As Scots vote on independence the UK’s leading marital affairs website has revealed a huge spike in activity north of the border. IllicitEncounters.com, which has more than 930,000 registered members, says the past month has seen a massive increase in new sign-ups from dissatisfied Scots.
It’s believed the increase of 146% may be due to married couples clashing on the referendum issue and one or both partners deciding to look for love elsewhere. The site already has thousands of members in Scotland – around 10% of the total UK membership – but both activity from existing Scottish members and new sign-ups from others in the country has grown steadily throughout the last 12 months, reaching record levels in the past few days.
The site usually sees peaks of activity in January as fed up couples seek exciting affairs after the Christmas and New Year periods. But activity in Scotland this month has surpassed even that with record numbers logging on and arranging to meet for extra martial encounters.
Illicit Encounters spokesperson Mike Taylor commented: “With all the talk of independence and better together covering the headlines it is not surprising that it has seeped into people’s minds about their own relationships. It can be even harder if as a couple you fundamentally disagree with your partner over the future of Scotland, this can lead you to re-evaluating your relationship and taking action to find someone who feels the same as you.”
Yet as voters across Scotland weigh up the pros and cons of a divorce from the rest of Britain the site also revealed the Scots to be more faithful than the English or the Welsh – when it comes to marriage at least. A One Poll survey conducted on behalf of IllicitEncounters.com found only 17% of married men and women in Scotland had cheated on their spouse – compared to 22% in the UK as a whole.
To commemorate the referendum in Scotland Illicit Encounters is publishing the key Scottish differences from the rest of the UK when it comes to marriage, happiness and infidelity, commissioned by the dating site and conducted by One Poll.
The findings show:
• 60% of the Scottish public in a relationship want more sex than they’re getting (which is the highest in the UK).
• 13% of the Scottish public are unhappily married, describing their relationship with one of the following negative adjectives: Platonic, Volatile, Stressful, Constricting, Boring or Strained.
• 17% of Scottish married men and women cheated on their current partners at least once. This is actually the second smallest percentage of infidelity in Britain, the average being 22%.
• Most affairs start in the workplace – over 45% of Scottish cheaters met the person that they had an affair with at work. This is the largest amount of any area meeting their lover at work, the average is 34.5%.
• 21.41% of the Scottish married public would cheat if they wouldn’t get caught out. 24.5% is the national average for this.
• 41% of married Scots would try to work through their partner’s infidelity.
• 35.5% Scottish married people have sex several times a month which was the most selected option, followed by a few times a week at 28.5%, less than once a month at 13.5%, once a year of less at 8%, almost every day at 6%, and then several times a year at 4.5%. The least selected option, more than once a day, was at 4%.
