Relationships can’t have been solid if his head was turned

Not necessarily true. A friend of mine was in a happy relationship with someone who had a sex worker habit from before they met.

No one ever got dragged out of a relationship they are happy in. If you’re happy, you are just not interested in anyone else.

People are just fucking cowards and would rather lie than tell the truth to their other halves THAT’s why they cheat. If they had the balls (or otherwise) they’d be honest and put an end to their relationship before they started another.

cheating bastards. Cowards, every single last one of them.

I think people men are attracted to the shiny and new. And generally have a higher sense of entitlement than women.
Plus there's an element of confusing the slog of family life/chores/responsibility, with thinking there's something wrong with the relationship - there isn't, it's just that it isn't as exciting as it was when neither party had any responsibilities and it was all date nights.

I don't think it's about "responsibility" as that implies blame or fault. The person who was cheated on could have been giving the relationship 110% and done everything "right" but that doesn't mean they weren't aware that the relationship was had issues.

It's not that the victim is to blame for their partner cheating. Cheating is still the wrong thing to do in any circumstance. But I've never known anyone who has been cheated on who didn't eventually admit that there were problems they were in denial about at the time.

Thing is, what is "solid" and what is an ok state of affairs given the stage of life you are at? My ex left for OW when we had toddlers. We'd only been married a couple of years, though together for much longer. To my mind we were in the trenches, working, childcare, small kids.. it was a bit of a slog but each held up our end of things and were getting through it with some light ahead in the form of school years and less £££ in childcare. I actually encouraged him to rediscover a hobby as I tended to have a bit more of a social life than him, at which he met OW and that was it. I don't think we were unhappy, but at a challenging stage and he didn't have the grit to see it out. The fact that he moved away and went EOW, dwindling to less than that now suggests to me that it was the family stuff that he couldn't handle, not that we as a couple were fatally flawed. If he'd stayed around, done 50/50 then I'd accept that it was us that was broken, but he basically broke up with family life and proper parenting.

Whilst in many cases the relationship can be rocky, it’s still a cowardly thing to do and the person who cheats is 100% at fault. If you’re not happy then leave - don’t cheat. You don’t accidentally cheat, it’s a deliberate choice you
make. So you can make the deliberate choice to end the relationship without cheating.

I've only ever cheated on relationships I didn't consider permanent and I wasn't in love with the person. So yeah, I'd say if you cheat when you've got a wonderful relationship you must be pretty damned foolish?! Or just incapable of fidelity.

Many Reasons. Opportunistic mistake, exit affairs, greed fuckers typically ok marriage and just hope they don’t get caught. Head turned who knows it’s all selfish 💩

There are so many reasons why people cheat. Sometimes it's because of something missing in the marriage, sometimes it's simply opportunity - because they can and sometimes it's pure entitlement. I've known men who have a mistress because they feel they deserve one. Some just cannot keep it in their pants.

All of the women I know who’ve cheated have been unhappy. Every last one. Often with lack of domestic support/ blokes prioritising golf weekends over a family holiday etc. Getting the ick after cleaning the toilet over and over again and slowly becoming open to the advances of the nice guy at work who doesn’t view her as a maid.

Male cheaters in my experience are sometimes genuinely unhappy, yes, but it’s just as likely to be opportunity and the lure of a new person, a novelty.

I had 1,000 rugs pulled out from under me when stbxh left for OW. I thought we were solid, he's never expressed or shown any unhappiness and definitely "wasn't the type". I was a good wife and partner and he was the centre of my world - I take no responsibility for his cowardly actions.

Whenever an MN thread arises asking if anyone has ever cheated in the past, the answers of those who have are invariably “yes, but…” followed by various reasons behind why they did it / felt they were driven to it - so yes, I think it’s true to say that in the vast majority of cases where cheating occurs, the relationship isn’t anywhere near as perfect as the person cheated on is telling themselves it is, and they’ve probably been putting their head in the sand about it and their own shortcomings.

Equally I’ve never known a friend or acquaintance to cheat and it to be an utter surprise to anyone: the problems in the relationship were obvious to anyone in the outside, let alone the inside, and even if they may not have handled it in the right way, breaking up was always the best thing that could have happened.