We're all aware of the behavioural clichés that go hand-in-hand with being cheated on.
Cue: woman on TV eats ice-cream in floods of tears as she refuses to leave bed for a month.
But what kind of physical toll does the impact of infidelity have in real life?
That's the question psychologists explore in a new paper published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.
Researchers from the University of Nevada, Reno, quizzed 232 university students who had been cheated on within the past three months.
The volunteers were in "serious and committed relationships" with an average length of just over a year and a half, at the point at which the infidelity took place or was discovered.
The study found that women experienced more distress than men, as a result of being cheated on.
This had a detrimental effect on their mental health, which in turn made it more likely for them to indulge in risk-taking behaviours that affected their physical health.
These included not eating, using alcohol or cannabis more often, over-exercising or having unprotected sex under the influence of drugs.
In addition, researchers discovered that people who blamed themselves for the infidelity were more likely to fall into a pattern of risky behaviour as a consequence.
"Being cheated on seems to not only have mental health consequences, but also increases risky behaviors," M. Rosie Shrout, leading the study, tells PsyPost.
"It was interesting to find that these effects were stronger for women than men," she adds.
"We think this is because women typically place higher importance on the relationship as a source of self and identity. As a result, women who have been cheated on might be more likely to have poorer mental health and engage in unhealthy, risky behavior because their self-perceptions have been damaged."
Interestingly, the negative effects were the same regardless of whether someone stayed with their partner beyond being cheated on or not.
"It is possible that infidelity is such a serious and distressing relationship event that these intense negative reactions occur regardless of whether a person stays in the relationship," Shrout notes.
The psychologists weren't able to establish a causal link between infidelity and the behaviours, but they speculated that damaged self-esteem may lower inhibitions towards risky behaviours - or they could be a form of retaliation to the actions of the cheating partner.
The study was co-authored by Daniel J. Weigel.
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