If you struggle with the idea of maintaining a monogamous relationship, recent research suggests that your family history may have something to do with it.

According to a study in the Journal of Family Issues, researchers have established a correlation between an individual's propensity to cheat with their parent's history on that front.

The research focussed on parental infidelity, parental marital status, parental conflict, and parental marital satisfaction and theorised that these factors were associated with the likelihood of offspring engaging in infidelity.

The study, which harnessed the lived experience of 294 people, established that if a person's parent cheated on their partner, they were twice as likely to do the same, with 44 per cent of participants who cheated revealing that their parents had also been unfaithful.

"When considered together, parent infidelity and parent satisfaction were uniquely related to offspring infidelity," the study reads.

"Additionally, parental marital status moderated the relationship between parent infidelity and offspring infidelity, as individuals who experienced neither event were particularly unlikely to have ever engaged in infidelity."

"Our research indicates that parental infidelity sends memorable messages to children about the greater acceptability of infidelity and these communications are internalised." Dana Weiser of Texas University explains.

She added: "We find that parent infidelity is associated with an individual’s own infidelity."