Women beat men in the adultery stakes: Ladies who cheat have 2.3 secret lovers compared to 1.8 for the blokes



When it comes to playing away women tend to rack up more lovers than men, according to self-confessed adulterers.



Research into the behaviour of 4,000 cheats claims women are more promiscuous, having an average of 2.3 secret lovers compared to a mere 1.8 for men.



The UK Adultery Survey 2012 found that once women decide to play away they are far more likely to play the field in search of love.



Adultery: According to research women are more promiscuous among self confessed cheats

While men claim the pursuit of sexual excitement, boredom with their marriages and the need of an ego boost are the main reasons for cheating, women say they are looking for emotional fulfillment, an improvement to their self esteem and romance.



Female adulterers are also far more prone to falling in love with their illicit lovers than their male equivalents.



Emily Pope of Undercover Lovers, a dating site for married people seeking affairs with some 600,000 members, said the results of the survey challenged the commonly held view that men are more adulterous than women.

'Once they have made the huge decision to have an affair, women have far more opportunity to actually find someone to cheat with and are generally in control of deciding if and when to consummate the relationship once they do,' she said.



The survey also found that women are likely to be the first to get itchy feet in a marriage.



While unfaithful men don’t have their first affair until almost six years of married life the average female cheater strays just five years after exchanging wedding vows.



Playing away: Women tend to cheat as they look for romance and emotional fulfillment while men said they play away in the pursuit of sexual excitement and boredom with their marriages

They are also usually younger than men when they stray with the average female adulterer starting at 37 compared to 42 for men.



Emily added: 'More and more neurological research is revealing that male and female brains are programmed differently when it comes to relationships.



'The results of our survey bear this out, with our adulteresses seemingly seeking something far more emotionally meaningful from their affairs than their male partners.'



Both sexes agree that monogamy is an unnatural state for humans even though 76 per cent of women and 67 per cent of men claim to still love the spouse they are cheating on and more than 80 per cent of both sexes intend to stay married.



However, the research also found that many adulterers are hypocrites.



More than 40 per cent of women and almost 30 per cent of male would ask for a divorce if they discovered their spouse was having an affair.



