Cheating on Your Spouse: A Game-Theoretic Analysis

Abstract

In this note we analyze a game model of marital infidelity. The husband can either be faithful to or cheat on his wife. The wife can either monitor or not monitor her husband. We first determine the best response correspondences of the two players. Second, we explain why there is no purestrategy Nash equilibrium in the game under study. Third, we show that there exists a unique mixedstrategy Nash equilibrium in the game. Finally, we demonstrate the nexus between our marital infidelity game and the prominent Matching Pennies game.

A Game-Theoretic Approach to Catching a Cheating Spouse

“…Our analysis differs from Batabyal [12] and Batabyal and Beladi [13] in two important ways. First, we study a game model in which the husband is not potentially but actually cheating on his wife.…”

“…Elmslie and Tebaldi [11] use GSS data and show that although the drivers of happiness in a marriage differ between men and women, cheating itself has similar impacts on both the sexes. Finally, Batabyal [12] and Batabyal and Beladi [13] use a static game model to study the optimal effort a wife ought to expend to monitor her potentially cheating husband.…”

“…First, the existing studies are mainly empirical and not theoretical in nature. Second, even though the phenomenon of cheating in a marriage has obvious strategic aspects to it, with the exception of Batabyal [12] and Batabyal and Beladi [13], there are no game-theoretic analyses of marital cheating.…”