Would you want to know about a partner’s infidelity, and why?

similar to other posters, one off stupid shag I’d rather not know. Persistent infidelity, yes, I’d want to know. The stupid thing is when younger I was given absolute proof of infidelity and chose to ignore it and do the pick me dance when I should have dumped his sorry ass. I did eventually.

now, older me, with more to lose, I wouldn’t ignore it….

Not wanting to know is just lying to yourself.

Why would someone want to lie to themselves?

To thine own self be true.

I’ve been cheated on. I would never have found out if it wasn’t for a suspicion on my part and a middle of the night trawl of my partner’s phone. If I hadn’t found out I would have ended up with a nasty STI that you can’t get rid of, so for that and so many other reasons I’m glad I found out. There are people in my partner’s life who knew and didn’t tell me…even though they knew that he’d contracted the STI. I can’t forgive them for that.

I would. He's putting my health at risk and lying every day. I would want to know so I had correct information to base my decisions on.

My ex had an EA and I wish someone had told me. I'm not sure everyone would feel the same so I would never share with someone else. Sounds like double standards but it's such a difficult subject.

It depends.

If DP had a drunken one night stand, regretted it, got an STI test, and resolved never to do it again, then I don't need to know. I'd likely forgive her if I did know, so all me knowing would achieve is making me feel like shit.

An ongoing physical or emotional affair however, is something I would leave over, so I'd definitely want to know about it

I can’t abide lies and liars. I’m glad I found out, otherwise I would have unwittingly continued in a relationship where I wasn’t loved and respected like I deserved to be with a man who was not who I thought he was. That is humiliating and unacceptable.

If I can’t have an honest relationship, I’d rather be alone.

I had an EA a couple of years back with a colleague. Nothing physical happened at all beyond leg grazing I guess and a hug but feelings were there and there was a heck of a lot of chemistry. I can’t say it wouldn’t have gone further if the conditions had been there but they never were. I didn’t want to tell DH because I knew it would break him so I kept it to myself.

Colleague left and the EA ended. DH trawled through my phone one day and found an email exchange between us so that was that, he found out. He was broken for months and used it as a stick to beat me with. For him it was worse than a ONS with someone I didn’t care about because I’d actually fallen for someone else. I get it and don’t know how I’d react in the same situation.

We had therapy and are ok now. It would have made life much easier had he not found out, for both of us. I don’t think the knowledge benefited either party.

For me it would genuinely depend. If on one sole occasion, my husband had slept with a near stranger (eg on work trip or similar) and then felt terrible about it, I would rather never know.

appreciate this is an unlikely scenario and most people who cheat once do it again.

But not all! Early in my marriage, I cheated on my husband (not sex, just a drunken snog with a work friend.) I felt terrible afterwards and confessed to my husband but I’m still not sure whether I did the right thing. It upset him a lot and it took him a while to trust me again. But I knew at that point, I would never cheat again. So maybe I should have kept it to myself. I still think I told him to lessen my own guilt and I’m not sure it was the best thing for him.

I’ve never seen any benefit in not having information about a significant part of my life (in this case a relationship but applies to anything)

When I was younger I very much thought that what I don't know can't hurt me. So my preference was for "if you love me, hide it well and don't confess to ease your own guilt".
The problem is, they may hide the actual evidence of infidelity but there is a difference in their attitude to the relationship which is pretty hard to miss. So I now think I'd like to know sooner rather than later because I need to be able to give informed consent to the relationship continuing. So anything other than absolute honesty is manipulation. And I can't stand being manipulated.