Often it only means the brain's stimulation level has dropped. The problem is trying to close this stimulation gap outside the relationship.

If you are someone who gets attached quickly and bored quickly when dating, recognizing this pattern will give you a lot; the post on getting attached fast and bored fast when dating is exactly about this. In a long relationship, if I were you, I'd try to bring novelty inside the relationship: learning something new together, going somewhere you've never been, breaking up a usual evening. The need for novelty is real. Making a safe space for it works better than suppressing it.

Emotion regulation and feeling "misunderstood"

One of the reasons in the survey that caught my attention most was feeling misunderstood. Adults with ADHD may hear criticism often in their relationships: you forgot, you were late, you're not listening. When this criticism piles up, a person can feel not at home but constantly on trial.

In a study with college students, students with high symptoms of both inattention and hyperactivity-impulsivity reported lower relationship quality. Difficulties with emotion regulation and hostile ways of arguing played a mediating role in this link (Bruner et al., 2015). The study doesn't measure cheating, but it shows what is wearing down in the relationship: coping with difficult feelings and carrying on arguments without being hurtful.

For someone who feels inadequate in their relationship, being "fun," "interesting," "flawless" in the eyes of someone new can be very attractive. There, there's no forgotten appointment yet, no unwashed dishes. Recognizing this pull doesn't mean you have to give in to it. But the answer to "why does this feel so attractive" is often not in the new person but in the accumulated fatigue in the relationship.

Who holds the responsibility

I want to write this part clearly. ADHD can be an explanation, but it is not an exemption. Impulsivity can make a moment risky; the choice made in that moment still belongs to the person. The pain your partner goes through doesn't get smaller according to the level of inhibition in your brain.

On the other hand, taking responsibility doesn't mean punishing yourself. I think of responsibility as something forward-looking: I know the moments when I'm weak, so I take precautions for them in advance. The difference between saying "this is just how I am" and saying "this is how I am, so this is what I do" is exactly where trust gets built.

There is also the reverse. If someone whose partner has ADHD starts using the diagnosis as a reason for suspicion, the relationship gets poisoned in a different way. If every glance at the phone, every late return is read as evidence, it means the partner with ADHD is constantly defending themselves against something they are not guilty of. A diagnosis doesn't pass judgment on a person's faithfulness.

How it looks from your partner's side

If your partner is bringing up this topic, they have most likely read something or felt something. Sentences like these may be going through their mind:

• "They get excited about everything so quickly. Will they one day stop being excited about me too?"
• "Their eyes light up when they meet someone new, and that scares me."
• "If I bring this up, they'll think I'm jealous or prejudiced."

Most of these fears are fed by real and visible sides of ADHD: enthusiasm that flares and fades quickly, excitement about novelty, a warm remark sometimes said without thinking. Your partner may not be blaming you; they just want to know what they can rely on. There is a similar dynamic with sudden decisions, which I explained in the post on sudden decisions and trust. Trust is built largely on predictability.

Agreements that protect trust

In most relationships, what the word "cheating" means is never talked about; everyone assumes they know their own definition. Yet boundaries vary a lot from couple to couple. For one person having coffee with an ex is no problem, for another it's a big problem. An unspoken boundary, combined with the impulsive side of ADHD, raises the chance of an accident.

If I were you, I'd first talk through these gray areas together:

Area	Question to talk about
Messaging	What does private, intimate messaging with someone else late at night mean for the two of us?
Flirty talk	Where do we see the line between joking around and flirting?
Exes	Where does meeting up, messaging or following them start to bother us?
Places with alcohol	What do we pay attention to at a party we go to separately, and when do we check in?
Apps	Do dating apps stay closed for the whole relationship?
Emotional closeness	When and how do we tell each other about a closeness we feel with someone else?

Then put what you talked about into a short text. Every rule that relies on remembering gets skipped one day with ADHD; what is written down stays. A sample agreement text:

Neither of us forms a sexual or romantic closeness with anyone else for as long as we are together. We don't message anyone privately and intimately after midnight. When we go to places with drinking separately, we come home by two at the latest and let each other know when we leave. If we feel an attraction to someone, we don't hide it; we tell each other within a few days. Telling isn't a confession of guilt, it's an act of trust. Once a month we read this text together and change it if needed.

The fourth sentence is, I think, the most important. Feeling an attraction is human. A relationship where you can tell your partner about it puts that attraction out before it turns into a hidden secret. Building this kind of openness is hard, but everything that is hidden grows even bigger in an ADHD mind.

Recognizing risky moments in advance

The agreement draws the general frame. Then there are your own risky moments, and you know them best. If I were you, I'd ask myself these questions:

• At what hours do I act more without thinking?
• What does alcohol change in me, and after which drink do my boundaries start to blur?
• Are there periods when I feel distance or constant criticism in the relationship?
• How do new and exciting settings (a business trip, a conference, a new group of friends) affect me?

The answers to these questions turn into a list of precautions. Say you feel freer and lonelier on business trips. Having a video call with your partner at a set time in the evening, not staying long at the hotel bar, planning that evening in advance fills that gap from the outside. Say your real risk is your phone late at night. Charging your phone outside the bedroom is easier than a whole battle of willpower.

None of these precautions are meant to put you in a cage. I said the same thing in the post on making promises without thinking: most structures that work with ADHD rely not on willpower in the moment but on a structure set up in advance.

How to explain it to your partner

Don't open this conversation in a moment of suspicion or a fight. Choose a calm day. If you are the partner with ADHD, the goal isn't to say "I won't cheat, don't worry"; it's to explain what's going on and what you propose.

Example sentences:

• "I know you've read some things about ADHD and cheating. I want to talk about it, because I don't want it to stay bottled up inside you."
• "I know I get excited about new things quickly. That can apply to people too, and I won't hide it. But there's a difference between excitement and a decision, and my decision is you."
• "There are a few situations where my brake is weak, especially places with drinking and late at night. For these, I'm proposing a structure like this."
• "If I feel an attraction to someone, I want to tell you. I'm not saying this as a threat, I'm saying it so there's nothing hidden between us."

If you are the one whose partner has ADHD, it will hurt less to start like this: "I read an article and a fear crept into me. I'm not saying this to blame you, I'm saying it to talk about this fear with you." If you're thinking about how to talk about ADHD in general, the post on explaining your ADHD to your partner can help.

When to get help

If cheating has happened, or if suspicion about it is wearing the relationship down every day, talking to a couples therapist can change a lot; I explained what you can expect in the post does couples therapy work with ADHD. If you see that impulsivity or alcohol is causing problems in other parts of your life too, it would be good to talk about it with your doctor.

What stays with me

To me, the question "does ADHD make you more prone to cheating" is broad enough to be unfair to people with ADHD. The research is limited, the results are mixed, and drawing a conclusion like "people with ADHD are unfaithful" from a single survey is both scientifically wrong and stigmatizing. Every person with ADHD is the owner of their own faithfulness.

But I don't want to dismiss the question completely either. Knowing that impulsivity, a hunger for novelty and a brake loosened by alcohol make some moments riskier is, I think, empowering information. Someone who knows their own weak moments can take precautions before they come. Someone who doesn't has to fight with willpower every time, and doesn't always win that fight.

My stance is this: using ADHD neither as an excuse nor as a reason for suspicion. Talking about boundaries in advance, naming risky moments, not hiding an attraction you feel. Trust grows as two people become able to predict each other, and a person with ADHD can provide that predictability not by changing their character but by building structure.