To ask if you 100% believe your partner has never cheated?

[zaraaraz]

I think cheating is very common. I was with someone I loved, would have done anything for and he left me and was declaring his love for someone else the next day. Obviously he was seeing her behind my back. My boyfriend before him was going through a divorce because his wife had cheated.

My sister met her husband when they were both with other people. My fathers first wife cheated on him.

I’ve seen a particular colleague cheat twice on his girlfriend.

It’s just very common in my opinion. I’m currently single but whosever I date next then I wouldn’t be shocked if I found out if they were a cheater.

It's not about trying to upset people. I'm sure in the majority of these 100 percenter cases the partners won't cheat.

It's about trying to get people to confront the fact that they can't ever control other people's behaviour and impose wishful thinking onto the future behaviour of another living individual.

No it isn't. Everyone knows they don't have 100% control over another person's behaviour. It's not about control at all. It's about knowing a person well, using your best judgement. They believe their partner won't cheat . What are they supposed to gain from being convinced by posters doggedly insisting 'You can't know that!'? I doubt it will make them any less devastated if their partner does end up cheating!

If 'most of the 100 percenters' partners won't cheat', then on balance the 100 percenters will have been right then, won't they? And they'll have been happier living without the constant suspicion that tyeir partner would cheat.

Everyone knows they don't have 100% control over another person's behaviour.

But they clearly don't know this, or at least won't admit to this or they wouldn't be insisting that they can see into the future.

I'm not advocating remaining in a state of constant suspicion and vigilance I've said people should trust until there is evidence otherwise: I'm saying that people insisting they have a crystal ball into the behaviour of other people for the benefit of strangers on the internet is a bit deluded.

Why not just accept that you can't know everything but will act in good faith until you know otherwise?

I just think its quite unhealthy...

But they clearly don't know this, or at least won't admit to this or they wouldn't be insisting that they can see into the future.

They are not insisting they can see into tye future. They are making a judgement on how likely or unlikely they think something is to happen. People do that about all kinds of things in life all the time. Some are more optimistic than others.

@lazylinguist

They are making a judgement on how likely or unlikely they think something is to happen.

Right. But they are all magically coming up with 100% certainty (or 99% in some more realistic cases). Anyone with a basic grasp of statistics can tell you they can't all be right.

True. But I still don't understand why the doom-mongers are soooo keen to spread their message and mock people for trusting their partners, and what they think this will achieve. It just sounds like sour grapes tbh. Turning out to be wrong about something that you were convinced wouldn't happen isn't really an uncommon occurrence in general. I'd rather live in trust with my husband, even if I turned out later to be wrong.

Besides, the thread was asking how certain people are that their partner hasn't cheated. Being sure of that is not claiming to be able to look into the future.

@lazylinguist

True. But I still don't understand why the doom-mongers are soooo keen to spread their message and mock people for trusting their partners, and what they think this will achieve. It just sounds like sour grapes tbh. Turning out to be wrong about something that you were convinced wouldn't happen isn't really an uncommon occurrence in general. I'd rather live in trust with my husband, even if I turned out later to be wrong.

Besides, the thread was asking how certain people are that their partner hasn't cheated. Being sure of that is not claiming to be able to look into the future.

Of course its better to live in trust. Otherwise what's the point of being in a relationship. I totally agree with this.

But that isn't what was asked: the question was how many people are 100% sure their partner has never cheated. And a staggeringly large number of people have come on to say they are 100% sure.

There's two reasons this bothers me:

1. Because it simply isn't possible to know this 100%. Most people must at some level know this so they are therefore choosing to delude themselves about something this important. Its far better for your mental health to recognise this and allow for the possibility that you could be wrong than to brainwash yourself into believing something cannot possibly happen, setting yourself up for a hideous shock if it doesn't happen. It just isn't a healthy way to build resilience or self knowledge.

1. Because anyone who hands this much power to another person is setting themselves up for failure. It's not fair to expect a relationship with another person to provide totally copper-bottomed insurance. You have to trust the person you're in a relationship with them while you're in a relationship with them. But you also have to be able to allow for the possibility that the relationship may cease to work for them. You are throwing all your eggs in one very unreliable basked by doing this.

I'm not a huge fan of marriage generally for many reasons anyway and this probably colours my outlook. But its not sour grapes. I'm in a very good, happy relationship ATM with someone who I trust as far is its possible to do so. I have absolutely no current worries that he's going to cheat. But it would be kind of nuts for me to state unequivocally that I can prove he never has or that he never will.

Everyone can act completely out of character for a number of reasons

Everyone regardless could cheat iso many things can change in life

1000% sure. His first wife cheated on him. He'd never cheat on me.
Besides, he can't cope with one woman ( me) never mind two

Because anyone who hands this much power to another person is setting themselves up for failure.

How? I 100% believe my husband has never cheated. That's a conclusion I've reached based solely on my knowledge of what he's like and how he behaves. Can you explain to me what 'power' that gives him? Because I don't understand that at all. He has no more 'power' in our relationship than I do.

Also, how am I setting myself up for failure? If he were going to cheat, he cpuld do so whether I believed 100%, 50% or 0% that he wouldn't!

But it would be kind of nuts for me to state unequivocally that I can prove he never has or that he never will.

Who said anything about proof? The OP didn't ask for proof and nobody has claimed to be able to give proof. The OP asked us what we believed to be true.

@lazylinguist

Because anyone who hands this much power to another person is setting themselves up for failure.

How? I 100% believe my husband has never cheated. That's a conclusion I've reached based solely on my knowledge of what he's like and how he behaves. Can you explain to me what 'power' that gives him? Because I don't understand that at all. He has no more 'power' in our relationship than I do.

Also, how am I setting myself up for failure? If he were going to cheat, he cpuld do so whether I believed 100%, 50% or 0% that he wouldn't!

I just think as a matter of principle 100% trust in anyone at all is foolhardy. You wouldn't trust anything else 100%. A car, an insurance policy, a work contract. Why should something as mercurial and unpredictable as a person, who has their own identity and independent intelligence to you, and subject to forces and influences you don't know about, be capable or worthy of 100% trust? It just doesn't make sense. The thing about power is that by giving someone that much trust you are basically saying you're so invested in them that you're unable to have any agency in your own life and your ability to plan for and dictate your own life. I don't think its healthy.

The OP didn't ask for proof and nobody has claimed to be able to give proof. The OP asked us what we believed to be true.

Yes and about 85% of 300+ respondents said they believed 100% that their partner or husband had never cheated. This just cannot - due to the law of numbers -- factually be accurate. If you're going to state unequivocally that you are 100% certain of something you have to have proof!

Look I'm not trying to say trust in a relationship is invalid or to make people think their partners are cheating on them. I'm just trying to get people to question this slightly lemming-like assumption that just because they are currently happy with their partner he can't ever and won't ever cheat. You don't need to be that defensive about it. No-one is ever going to be 100%. Just be happy and accepting that your levels of trust are currently high enough and carry on.

Every person has it in them. Given the right mix of circumstances. Only takes a moment for two people feeling emotionally vulnerable to click.

Lol at lemming like assumption. Maybe they just know their partners and relationships better than you do, stranger on the Internet. I can say I'm 100% my partner won't cheat. Just like I can say I'm 100% sure my DH isn't going to start burning down orphanages, become a famous astronaut or rock outside and start practicing WWE moves on passing grandmothers. Of course it could happen, I'm not a psychic wizard but I'm sure it won't.
Why does having trust in your partner mean you can't have agency in your own life?

It's not a question that's ever been a preoccupation in my marriage. But I think this thread is quite revealing. One or two points PPs have made resonated with me in particular. Especially this:

No one ever completely knows the Heart (or mind) of anyone else.

Quite true. I also don't buy the naive observations that someone will/won't do something because they are/are not the type. Given the wrong set of variables coming together in any one situation, I suspect most things are possible for pretty much everyone. That isn't to say they necessarily will. But 100% is a big figure; it's not a balance of probabilities but total certainty, And I've never thought life was that simple.

I don't live in a state of paranoia thinking 'what if he cheats on me, or what if I have my head turned?' I like to think neither of us would; I've also no reason to believe this has ever happened.

I also can't claim to know even myself with 100% certainty, let alone another human being. We are more complex animals than that.

The thing about power is that by giving someone that much trust you are basically saying you're so invested in them that you're unable to have any agency in your own life and your ability to plan for and dictate your own life. I don't think its healthy.

I'm not feeling defensive about my own relationship, I just think it just sounds as though you are imagining the relationships of the '100 percenters' to be of a particular type, when I don't think they necessarily are. And imagining the women in those relationships to be romantic, idealist, dependent wives devoted to the husband they imagine is perfect.

That's not how I feel at all. I'm not a romantic, I'm a pragmatist. My husband isn't perfect. I can imagine him potentially doing all sorts of things that would seriously piss me off . But not cheating. Let's be clear - I don't say that in an idealistic 'he adores me so much that another woman could never turn his head way at all. I say it because I'm certain he would leave me rather than stray. I fail to see how that deprives me of agency in my own life. If I'm wrong and he cheats, I don't see how the fact that I was certain he wouldn't would make any difference to the outcome.

I don't give a monkey's what anyone thinks of my own relationship, I just think you keep making statements that don't make any logical sense. Like the one I quoted in this post. How would I be able to plan for my own life better, or have more 'agency' if I had only an 80% belief that my husband had not cheated?

I mean... my husband could get run over by a bus tomorrow. Or a million other things could happen? How would that affect my 'agency'? Why do you think that the mere percentage of belief in fidelity is what would determine my ability to support myself, move on with my life etc? I'd be very sad/angry, but I've no lack of agency or ability to plan.

I'm 100% sure. He'd never cheat; not in a million years.

@lazylinguist

I’m not making any particular assumptions about you and your relationship or the relationships of any other the other posters on this thread.

But I can’t get past the fact that people are unnervingly happy to stick their necks out with a statistic like 100% for something as intangible and unpredictable as the fidelity of their partners.

You can argue that it doesn’t matter and it’s none of my business and on an individual level this is true.

But it does matter and to see why it matters you only have to saunter onto the relationships board where on any given day there will be three threads from women who were 100 percenters whose husbands have cheated.

There’s no way to protect yourself from this of course and being cynical is no more likely to keep it at bay than being gullible.

But blindly insisting that you have this degree of visibility into something when you very plainly don’t suggests a lot of people are quite divorced from reality and, critically, are not able to plan ahead and imagine an alternative universe. And that is a problem.

@bullyingadvice2017

Every person has it in them. Given the right mix of circumstances. Only takes a moment for two people feeling emotionally vulnerable to click.

Yes yes yes yes this.

And once again, the stats...

Loneliness is the most common reason for cheating. It's a killer. I remember it absolutely gnawing at me. That's why I'm not in the 100% crowd, even though despite this I have never cheated. If I neglected DW enough, the two possible outcomes would be a) she left or b) she cheated because she didn't want to break up the family unit and we've had some very tough times.

@U2HasTheEdge

Admitting to inability to see the future, human frailty and uncertainty is just human. You don't make yourselves stronger or more resilient by pretending you can see the future.

Absolutely! You see it on MN all the time. People who were in the 100% camp, completely floored when they find out they were wrong.

Do people who have 100% trust in the fact their partners will never cheat think they are better judges of character or something than the people who also thought like them and were then proved wrong? It is pretty arrogant really.

Life is uncertain and you have absolutely no control over what someone else does and you can never predict the future actions of someone else with 100% accuracy. You can pretend to yourself all you like, but it is still a fact that you do not know what the future holds.

Ok I can't see into the future but I am absolutely 100% certain DH would not cheat unless he somehow had a complete change of personality, morals, views on infidelity etc.

I guess something like a brain tumour could cause such a change but otherwise he just would not cheat.

I don't think I am a better judge of character although I have been spookily correct many many times about different people (friends, work colleagues, family) and not just regarding cheating.

I do however know DH very well. I literally can almost read his mind. He says himself that he can't work out how so many times I know what he is thinking, what he is going to say etc.

He has very strong morals, views on marriage and infidelity. The same as I do. They are not going to suddenly change when he is now in his 60's.

I am certain I would not cheat because of my views, morals etc and, as DH shares all those, I can be equally sure he will not

@bullyingadvice2017

Every person has it in them. Given the right mix of circumstances. Only takes a moment for two people feeling emotionally vulnerable to click.

Absolute bullshit rubbish.

Lots of people would never cheat. All this bollocks of "circumstances". NO circumstances whatsoever would make me cheat. It would just never happen.

Two people might "click" (how sad is that phrase) but there is no need whatsoever to take it any further. We are humans with brains and morals and it is not difficult to not cheat.

As I said earlier, no one ends up in bed naked with someone who is not their partner and not know how they got there do they?

[quote thepeopleversuswork]@lazylinguist

They are making a judgement on how likely or unlikely they think something is to happen.

Right. But they are all magically coming up with 100% certainty (or 99% in some more realistic cases). Anyone with a basic grasp of statistics can tell you they can't all be right.[/quote]
It’s called trust and faith in your own judgment. It’s also entirely possible that those of us who have that level of conviction are right - the section of people answering this question aren’t necessarily representative of the statistics, given we’ve chosen to comment and are a tiny cohort.

I think you've just had a disproportionate experience with cheating.

Absolutely it’s common but I do trust my current partner totally and completely not to cheat. He’s never given me any reason not to trust him and I’ve also had a lot of therapy to get over my abusive cheating ex which also helps.

Unfortunately I think most people here are really naive. I’ve been there, with someone who would ‘never’ cheat because they’d had it done to them and it had broken them. Guess what? 🙄

I'm sure mine hasn't cheated.