The Psychology of Leading a Double Life

It sounds like the plot of a movie: someone is hiding a major secret from their family, friends and co-workers. But it isn’t just any secret—it’s a totally separate life. 

Whether it’s maintaining a professional persona at work while juggling a questionable side job or eating dinner with a wife and children before heading out to spend the weekend with a second family, double lives sound like the stuff of fiction. But as baffling as they are to those of us living congruent lives, they’re a shocking reality for many people. It’s hard to pinpoint an exact number of these extreme secret-keepers. But when you consider that a staggering 71% of Americans admit to cheating on their partner, you realize that most people, at some point, are going to lead a secret life.

So what’s the motivation behind these double lifestyles? We spoke to the experts to find out.

How Does a Double Life Start?

From the staggering percentage of extramarital affairs, to secret lives being lived inside video games, to secret families (some uncovered through DNA tests), there’s no shortage of stories about people living double lives. 

How they start may differ from person to person. The common facilitator, however, is social media. “We’ve got smartphones and the internet and technology, so it's become a lot easier for people to lead a double life,” says Barb Ladd, PsyD, forensic behavioral psychologist at The Liefde Organization. 

Ladd points out that anyone can create secret accounts and completely different personas on social media. Different lives can easily be compartmentalized when you're giving different groups of people a different perception of who you are. “That can cause a split where we start to forget what the reality is,” Ladd says. Then it becomes easier to lie and maintain that double life.

However, while maintaining a secret life may be easier thanks to technology, it’s wrong to assume that double lives are planned.

Dr. Gladys Frankel, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist with a private practice and former faculty member of Ivy League universities, says most double-life situations start subtly. “People do things subtly a lot of the time, like somebody who might participate in online gambling. That might be subtle, but when it rises to the level where they recognize, ‘My wife would be very, very unhappy with this,’ it becomes a hidden life,” she explains.

Frankel uses the most common example to explain how the evolution occurs—affairs. Someone might start an affair without planning to live a separate life. But as the relationship grows and fulfills them in a way their primary relationship does not, the person desires to continue the affair, which then blossoms into a secret, separate life. 

Usually, this happens so they can keep enjoying the pleasure and excitement of the affair without having to change anything in their primary life. Splitting their two worlds apart prevents either from colliding. They get to keep their original family and avoid repercussions such as a divorce.

Not everyone will go to such lengths, nor will they allow a subtle secret behavior to spiral out of control. Dr. Carlos Protzel, PsyD, clinical psychologist at Protzel Therapy, Inc., believes double lives are typically rooted in some form of childhood experience. “I think early on, the seeds of that double life can begin due to attachment issues and early trauma,” he says. Other causes he cites are addiction, mental health conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder or narcissistic personality disorder. 

But we should be wary of generalizations. Not all cases of double lives come from childhood traumas, and not everyone who experienced trauma  is driven to compartmentalize their lives this way.

Filling a Desire Within

While no one's double life is a cookie-cutter example, they do seem to have one thing in common: once a person engages in a double life, it's filling some desire within them. 

The desire may be "taboo" due to societal conventions (such as having multiple families), or it may be a void they can’t fill in a conventional way (such as the narcissist's insatiable need for attention and admiration). It might even be a way for people to be the person they've always wanted to be, but haven't been able to in their everyday life.

Our experts identified four common themes or reasons why people may lead double lives.

1. Seeking authenticity 

Nearly half of Generation Z, the generation born between 1997 and 2012, say they have an internet alter ego (essentially living a double life online). As a society, we don’t regard this as being negative because it's normal for this generation. Young people say they are free to be funny and more confident online and are able to express themselves in a way that doesn’t feel possible offline. Social media affords the ability to create an identity, or identities, without fear of repercussion.

This sentiment isn't exclusive to young people. “Our subconscious tells us in society, we're supposed to have certain things in order. We're supposed to feel happy, but we're supposed to work hard to do it,” Ladd says. People are so busy trying to keep up with societal standards and expectations that they can lose sight of who they truly are. So they look for an escape—an opportunity to be more real and authentic outside the role that's expected of them. A double life may offer something that's missing in their actual existence and “just is more fulfilling,” Ladd says.

If, for example, a husband doesn’t feel his authentic self with his wife, he might seek out a second relationship which feeds that missing connection. Or when people feel unable to be themselves at work due to career expectations, they might work a secret job such as streaming to express their passions and creativity.

2. The Thrill of Embracing the Dark Side

The mysterious draw of the taboo could also be why someone begins and then sustains a double life. “It's something inside of us that's naughty, dirty, something we were told we weren't supposed to do,” Ladd says. She explains that the high people get from doing something "forbidden" can be a powerful driving force for every type of illicit activity, from keeping a mistress to cult-like behavior. 

Why keep the two lives separate, though? According to Ladd, it can fulfill one’s ego to keep the dark side hidden. For her doctoral work, Ladd studied a refugee group involved in terrorist activity. She and her colleagues found that the participants were “still very conscientious of reality” when engaging in their separate lives. She compares it to an alter-ego state, such as Clark Kent becoming Superman.

“Most of the time, they know consciously what they're doing is wrong, and that brings the shame in, the depression in, but it also brings the thrill,” Ladd says. If it was exposed, the thrill or high could disappear—hence, sustaining the double life..

3. Avoiding Responsibility

People who engage in double lives make choices, as we all do. For some, the decision to compartmentalize their lives is a conscious behavior—according to Frankel, they actively choose to fill their needs without taking responsibility or accountability. For instance, where the choice is to fix a broken relationship or create another one and receive benefits from two partners, they choose the latter. This way, they don't have to face the hard work of fixing what's broken, and instead take advantage of having their cake and eating it too.

Before condemning people in this situation, Protzel reminds us that compartmentalization exists on a spectrum, and is often a defense mechanism for dealing with difficult situations. For example, if you are grieving the loss of a loved one but you have to be professional at work, it's helpful to be able to turn off the emotions you are experiencing and then turn them back on when you're in a safe place. “A person could be compartmentalizing that they eat a little bit of food out of the fridge at night. Maybe they're taking more dessert than they should,” says Protzel. “On some level, people do have secrets” and not all secrets are bad things. It's part of being human.

4. Darker Personality Types

If someone has narcissistic personality traits, odds are they are leading some semblance of a double life.

“If a person is narcissistic and has a bottomless pit for a narcissistic supply, which is the people and experiences that build them up and shield them from that hurt child inside, there's a real intense, compelling drive to create more and more experiences that are going to build them up,” Protzel says. “So let's say they've got a family building them up in some way, but then maybe they want to have an affair, or maybe they want to be a whole different person. It comes down to them trying to feed that bottomless supply with admiration, with feeling special, with being the best. But it's never enough. There's no level of satiation.”

Since there's no satiating the need, Protzel says, the double life can grow and grow over time. Indeed, he says that if someone does have narcissistic tendencies, one double life may serve as a "gateway drug” for multiple double lives. “If they're successful at it, it emboldens them to go deeper and deeper. I've seen double lives, triple lives, quadruple lives, quintuple lives,” he says.

Signs That Someone is Leading a Double Life

If you think someone you know is leading a double life, here are some red flags to look out for:

• Odd behavior before leaving your presence. Although not every person leading a double life has a specific psychological switch, you might notice unusual behavior. Ladd mentions a client who always listened to Mozart before heading to engage in his separate life. Frankel says some people might change their clothing, keep a separate computer, or only go online at a specific time. If you see someone suddenly switch to behaving or looking differently for no obvious reason, that could be a sign of something bigger.
• Hiding their cell phone use. While Protzel says there’s a fine line between a "police state mentality" and being open about your online activity, someone hiding their cell phone from you, not letting you see any of their activity, and refusing to discuss it is a major red flag. He adds that people who are more open to sharing may still be calculating, however, as they may be deleting information before sharing anything with you.
• Lovebombing. “People who are living a double life will love bomb,” says Protzel. Look for anything that seems “too much,” including endless flattery and compliments. “If it doesn't seem right, there's usually a reason why you think that.” 
• Stress, depressive and addictive behaviors. If someone without narcissistic tendencies is engaging in a double life, the stress and guilt will add up. “There's so much shame and guilt and worry about getting busted, and consequences, and being seen in a negative light. So they get very adept at hiding that part of their life,” Protzel says. Ladd adds that anyone keeping extreme secrets may experience several symptoms, such as alcoholism, drug abuse, depression and anxiety due to the load of their guilt. Keep an eye out for how someone behaves in certain situations. If they're consistently drinking too much, or seem particularly anxious or depressed around a specific time of day, it could be a sign that they have something to hide.

And if you or someone you know is struggling with deep-seated patterns of secrecy, how can you begin to break them? While double lives can be complex to unweave, the way to begin healing is to start telling the truth, with professional help as needed. While daunting, it helps to slowly replace a daily lie with a truth and build from there. “People can change," Protzel says. "It's just about being fully held accountable and being able to break through all defense mechanisms.”