Marital Fidelity and Digital Infidelity in a UAE University-Affiliated Sample: An Exploratory Mixed-Methods Study

This exploratory mixed-methods study examines self-reported perceptions of marital fidelity, marital infidelity, and digital boundary violations among adults recruited through one private university in the United Arab Emirates. Nationality or citizenship and direct socioeconomic indicators were not collected; participants are therefore described as a UAE university-affiliated sample rather than as Emirati or nationally representative. A quantitatively led design combined 156 complete questionnaires with 11 semi-structured interviews. Marital fidelity received very high endorsement (M = 4.50, SD = 0.47), and its observed association with perceived seriousness of infidelity was positive (r = 0.685, p < 0.001). Primary interpretation is limited to the strongly reliable marital-fidelity indicator and the comparatively better-supported seriousness indicator. Findings involving the three-item digital-infidelity index (alpha = 0.481), the two-item forgiveness/restoration index (alpha = 0.534), and the single boundary-clarity item are reported only as secondary exploratory analyses and are not used to support the principal conclusions. Women showed sample-specific differences on fidelity and seriousness, but no result is interpreted as behavioral or moral superiority. The observed correlation between seriousness and digital-infidelity judgments (r = 0.864) indicates substantial overlap; no correction for attenuation is presented because the dimensionality and error structure of the short indices were not established. Interview findings are reported as counts out of 11 rather than percentages. The findings are sample-bound, attitudinal, and hypothesis-generating.