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.

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.

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.

I presumed that one was the mumsnet piss troll.

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 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.

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)

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That's a very sensible approach, @Tacohill.

Yes. It annoys me as its very disrespectful to the women who have been blindsided by these things. Implies they should have chosen better.
I mean, I get it, the thought that there but for the grace of God is pretty scary and its much more comforting to thing these things only happen to women who aren't us.
Its also not unreasonable to make assumptions about people basedion what you know of their character and past behaviour.
But I think people don't realise that you can never fully know a person, only what they choose to show you. And even then, thats only the person they are today, not nrcessarily the one they'll be forever.
We are complicated with all sorts of private thoughts, and we're works in progress too, that can change with time and new influences.
Hope for the best by all means, and no need to tie yourself up in knots waiting for and watching out for the worst. Just always know you can never say never. Even for yourself in some cases.

Read one earlier,
along the lines of my dh is my best friend, I just want to be with him and the kids and basically drop my friends, gave up work, naive to think nothing will ever change and you’re not going to be left alone and jobless as you relied on this best friend of a husband.

You can't live your life assuming the worst about those close to you. If you spent every day thinking is this the day my DH decides to start an affair you would go crazy. And after years of marriage it's difficult to believe that your ordinary hubby would be a sex god to some other woman.

I think everyone knows there is a possibility of infidelity, but for many it just seems so, so unlikely that their nice, respectable, home loving DH, that has never shown any interest in other women would do that. And many don't.

I agree. I think there are SOME men (and women) who it is obvious would be temptable. But then there are others we THINK are better people and who would be more moral/ethical. But on the whole, I think men's sexuality (and some womens, although less so) is such that an attractive, available, easily accessible shag will send them over the edge into infidelity.

And I think women believing that their Nigel is different are deluded.

If you want your marriage to survive I think you need to make crystal clear to your Nigel that any infidelity will be the total end. Instantly. He needs to have that thought embedded in his mind from the word go.

You could say the same thing about children - that parents will tend to believe the best of their children (including their adult “children”), unwilling to accept that they could ever possibly be the type of people who would ever do xyz.

Many of them will be the type of people who end up doing xyz though, and in those cases it will hurt even more because as a parent you will feel a stronger connection between the things your offspring do, the way they behave, and your own role in raising them.

We want to believe the best of the people we love, particularly when we feel we know them incredibly well.

You could argue that in order to avoid being “naive” you need to always be prepared for the worst, for people to let you down, and I’m sure some people do go through life like that. I can understand the temptation to build a protective shell around yourself to make sure you are not the one who gets taken for a fool, but I’m not sure that is how I want to experience love.

Openness and trust inevitably make you vulnerable, but when it works it is that shared sense of vulnerability that can make a loving relationship so amazing. To go through years together with a partner, through all the trials and tribulations and each time see that the trust you placed in them was justified - that is a prize that so many people chase.

“Naivety” may be a price worth paying to have a shot at experiencing that.

Anyone can be blindsided by an infidelity. However, I’d be extremely surprised if anyone suddenly discovered, five or ten years in, that their spouse was a sexist pig who thought that cooking and cleaning was ‘naturally’ the concern of the person with the vagina.

I don’t appreciate it on here when someone dismisses my opinion and tells me I am naive. They usually just have the opposite opinion to me, but instead of giving me actual reasoned arguments why they disagree with me, they just tell me I am naive. YABU - mainly because you have used the word naive, which is judgemental.

Some people do know their partners better than others. I have known my partner for thirty years, since we were teenagers. We have lived together since I was eighteen so nearly as long. We are close, as in we talk to each other a lot and discuss things.
There is naturally going to be a difference between that and people who met in their thirties, got married after a few years and have been together for a total of say twelve years.
Especially if they don’t communicate very well.
The major thing though is when one partner is deliberately deceptive and misrepresenting themselves, lying etc. That is a world of difference.
Im fairly pragmatic about human nature and relationships at this stage in my life. There are some things that years ago I probably was a bit naive about. I now think cheating can happen to basically anyone in the right (wrong?) circumstances. I don’t think he has but I know it’s always a possibility and the world wouldn’t fall apart if he did.
I still think I know him well enough to reasonably believe that barring some sort of personality change due to injury or illness (also possible), he would leave me financially destitute or walk out on me and dc or suddenly become abusive.
I would put my money on him never leaving me especially for a man. I know he’s not a perv or deviant. He’s a good, reliable, loving man, with flaws and free will like everyone else.

Yanbu on the one hand that it's an unhelpful thing to say sometimes depending on tone.

But yabu to say "you never know". No really, I do know that my dh would never do certain things.

Affairs aren't a good example. I truly believe anyone could have an affair if the combination of circumstances lead to it. I also think the same about certain crimes like white collar fraud: I can imagine a combination of circumstances that would lead almost anyone to fudge the books.

But I know my dh would never hit me or the kids for example. I know he'd never (ab)use a prostitute. I've known him his whole adult life, so as far as it is possible to know anyone, I know him that much.

And furthermore, it's not even that hard to see the red flags in a lot of men. I know of a couple of men (my parents' generation) who've had very long term affairs involving a second set of children. In every case like that the relationship with his wife is one where she's learnt not to ask questions, have low expectations of his reliability and not know whether he's coming home etc etc.

It is possible to have an inkling.

I think there is a lot of naivety but I do think there are many women who are also confident in their relationships and trust their partners and that's obviously fine. I was good friends with a guy for many years and he never cheated on any of his girlfriends, and when we got together I was very confident he wouldn't cheat on me. We weren't together long and again, after me, he didn't cheat on any of his girlfriends and I believe he would never cheat on his now wife. If she said 'he would never', she would be telling the truth.

But I do find women who need to interject with glowing tales about their Nigel when another woman is struggling and looking for advice, a bit beyond the pale at times.

I think that circumstances and situations affect us far more than we'd like to admit.
They're not cheating for now is the best way of looking at it.
But the now is that things are going OK. They may not be forever.

It's nice to think that people have character traits that are immutable, but I think that it is really naive.

Yes I agree when it comes to certain terrible things people would not ever do them.
Cold-blooded murder purely for financial gain example.

I don't think that monogamy is particularly natural, though, there's an old joke about 2 of the ten commandments being about adultery and only 1 for murder.and cheating can happen because of change of circumstance and opportunity.

If 'Nigel' gains a massive promotion which means he has to be away a lot, will he never give in to temptation?

It's really flipping daft to see infidelity as something people would never do.

Let's not forget, either, that a lot of men (maybe some women, too) can totally separate infidelity from their home life.

That that also describes my ex to a tee as well. People don’t understand but when I discovered his affair, it wasn’t the affair itself that nearly finished me off. It was the realisation that I was wrong in my beliefs that I could read people very well, and I’d made judgements about my DH and our marriage that were so utterly wrong, they were the polar opposite of everything I’d ever deeply believed about him and us.

It was that, rather than the sex with OW, that shattered my very foundations. Suddenly I didn’t trust myself at all, or my own intuition or my relationships with anybody in my life. I was a very scary place to be.

But trust is not a steady state.

I think its important to have trust in a relationship. There’s no relationship without it and its hard to function in at atmosphere of suspicion.

But that doesn’t equate to a lifelong guarantee that you will get exactly what you bargained for. Marriages can last decades. People change over that time: and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. No one wants to be fhe same person at 70 that they were at 20. And sometimes that means outgrowing someone who was once perfect for you.

Anyone who believes they can guarantee their spouse would always or would never do something is lying to themselves. That doesn’t mean your spouse will cheat. But you can’t ever know 100% and I don’t understand why people feel they need to pretend they can.

All you can do is trust while you are in the marriage, and be as open as you can about how you feel. You can and should expect honesty, communication and respect but it’s ridiculous to claim that anyone can have enough knowledge or control over another human being to guarantee their psychological, emotional and sexual fidelity for life.

I do not understand how someone can say 100% they trust their DH. You are not them, you do not own their mind.

I agree it’s naive.

I would never want to cheat on my DH, but as he has no control over me, and is not me, he would be naive to trust me 100%.

You can be blindsided, definitely, and not expect it. But in any situation there is a minute level of risk. It’s maths.

Exactly. Its impossible to know what is in someone else’s mind. However stable it may seem, you can’t eliminate risk.

Sorry that happened to you.

Your husband isn’t mine though. You can choose to think it’s possible for my partner to act like yours did if you want to. You don’t know him and after what you have been through, it’s understandable. As I said, I don’t mind if people think I’m naive. They don’t know us and I don’t feel the need to prove anything. Some people think that everyone is capable of cheating. I’m most definitely not and I don’t believe my partner is either.

I hope things have got better for you.

I think the greater likelihood is somewhere in between.
A young couple with no responsibilities in a small rented flat where neither particularly prioritises home maintenance and they eat out a lot and both work similar hours, is a very different scenario to a couple with children a 'proper' home, obligations to make sure the children are fed, clean and looked after, and often the man's career taking priority as the higher earner.
In the first, a man's unwillingness to grasp the domestic nettle is nowhere near as obvious as it is in the second, so the woman often doesn't see red flags.
And these things tend to be creepers. You're not going to LTB for being a bit less diligent domestically than you'd like and it escalates from there.