Key takeaways
- Two Ipsos surveys for Gleeden put the share of urban Indians who say they've been unfaithful at 55% (2020) and 57% (2023).
- Emotional distance is the signal that stands out: 51% feel disconnected from their partner while 94% call their relationship happy.
- Ashley Madison's 2026 ranking puts Kanchipuram first in India, ahead of Coimbatore, Tiruvallur and Chennai.
- Adultery stopped being a crime in September 2018, but it is still a ground for divorce.
- Every figure here comes from a dating app or its pollster and covers cities only. Treat them as signals, not a census.
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What do surveys say about affairs in India?
The most quoted figures come from Gleeden, a dating app for people in relationships, which has commissioned the research firm Ipsos to survey Indians several times. In its February 2023 study of 1,503 people across 12 Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities, 57% said they had been unfaithful to their spouse at least once. An earlier Ipsos study, presented in January 2020, put the figure at 55%.
The third study, run in May 2025 with 1,510 people aged 18 to 60 in 12 cities including Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Jaipur, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Patna, Ludhiana and Kochi, asked about attitudes rather than behaviour. Its findings point to a quieter kind of drift: most people describe their relationship as happy, and about half still feel far from their partner.
- 94% said they were happy in their relationship.
- 51% said they feel emotionally disconnected from their partner.
- 64% admitted flirting online while in a relationship.
- 71% said deleting chats or hiding online conversations is a breach of trust, even with nothing physical involved.
- 41% would be open to an open relationship if their partner suggested it, and 35% said they were already in one.
- 33% linked their dissatisfaction to work-life imbalance and too little time together, millennials most of all.
Which Indian cities have the most extramarital dating sign-ups?
Ashley Madison, the best-known name in discreet dating, publishes a ranking of Indian cities by new sign-ups relative to population. In its June 2026 release, Kanchipuram in Tamil Nadu came first, as it did a year earlier, followed by Coimbatore, Tiruvallur and Chennai. India as a whole was third worldwide for new sign-ups, up from eighth a year before.
Read the ranking carefully. It is per head of population and, in Ashley Madison's words, based solely on sign-up activity, so a small town where a few thousand people join can outrank Delhi or Mumbai. It measures interest in one website, not how many people in a city are having affairs.
Why do people in long marriages look elsewhere?
Surveys can't answer this fully, but the reasons people give are consistent. In Gleeden's 2025 study the strongest signal was emotional: half the respondents felt disconnected from their partner even when everything else was fine. A third blamed overwork and too little time together. Phones make that distance easier to act on: 64% admitted flirting online while in a relationship.
How many Indian marriages begin matters too. In the India Human Development Survey of 2011–12, only about 5% of women said they had chosen their husband without their family's input (more on that here). Many couples build closeness after the wedding. Some never quite do.
None of this makes an affair the answer. It does explain why so many people in stable marriages describe feeling unseen, and why discreet dating apps keep growing in India: Gleeden said in March 2026 that it had more than 4 million users here.
Is having an affair illegal in India?
No. On 27 September 2018, in Joseph Shine v Union of India, a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court unanimously struck down Section 497 of the Indian Penal Code, the provision that made adultery a crime. The court held that it violated the rights to equality, non-discrimination and dignity.
It is still a ground for divorce under the Hindu Marriage Act and other personal laws (how divorce and talaq work). In January 2023 the Supreme Court also clarified that its ruling does not stop the armed forces from disciplining their own members for it. This is general information, not legal advice; for a real situation, talk to a family lawyer.
How reliable are these numbers?
Treat them as signals. Gleeden and Ashley Madison sell discreet dating, so they have a reason to publish big numbers. Their surveys cover Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities, not the villages and small towns where most Indians live. People answer about themselves, and “unfaithful” can mean anything from a secret emotional bond to a long affair.
What makes the figures hard to dismiss is that independent rounds agree with each other, they move in the same direction over time, and the apps' own growth in India backs them up.