To find that there is a great deal of naivety on here

That's a very sensible approach, @Tacohill.

this

It's definitely not helpful when people are looking for advice on their situation. I would say though that as much as there are women who are naive about the character of their husbands equally sometimes people just change as they get older and something that they would never have done 15 years ago, they may do today. Mid life crisis I suppose being a prime example, time running out making people more selfish etc etc and then there are husbands who just would never do whatever the thing is (cheating, becoming a bad father etc)

I don't trust men as far as I can throw them due to long experience with them.
I hear next doors bloke lying to his partner every evening in the garden (he sits out there to smoke) about how busy he's been all day when I know he's done precisely fuck all but sit in the garden smoking and doom scrolling.
The other day she absolutely exploded.
I'm not spying on them I've been outside everyday doing up my garden loudly so they know I am there because I've got the radio on.
But this is fairly typical of men, lying is easier than saying i've done nothing today. He doesn't work, she works long hours.

Some people know their partner has no opportunity or desire to cheat though. Like they don't have a PA or any female colleagues, they never go out, they aren't on SM, they don't show any interest in women etc.

I think they also know that some people really would never go to a strip club, or use a sex worker.

I do think any man is definitely capable of a sexist comment. Maybe when they think no woman is listening. Even if it's latent or unconscious I think men are all a little sexist.

I presumed that one was the mumsnet piss troll.

I think this is a very good post and I do agree and don’t think you’re naive to trust someone. And you should not get the blame for doing so.

But I do believe it’s naive to not protect yourself and believe that your relationship exists in a vacuum.

Anything can happen and you need to prepare for it.

It’s a bit like having life insurance.
No one expects that they’re going to die before their children and you could be the picture of health.
But being prepared doesn’t mean you think you’re going to die, it’s just there for the worst case scenario.

It is strange how a lot of women will say "not my husband" but will then go on to say "all men are rats, dump the bastard, you can't trust any of them". I always wonder, would they be so fast to dump THEIR "bastard"?

There was one yesterday where her dad urinated all over her new home and I had every sympathy for that, but then she said she never wants another man in her home ever again, and so many agreed! It was bizarre. Why would all men be banished from thereon? Imagine blanket-judging women like that. All hell would break loose.

Had to smile at the ‘MIL smacked my son’ thread earlier where people said ‘I’d report her to the police for assault’.

Of course they wouldn’t! Unless there’s a very serious issue and pattern of abuse, no one is going to report their MIL to the police for losing her temper and acting badly. Imagine the massive family fallout from that.

I sometimes wonder what people are thinking when they type such things.

I wouldn’t write that my partner would never cheat, go to a strip club etc, on a thread where the OP is distressed that their partner has done those things as that would be unhelpful and cruel.

However, after being together for almost 30 years, since we were 19, and having seen my partner in a variety of situations, seeing how he acts around women, who he chooses to mix with, the fact that he has fallen out with friends who have cheated on their wives, that he thought his brother was a dick for going to a strip club on his stag do and has minimal contact with that brother due to the way he treats his wife and women in general, that he finds men like that disgusting etc, I would say that he’d never do the things you mentioned. He has really strong morals that align with mine. In almost 30 years he has never once gave me reason to doubt him. His dad was a misogynistic man and he never wanted to be like that. My dad abused me and he detests him and has supported me in dealing with all the crap that came with that.

If people want to think that I’m being naive, that’s ok, I know I’m not.

Some people absolutely get into relationships with people who have multiple red flags.

One on here recently was how shocked she was that her DP is cheating on her but she was knowingly the OW herself!
And you think how stupid can you be.

But I’ve known many couples where the relationship is amazing and then something happens completely out of the blue.

My good friend went from being in an amazing relationship for 15 years, to having what I can assume was a mental breakdown after a loved one died.
She ended up taking all of the family money and running off leaving her DH and kids behind.

It was awful because you felt so sorry for her DH and DCs but at the same time you knew it wasn’t like her but she still did it.

There have been perfect marriages but then unbeknownst to the man he had a child in a previous relationship.
This causes drama because the wife didn’t sign up for it.

And loads of times on here the marriage is perfect until they have DCs and that’s when all of a sudden the man is getting less attention etc or he becomes controlling etc.
Or if they can’t have DCs then it can cause tension or jealousy.

So I think some relationships it’s obvious that it was never going to last but for many, it’s a great relationship until a few years down the line and something else causes issues between them.

This.

I think this is the wrong question, though. It seems to me that much of what’s regarded as normal on Mn is far worse than infidelity.

I don’t think it is naive to trust someone you love, @Jayeu. Or to believe that you know someone well enough, after years in a relationship, to think that you know them, their standards and their morals.

Saying someone is naive for trusting their partner is putting the blame for the bad behaviour on the person who’s been let down, not on the person who cheated/behaved badly. The blame should be put on the person who did wrong, not the person who trusted them.

Yes, 100% agree, I would absolutely never say "my husband would NEVER cheat on me" or that I would leave if he ever did. No one knows how they would react in that situation and even though I 100% trust DP, you can never be absolutely certain about what the future holds and I have seen some shockers in my time (men who I never thought would cheat for example). A lot of women are incredibly naive.

I disagree. Some people might think that a situation (like, as I have seen on a recent post, someones DP calling you a cunt when they argue) is normal. I think it is important for some people to say "my DH would never do this" to show that it is not, and in fact it is possible to have a relationship where this does not happen. If DH had done this, or in fact called me any names at all during arguments, I would probably not be with him now.

Just to add I’m since remarried and of course I’m not untrusting of my DH, as I wouldn’t have married him, but I’m also not naive to think “he would NEVER…” in the same way I did my first marriage, when I was naive. It’s more of a “well, if he does have an affair then so be it” way of thinking these days. Of course I’d still be very shocked, again he doesn’t seem “the type” but it’s not the same way I thought in my first marriage.

Yes!

YANBU

There were lots of similar posts on a thread about having a runaway fund.

Many posters were saying how they only have joint accounts and no separate savings accounts as they would never need it - like they think their relationship is somehow stronger than any other relationship that ever existed.

The majority of threads on here say something like “I can’t believe this is happening/I never thought this would happen to me”.

Yes I often think how much do we really know about one another?

My working experiences tell me that that that nice, middle class man with a good job, 2 nice children and post graduate education is busy chasing after 16 year old girls. Or they’re sexually harassing a woman who works for them whilst the wife is working away.
The religious married man who is the moral stalwart of the community is actually a sexual sadist.

There are a lot of people out there who are very attracted to vulnerabilities for different reasons.

I always remind myself now that I’m only engaging with social skills. Never assume.

Oh god yes, but I can’t blame people as I would have likely still been the same to this day if my exDH hadn’t had an affair.
I thought there was a “type” of person to have an affair, confidently thought “I’m lucky I’ll never end up divorced!“ when I heard of others. Well, I certainly learned a big lesson when my DH had an affair at work, which shocked everyone who knew him as he “wasn’t the type!”

Sadly I think for most the only way to learn though is to experience it happening to them or someone they’re close to. I’m now almost quite jealous of the naive people, as they haven’t experienced it, and I hope they never do as it’s obviously not nice.

This.
I married a grown up. If he had a wife that did everything he'd probably be open to a bit of weaponised incompetence (though he did everything for himself before we got married), but he was not brought up to think women his inferior and going along with that comes not having affairs, lying to your wife, abusing young women on low incomes.

I agree to some degree but most of it is made up anyway.

I also recognise that these situations don’t happen overnight, so where for example, a partner makes a very offensive remark or does something truly upsetting, it’s often clear that the OP must have started out with low standards from the get go because there’s no way this is out of the blue. There’s a post on here just now where the OP describes a situation with her husband that in no way happened overnight. Those who respond are trying to convince the poster that the situation is abnormal so of course they’re referring to their own situations and high standards. I think the naïve part is believing some of these posts are real.

Yeah this! There was one this week where someone's friend had been offended at a (clumsy but not hateful in any way) joke of her husbands and was told "I'd be getting my ducks in a row"

Why would someone go around saying their partner or spouse, in what they believe to be a happy secure relationship with, will cheat or come out as gay though? What does it achieve?

People tend to be shocked when bad things happen to them because nobody wants to live their life telling themselves that bad things will happen.
Multiple people are injured or killed in car crashes every day. We all know this but we don’t set off to work or the supermarket in the car believing we’re going to be in a car crash. If someone did people would think they were overly anxious and needed help.