"Men are only as faithful as their options"

[Grandeur]

Adam Levine has recently cheated on his Victoria's Secret model wife, Behati Prinsloo with a 23-year-old woman. I think this shows that it doesn't matter how beautiful, slim or sexy you are, some men really are only as faithful as their options.

I know people say "there has to be something wrong in the relationship to cause infidelity," but I know so many women who have been utterly devoted to their partners and still got cheated on.

My partner is a reasonably attractive man and earns a large salary, the older I get the more concerned I become about being 'swapped' for a younger woman, because he would definitely have the option.

Obviously not all men would do this, but how can you be sure your partner wont? Some of the men who cheated on my friends were loyal, faithful, family-oriented men for over a decade, up until they got bored, of course.

Is this something we just have to accept? That it doesn't matter how devoted and attentive you are to your partner, if the options are available to him, he will seek out other/younger women regardless?

@AlwaysTheBrideNeverTheBridesmaid If someone cheats and you find out then you've been done a favour as you've discovered their true nature and can spare yourself from the agony of sharing a bed, a body, finances and a life with someone who's so morally bankrupt they're capable of such a thing. It's not the cheating itself, it's the lying and betrayal.

I would totally agree with this.

It's not just the sex, it's the alienation of affection, accusing you of being 'paranoid' or unstable, when you notice the change in them. 'Gaslighting' can really screw with your mind.
It's spending family money on another person, time away from home etc.

Finding out my ex(D)H was cheating was a relief as I knew then I wasn't imagining things.

It was an even bigger relief when I divorced him.😃

I agree. I think everything could be perfect in your relationship and your partner could still cheat. I also think if a Victoria Secrets model can get cheated on what chance have I got. I often think I'd rather not know, be oblivious. As long as I was completely happy no reason to destroy my world as if I knew I'd have to leave even if I didn't want too.

I’m not sure I can put my finger on what I disagree with here. In large part, you’re right, but the implied assumption “slim, sexy and beautiful” are characteristics that should or could correlate with marital happiness is misleading. I know it’s not necessarily your opinion op, but more a summing up of social attitudes of celebrities..

There are characteristics that are associated with long marriage (check out the Gottman institute if you’re curious) and one that stood out for me was the male characteristic of taking your wife’s opinion seriously. Apparently it’s not found in a majority of men.

I think there are men that are substantially more likely to value home, family and truly love their spouse than others.

I also think that any society that teaches boys to other themselves from girls in order to be manly, is openly breeding misogyny and making it hard for men to be able to like women.

It’s a multi faceted problem with the odds stacked against both women and men.

I sort of agree OP. I think people change so much that you can make no guarantees. I trust my DH as much as I could possibly trust a man, I would be genuinely surprised if he Ever cheated, but then if he did I know I’d leave in a heartbeat, I think it’s a pointless thing to worry about, if it happens then you’ll find a way of dealing with it but there’s no point of living in fear of it. If someone wants to cheat they will cheat.
But it’s got absolutely nothing to do with the cheated on partner, looks don’t come into it.

I agree with you op. When my exdh cheated I was devastated, I thought he'd never cheat, we'd just got married and our dd was 18 months old. I kept thinking if only I'd been more attractive, had more sex, spent more time on his hobby. My friend summed it up by saying I could have farted rainbow dust and he'd still have cheated. Why? Because he wanted to.

True that, OP! True that!

Adam Levine has recently cheated on his Victoria's Secret model wife, Behati Prinsloo with a 23-year-old woman. I think this shows that it doesn't matter how beautiful, slim or sexy you are, some men really are only as faithful as their options.

It's almost like men find some things other then looks, like humour, wit or intelligence as attractive traits in a woman. We see on MN from time to time women posting how they were shocked to find the OW their DH has run off with was not some gorgeous sex kitten but an average looking slightly overweight woman. How could that possibly happen!!

Plenty of women cheat behind their partners back, and when men do, the new version is not always slimmer and younger and more beautiful. It's far more complex than one sentence, which is just confirmation bias for any woman who happens to have been cheated on with someone younger.

there's a reasonably profound few sentences in Milan Kundera's 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being', where he reckons there are two types of womaniser:

(a) the Lyrical type, who seeks their personal ideal in each woman; and
(b) the Epic type, seeks the infinite variety of the feminine universe.

many men are of course neither.

I also think if a Victoria Secrets model can get cheated on what chance have I got.

This is very sad. Is your only worth your looks? Do you assume that infidelity is more likely if you don’t look great in your underwear?

It’s such a generalisation and insulting to men.

This kind of glib wisdom seems self-evident, but I doubt many anthropologists would agree. The success story of humanity is arguably its societal togetherness.

This is also why I have a theory (that seems correct) that beautiful women are cheated on more than average/not attractive women. Beautiful women by default attract men who value women for looks.

I've heard this theory before actually. Would be an interesting study.

The same could be said about women.

There are lots of anthroplogists who would agree. Human society's togetherness might work as a controlling force on the individual's selfishness. Likewise, female solidarity might work as a protective mechanism against patriarchal exploitation. There's always a push-pull and it's constantly changing.

Any constructed social mores (like the concepts of marriage and fidelity) are imposed in order to further certain objectives, which may or may not have anything to do with natural behaviours. If lifelong monogamy were so natural, there would be no need for anyone to sign a legally-binding contract in front of god / family / witnesses at all.

Of course the other question that also needs answering is why so many women are happy to be the OW or to sleep with married men.

I accept some men lie but someone like Adam Levine is well known.

Adam Levine has recently cheated on his Victoria's Secret model wife, Behati Prinsloo with a 23-year-old woman. I think this shows that it doesn't matter how beautiful, slim or sexy you are, some men really are only as faithful as their options

I think the massive problem here is that you are looking for what the women lacks to cause the cheating rather than just seeing it for what it is. A true reflection of how sh!t of a person Adam and any other cheater is. No one should be held responsible for someone else's poor choices. Even in pps replies about it "not just being looks it has to be personality too" still imply it MUST BE A FLAW on the woman's behalf. No. Maybe there was nothing wrong with and she was a perfectly nice person outside and in. But if he has the nature to cheat who she is will not change that.

I don't disagree, but I think that your thinking is a bit skewed.

I'd say that women who are primarily valued for their looks (e.g. Victoria's Secret models) are a) more likely to attract men with fairly shallow values, and b) attract men who will have more options. Because you don't hear about many top models marrying Barry from accounts.

It's not "even she gets cheated on", it's MORE likely she gets cheated on.

And I don't think women are any less prone to this behaviour, but probably have fewer opportunities.

Yeah.

In an old interview Levine was asked what he liked about his girlfriend and the time and he said 'her dimensions'. Nothing to do with her personality. Just her appearance.

He's been known to be trash for a long time. I'm surprised it's taken this long for one of them to come out.

I think you have to accept that if your partner is the type of man who will want to 'trade you in' and has the option to do so, he will.
This is in no way the same as accepting that all men who do have the option will trade you in.
There are men who genuinely value the woman they are married to for her qualities, for their history. They are secure and confident, don't need an ego boost and don't think the grass is greener. Decent men, self aware men, who wouldn't entertain the idea of a transactional relationship with a young woman who they know wouldn't look at them if they weren't wealthy.
Hopefully you are married to a man like that. But if you're not, truly, you're better alone.

If lifelong monogamy were so natural, there would be no need for anyone to sign a legally-binding contract in front of god / family / witnesses at all.

There's obviously a lot to unpack there - it's debatable whether monogamy is even synonymous with selflessness in the first place - but the basic human attraction to ritual also plays a massive, arguably the biggest, part as far as marriage goes.

But I suspect we'd get massively off topic, as interesting as it all is.

Agreed, I think married women also generally have fewer opportunities to cheat (also more tired with all that mental load swishing about...), and we are also more discerning in terms of who we go for, but I am not sure we can't be swayed if an opportunity presents itself.

Rituals don't spring out of nothing. Marriage as a concept is most likely part of an arms race to control female reproduction. All the pomp and circumstance around it may be a huge factor in what continues to make it an attractive option, but the ritual itself is not the reason for marriage to exist in the first place.

I brought this topic up last week and the thread got pulled because of all the sniping and name calling that ensued. I used the example of the fairly recent rumours (I have no idea of the truth of them) of Kate Middleton's former friend allegedly having an affair with Kate's husband William. Some weird answers followed, that Kate will have been told what to expect and that includes male royal family members being "entitled" to cheat. I wanted to discuss why William would or would not be the one to break the mould.

I think a lot of posters on MN, particularly those with ‘feminist’ credentials, really struggle with the fact male attitudes to sex and relationships differ (generally) to women’s. Men tend to be visual creatures, and more highly sexed. Women tend to value personality traits more, and naturally go off sex a bit after the first flushes of romance.

People want to believe that the only difference between men and women is our physical form and ability to birth babies, but it isn’t true. 30+ years of increased oestrogen or testosterone will shape your sex drive and your emotions. It isn’t all down to societal conditioning and gender stereotypes, but it’s hard for people to admit that.

Whenever you point out these difference you just get loads of shitty replies about ‘letting men off the hook’ or ‘not my Nigel’. But 🤷🏼‍♀️ life isn’t fair or reasonable is it?

YANBU

@TheLeadbetterLife If lifelong monogamy were so natural, there would be no need for anyone to sign a legally-binding contract in front of god / family / witnesses at all.

That never stopped anyone cheating, and people get cheated on when not in a 'legal' relationship ie married, so what's your point?!