Poll: Many in U.S. know cheaters

WASHINGTON, March 19 (UPI) -- More than half of U.S. residents say they know at least one person whose spouse has strayed, a USA Today/Gallup poll found.

The survey was conducted after the revelation that former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer had paid for sex with a prostitute and that his successor, David Paterson, admitted he and his wife had both had extramarital affairs.

In 1964, a Harris poll found that only 24 percent of those surveyed knew of an adulterous relationship. Some experts suggest that people's openness about cheating has increased more than the amount of infidelity.

"My inclination is that there has not been a change in the actual behavior of people, but there has been a change in the inclination of people to discuss it," David Barash, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Washington, told USA Today.

The survey found some gender differences. Men are more likely to say that a romantic affair is worse than paying for a prostitute, while women take the opposite view.

Single people are less forgiving of cheating, with 30 percent saying they could forgive an affair while 37 percent of married people said they could.