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

[Jayeu]

I’ve read a lot of threads recently where countless posters have replied to say ‘my DH would never do/say that’, ‘DH wouldn’t get himself in that situation, I know him too well’.

Do you not think that the posters who have come on here to ask for advice on such issues had a similar view of their own DH previously too?

Whether it’s shagging their PA, a sexist comment, strip club visit or coming out as gay - a lot of people have blind loyalty.

I just feel there’s a general naivety that it could never happen to them, and the smug holier than thou replies do nothing to help the OP’s.

Is it naivity? Surely it's a combination of love , trust, hope and self preservation.

My late husband was very much in the same mould as @steppemum Honesty and integrity. Never once took anything he wasn’t entitled to or cheated anyone. It simply wasn’t in his nature. He never cheated on me for 41 years and I’ve no reason to think he ever would have done.

He was a SAHP for nine years, and I saw school mums flirting outrageously with him. He thought it was ridiculous. We never had “rows” either. We disagreed, sometimes vehemently, but we respected each other and worked it out.

He left stag parties early when they headed for strip clubs, and got mercilessly robbed for it. Didn’t care. So yeah, they’re not all like that, you just got a substandard one.

I don't know - I think often, and it's sometimes clumsily expressed - it's that when the details of the story emerge, the transgression in question has turned out to have come after a string of red flags and problematic behaviour. On hearing it unfold, very few people are then surprised that the OP's DP has done whatever it is.

I could never say 'never' in terms of my DH cheating because that would be naive, but what I can say is that the chances are pretty small because I can objectively confirm that there is a real absence of gateway behaviours or red flags (been there, done that, am incredibly low tolerance!)

Agree.

The number is posts where the DH leaves and it’s clear there is another woman but the OP denies it as either her husband isn’t the type or he doesn’t have the time. Usually the DH is having a “mental health” crisis or suddenly didn’t love her for “ages”.

Then later comes back to update that there was indeed an OW.

Yeah. Even the ones who find sex menus for stag dos won’t admit it to themselves 😂

I agree. I'd rather take people at face value and assume they're decent and reliable than go through life worried my dh is going to screw me over.

The stupidity of running down age gap relationships too.
They've obviously not experienced a good one , or one at all, and are so blind they can't see that relationships/marriages by between people of the same age are breaking up all the time.
It's down to the individuals not the age.

I dont see so many of the "my DH would never"

But I see a lot of the "if DH did...." I'd leave and also accusations against women for being toxic or abusive becuase they lost their temper.

I don't lose my temper often but when I do I can really go. I don't think that makes me toxic or that I need to leave DP because of the one off thing he did that caused it. Obviously it would be better if neither ever happened, but RL is not like that.

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.

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"

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

This.

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.

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.

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.