Is this where humanity is headed? It seems everyone is living impulsively with a sense of entitlement. Our culture prizes individual fulfillment, with couples uniting and splitting impulsively based on variable emotional needs. We’re treating everything like a disposable commodity. Writing off our elderly. Estrangement of parents. With a loot and pillage mentality. With a “I want to party, spend and screw, as much as I possibly can before I die and nobody best get in my way” mentality.
Simply put, yes, this is where humanity is heading. The interesting question to me is "why"? Why are we getting so much messaging that seems to support this "eat, pray, love" message.
If you'll pass me the tin foil hat for a moment..
We, as a species, are grossly overpopulated, with more overpopulation coming. This is evident all over the place, but, as AI accelerates and improves, it's only going to become more and more of an issue. So many jobs are being automated away, and frankly, I'd have to say that many, many jobs that people are doing today are nothing more than "busy work"; work that simply doesn't need to be done. If we continue on the track we are on now, there is going to be a lot of structural unemployment in the future, and that will only get worse.
So, what the heck does this have to do with affairs? Well, it starts with demonizing marriage and the "traditional family unit". If you can convince people affairs are "OK" and "eat pray love" is a reasonable way to live your life, you can greatly tamp down the reproduction rate. Add in significant support for same sex marriage/relationship; transgender, etc, you further tamp down the reproduction rate.
Is there a "master plan" to combat the overpopulation bomb we have coming in the next 50 years as AI/robotics become more and more sophisticated? I have no idea, but, if I were making one and told "you can do anything you want except starting a war/violence" (the most direct way to reduce population) well, what we're seeing today is basically what I'd do. Break the back of the family unit, no fault divorce, make that divorce extraordinarily painful/expensive, glorify alternative lifestyles, paint marriage as stifling and outdated. The one thing that hasn't happened yet, but I believe will be the "kill shot" is male birth control (think "the pill" not a condom) that doesn't impact pleasure, is undetectable, and effective. I'm honestly surprised we haven't released it yet (we've known how to do it for years, we just don't allow people access to the drugs or knowledge to make it happen). Why is this so important? Because ~50% of births in this country are unplanned or unwanted. Providing hormonal type birth control to men will drop that number dramatically, and push us far, far below the replacement rate, further pushing the agenda of de-population.
Now, with the "why" I think this is happening, onto the original question, yes, cheating is a "lifestyle" to some. I know quite a few guys who, I guess the best way to describe it is as a "hobby". Someone mentioned "mongering" (a word used for men who visit professionals for sex), well, the other word for it is, interestingly, "hobbyist".
One of the things that I don't think a lot of cheaters think about, yes, this is your "first time" cheating, it is his/hers? In my wife's case, it wasn't, his wife caught him 2X before (unbeknownst to my wife, of course). He was a "hobbyist", and my wife was his latest "project". The thing people need to think about, if you're in an affair and not the hobbyist, there's a good chance your AP is. Affairs don't, despite much crap we read, "just happen". In fact, it takes a lot of work, often from the "hobbyist" to make it happen. I've been married for 10 years, I'm handsome, I'm wealthy, and I've had 0 women proposition me for an A. Now, some of that is simply distancing from women, but, I have to believe it's really rare for it to happen that way, I'd have to pursue an A, just like I'd have to pursue a prostitute if I wanted the "monger" experience. They don't jump out in a dark alley and attack you with their boobs! 
