When self-compassion matters: romantic relationship quality and infidelity proneness

Infidelity proneness reflects an individual's tendency or inclination toward infidelity and is conceptually distinct from enacted infidelity. Although lower romantic relationship quality has been associated with greater infidelity-related intentions, less is known about the intrapersonal characteristics that may condition this association. The present study examined whether self-compassion moderates the association between perceived romantic relationship quality and infidelity proneness. Using a cross-sectional correlational design, data were collected from 384 adults in Türkiye aged 18-68 years (M = 31.04, SD = 9.40). Participants completed measures of perceived romantic relationship quality, self-compassion, and infidelity proneness. Moderation analysis was conducted using PROCESS Model 1, adjusting for gender, age, and relationship duration. Perceived romantic relationship quality was negatively associated with infidelity proneness (r = -0.614, p < 0.001), as was self-compassion (r = -0.251, p < 0.001). Self-compassion significantly moderated the association between perceived romantic relationship quality and infidelity proneness (b = 0.062, SE = 0.015, p < 0.001), accounting for an additional 2.2% of the variance. The negative association between relationship quality and infidelity proneness was significant at low, mean, and high levels of self-compassion but became progressively weaker as self-compassion increased. At lower levels of relationship quality, higher self-compassion corresponded to lower predicted infidelity proneness; however, this pattern was not uniform across the full range of relationship quality. These findings suggest that self-compassion may be relevant to understanding individual differences in how relational evaluations are associated with infidelity-related tendencies, while cautioning against interpreting self-compassion as uniformly protective. From a clinical perspective, the findings support considering both perceptions of relationship quality and intrapersonal regulation when assessing infidelity-related concerns in individual and couple contexts, while longitudinal research is needed before causal or intervention-related conclusions can be drawn.