* 81% of people who cheat have a university degree
* Law graduates top the list of degree holders most likely to stray
* Psychology, Business and Computer Science graduates also feature heavily
* Study conducted by IllicitEncounters.com, the UK’s largest extramarital dating site

Britain’s most educated are also among the most unfaithful, with new research revealing that university graduates are significantly more likely to stray – and those with law degrees are leading the pack.

A new study by IllicitEncounters.com, the UK’s leading married dating site, involving 3,500 members has found that a striking 81% of people who cheat hold a university degree.

When asked what subject they studied, law graduates emerged as the most likely to have an affair, accounting for 19% of degree-holding cheats – putting their finely honed skills of persuasion and loophole-finding to rather creative use outside the courtroom. Business graduates follow at 17%, with Psychology graduates in third at 15%.

Computer Science graduates account for 13%, no doubt relying on their tech savvy to ensure there’s no digital evidence left behind, while Marketing and Media Studies alumni clock in at 11%.

One member of the married dating site, a solicitor from Birmingham in her late thirties, says the findings don’t surprise her at all. “Lawyers are trained to compartmentalise,” she says. “You learn very early on to keep different parts of your life completely separate. It’s practically a professional requirement – it just turns out it’s quite a useful skill in your personal life too.”

Jessica Leoni, sex and relationships expert at IllicitEncounters.com, says the pattern reflects the pressures that often accompany high-achieving careers. “Graduates tend to be ambitious, driven and intellectually restless – and those same qualities that make them successful professionally can make it very difficult to switch off that hunger at home. They want stimulation in every area of their lives, and if they’re not getting it in their marriage, they’ll find it elsewhere.”

She adds: “The law graduate finding is particularly fitting. If anyone knows how to build a watertight case – and cover their tracks – it’s a barrister.”

Results

Law – 19%
Business – 17%
Psychology – 15%
Computer Science – 13%
Marketing / Media Studies – 11%
Management Studies – 8%
Engineering – 6%
Economics – 5%
English Literature – 4%
Languages – 3%
Fine Art – 2%

* More than half of Brits admit snooping on their partner’s phone without permission
* Over a quarter say they check their partner’s device at least once a week
* Women are significantly more likely to snoop than men
* Study conducted by IllicitEncounters.com, the UK’s largest extramarital dating site

Smartphones may hold the secrets of our daily lives – but for many couples, they’ve also become a source of temptation.

A new poll of 2,500 people conducted by IllicitEncounters.com, the UK’s largest extramarital dating site, has revealed that 52% of Brits admit they have secretly checked their partner’s phone without permission.

And for many, it’s not just a one-off act of curiosity. Among those who confessed to snooping, 27% admitted they check their partner’s phone at least once a week, suggesting that secret surveillance has become a regular habit in some relationships.

When asked how often they had secretly checked their partner’s phone, 12% admitted doing so every day, while 27% said they snoop at least once a week. A further 19% said they check around once a month, while 42% insisted they had only done it once or twice out of curiosity.

Despite the obvious privacy implications, many respondents didn’t feel particularly guilty about their behaviour. In fact, 34% of those who admitted snooping said they didn’t consider secretly checking their partner’s phone to be “that bad.”

For some, however, the habit has led to uncomfortable discoveries. 27% of those who checked their partner’s device said they found something upsetting, whether that was suspicious messages, conversations they felt crossed a line, or evidence of behaviour their partner had previously denied.

The research also revealed a clear gender divide when it comes to phone snooping. Women were more likely to admit checking their partner’s phone, with 58% confessing to doing so compared to 46% of men.

One woman who took part in the survey, a 35-year-old sales manager from Manchester who asked to remain anonymous, said curiosity initially drove her to look through her partner’s phone.

“It started as a gut feeling more than anything,” she says. “He’d started turning his phone face down on the table and taking it with him everywhere, even just to make a cup of tea. I told myself I was being paranoid, but the thought wouldn’t leave my head.”

Eventually, she decided to take a look while he was asleep. “I hated the idea of snooping, but at the same time I felt like I needed reassurance,” she says. “Once you’ve had that suspicion planted in your mind, it’s really hard to ignore it.”

What she found wasn’t outright evidence of cheating, but it was enough to shake her trust. “There were messages with another woman that felt a bit too friendly for my liking,” she says. “Nothing explicit, but lots of late-night chats and inside jokes. It made me feel like there was something emotional going on that I didn’t know about.”

Jessica Leoni, sex and relationships expert at IllicitEncounters.com, says the findings highlight how smartphones have become a major issue for modern relationships. “Phones contain so much of our personal lives now – messages, social media conversations, photos and browsing history,” she explains. “For someone who already feels insecure in their relationship, the temptation to look can be overwhelming.”

However, she warns that snooping can often create more problems than it solves. “Checking a partner’s phone might provide temporary reassurance, but it can also damage trust if the behaviour becomes habitual,” she says. “In many cases, it reflects deeper issues in the relationship, such as insecurity, poor communication or a lack of transparency.”

Leoni adds that once someone begins regularly checking their partner’s phone, it can quickly become a cycle that’s difficult to break. “Suspicion often feeds itself,” she says. “The more someone looks for evidence of wrongdoing, the more likely they are to interpret normal behaviour as something suspicious. Healthy relationships depend on trust – and that’s very difficult to maintain if one partner feels constantly monitored.”

Results

Have you ever secretly checked your partner’s phone without their permission?
Yes – 52% (58% women, 46% men)
No – 48% (42% women, 54% men)

How often do you check your partner’s phone? (Of those who admitted to checking without permission)
Every day – 12%
At least once a week – 27%
At least once a month – 19%
At least once a year – 42%

* More than a quarter of affairs begin through school connections, new research shows
* Parents of children in Years 3 and 4 are most at risk, according to the data
* PTA meetings, sports days and class WhatsApp groups are the most common affair flashpoints
* Study conducted by IllicitEncounters.com, the UK’s largest extramarital dating site

It’s the place you drop off your kids every morning. But according to new research, the school gate is also one of Britain’s most fertile grounds for extramarital affairs.

A poll of 2,200 parents by IllicitEncounters.com, the UK’s leading married dating site, has revealed that 26% of affairs begin through school connections – making it one of the most common places a marriage starts to unravel.

And the danger zone? Parents of children in Years 3 and 4 are the most likely to stray, accounting for 21% of school-gate affairs. Years 1 and 2 parents follow closely at 19%, with Years 5 and 6 at 18%. Reception parents account for 16%, secondary school parents for 15%, and sixth form parents make up the remaining 11%.

As for where these connections are made, PTA meetings top the list at 31%, followed by class WhatsApp groups at 27% – proving that the group chat intended for reading lists and bake sale reminders could be doing more harm than good in relationships.

Sports days accounted for 19% of initial encounters, while the daily school pick-up and drop-off itself is responsible for 13%. School social events such as discos, fairs and fundraisers account for the remaining 7%.

Perhaps most striking of all is the speed at which these connections escalate. On average, it takes just 4.7 months from first meeting to full-blown affair – suggesting that regular contact, shared parenting experiences, and underlying marital dissatisfaction make for a potent combination.

One woman who took part in the poll, a mother of two from the South East, says her affair began ​​innocently in a Whatsapp group, “We were both in the Year 3 group, and he messaged me privately to ask if my son had brought home the wrong jumper. We started joking about how stressful the homework was, and within a month, those jokes turned into late-night chats.

The school run became the highlight of my day. We’d catch each other’s eye across the playground – it felt like we had this huge secret in plain sight. It’s the perfect cover, your spouse never suspects you’re cheating when you say you’re just staying late for a PTA meeting.”

Jessica Leoni, sex and relationships expert at IllicitEncounters.com, says the findings are unsurprising. “The school gate is a goldmine for connection – you see the same people every single day, you have an instant shared bond in your children, and you’re often at a stage of life where your marriage has settled into routine. Add a flirty WhatsApp group into the mix and it’s a recipe for something more.”

Leoni says the research highlights how everyday routines can unexpectedly create opportunities for relationships to form. “Affairs rarely begin in dramatic circumstances,” she says. “More often they start with ordinary conversations that slowly become more personal over time.”

Results

At what point in your children’s school life did your affair start?

Reception – 16%
Years 1 to 2 – 19%
Years 3 to 4 – 21%
Years 5 to 6 – 18%
Secondary school – 15%
Sixth Form/College – 11%

How did the affair begin?

PTA meetings – 31%
Class WhatsApp groups – 27%
Sports day – 19%
School pick-up/drop-off – 13%
School social events – 7%
Other – 3%

* 44% of women say losing weight boosted their confidence – but many say it damaged their relationship.
* Over a third report their partner became less affectionate after they slimmed down.
* One woman, 42, says her three‑stone “glow up” left her husband distant – and pushed her towards an affair.
* Study conducted by IllicitEncounters.com, the UK’s largest extramarital dating site.

Weight loss is supposed to transform your life for the better. But, for one woman, shedding three stone didn’t just change her body – it changed her marriage.

A new poll conducted by IllicitEncounters.com, the UK’s largest extramarital dating site, involving 2,000 women has revealed that while slimming down often boosts confidence, it can also create unexpected tension at home – with 52% saying changes in their weight had a negative impact on their relationship.

According to the data, 44% of women said their confidence increased after losing weight. But the emotional ripple effects weren’t always positive.

More than a third (37%) said their partner became less affectionate after their weight loss, while 34% noticed increased jealousy following their “glow up”.

Meanwhile, 29% of women who slimmed down felt their partner seemed “intimidated” by their new confidence.

For one 42-year-old mother-of-two, who asked to remain anonymous, the change was stark. After losing three stone using Mounjaro, she says she has never felt better in herself – but her husband’s reaction left her blindsided.

“I’ve never felt more attractive in my life,” she says. “For years I struggled with my weight. I didn’t feel confident getting dressed up or initiating intimacy. Losing the weight made me feel like me again.”

But instead of reigniting the spark at home, she says the dynamic shifted. “He used to grab me constantly. Now he barely looks,” she explains. “At first I thought I was imagining it. But the more confident I became, the more distant he seemed.”

She says her husband even admitted he preferred her before the weight loss. “He says he ‘misses my curves’, but I think he misses feeling more secure. When I was bigger, I don’t think he ever worried about other men noticing me.”

As her confidence grew, she began receiving more attention – something she says her husband struggled with. “There were little comments. If I dressed up, he’d ask who I was trying to impress. If I went out with friends, he’d act cold afterwards.”

Eventually, she says the emotional distance pushed her elsewhere.“I thought losing weight would improve everything. I didn’t expect it to threaten my marriage,” she admits. “So, when my husband didn’t appreciate the way I’d become, I decided perhaps it was time to find someone who did – and I’ve been having an affair for the past two months as a result.”

Sex and relationship expert at IllicitEncounters.com, Jessica Leoni, says the findings reflect a power shift that can occur when one partner undergoes a visible transformation. “Weight loss can dramatically alter relationship dynamics,” she explains. “If one partner’s confidence increases significantly, it can unsettle the balance that existed before.”

She adds that insecurity can manifest in subtle but damaging ways. “For some partners, especially if the relationship was built around a certain dynamic, a physical ‘glow up’ can trigger feelings of inadequacy or fear of abandonment. Instead of celebrating the change, they may withdraw or become jealous.”

Leoni says it’s not uncommon for increased external attention to amplify tensions. “When one partner starts receiving more validation from outside the relationship, it can highlight cracks that were already there,” she says. “If communication isn’t strong, resentment can build quickly.”