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 naievity or objectivity / honesty regarding the extent to which men shows signs of their true selves fairly early and we just ignore it.

I agree and also think it's not helpful when people are so judgemental about women who stay with unfaithful husbands. Life is complicated. I have relatives and friends who stayed with their husbands after the men were unfaithful. The last thing these women needed at a difficult time of their lives was so-called friends judging them, yet this happened.

I do think people ignore emotional investment though.

When you don’t love the person it’s easy to be objective and see trash for what it is.

Agree with this.

People have posted things here and when you ask them more questions you frequently arrive at the opinion that what happened was a foregone conclusion.

Yes! I laughed out loud at times. The one where she was shocked that his wife was pregnant a second time, like the guy was cheating on her, the mistress, with his own wife. The absolute stupidity to think he wouldn't be sleeping with his wife. It's really unintentionally funny at times.

I know a woman this "happened" to, and one of the children was always ill meaning he had to keep sleeping at his "ex's" house.

Intelligent successful woman with a really good career.

Sadly forced to agree since I recently read a thread in which women found out her husband squeezed the last tea out of tea bag with his fingers. I didn't post but I thought my husband doesn't do that... Oh how wrong I was. How we've been married 15 years and I never knew I do not know!

How can you say that that’s naivety though? Maybe their DH would never do/say that. You don’t know the man…

Its trusting someone… not naivety.

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.

this is just plain misandry.
It assumes that no men have the ability to choose to say no to something that doesn't fit their values.

I actually feel sorry for people who only know men like this.

I don't really agree. People love to say that there was no way of knowing, it's always the ones you least suspect, etc. - but this has just not been my experience. I could have told you with 100% accuracy which of my friends' husbands turned out to be crap at pulling their weight with childcare. I was utterly unsurprised when a couple I knew split up due to his affair recently - he was really slimy. To give a more extreme example: I have, horribly, known two men convicted of possessing child porn - both gave off really creepy vibes. I just don't think it is as unpredictable as people say, I just think people don't want to see/acknowledge many of the signs because they can look positive from one perspective. E.g. one of the biggest red flags in friends' partners has been the ones who made big romantic gestures while dating - the friend always thought at the time this guy must be Prince Charming, always turned out he had Prince Charming's views on gender roles, too.

This was 100% me.

It’s been so disheartening to see just how common this is and how predictable it becomes after reading just a few lines.

I didn’t believe mine had cheated until i got diagnosed with an STD a few months after he left. Even then I asked my doctor if it was possible it was something I’d had before we’d met 10 years earlier and had just lain dormant, because of course he wouldn’t have cheated. The kind-but-pitying look she gave me…

I think people respond to the post. Quite a lot of people to ask whether other peoples husbands or partners do something. And quite often it’s a useful check on someone’s behaviour. A kind of is this normal.

Totally agree. I’m a bloke and I’ve never ever cheated on any girlfriend or my late wife. I was cheated on once. Of my male friends a couple have cheated, the vast majority never have. I probably know more women who’ve cheated than men, although I’ve never sat down to work it out.

Now that doesn’t gaurantee I never will 100%, who knows how life will go? But it’s not naive to trust people. It’s how relationships should be or what is the point?

I think various scenarios have a ring of truth.

Sometimes the person clearly has a history or behavioural red flags that make you suspect they are the unfaithful type. One of my friends' husbands had a slimy manner and was attempting to start up flirting with me when I met him, he ran off with someone else about six months later, he was clearly on the lookout. Also, see people who start off as OW, know their partner has dodgy ways from early on (texting OW, use of websites, sex workers, history of affairs) and just plough on hoping for the best.

The best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour and this is true for this group.

It's also true that some men and women are just pretty rock solid and even if someone jumped on top of them, they'd still politely fail to acknowledge this and then just keep going. I think if you've been with someone for 30 years and they are very much the staying-in, not-going-anywhere type who hasn't given you any pause for thought all that time, the chances are that will continue.

Then there's everyone else, in which I include myself, where we prioritise honesty, good values, disapprove of cheating and generally are the faithful types but can get knocked off course sometimes, either by a strong connection, opportunity or something like a bereavement, or mid-life crisis. I think most people are in this category, including the women I know. Drink also plays a part in this quite often, as does going away. People who aren't late night drinkers do better, as do people who understand others and will actively avoid temptation. Some people are a bit stupid on purpose or accidentally about this and will plough on as 'just good friends' until they aren't.

@LughLongArm

I hope you never have to
come back here and create a new post in a difficult situation, or re-read this shitty one.

I work in HR and therefore find out about lots of disciplinaries. There are tons involving men acting inappropriately to female colleagues. Pretty much always the men are married. I’m sure they don’t tell their wives what they’ve been caught doing (probably even if they’re sacked as a result) but it doesn’t mean it’s not really common to happen.

I think it's possible to have a pretty good idea of whether your partner is someone who would cheat or visit a lapdancing club. You can't be entirely certain, but you can definitely know someone well enough to assess that it's unlikely.

However, what is naive is to extrapolate from the above that your partner also never looks at or notices attractive women, only ever thinks about you when he has a wank, is only attracted to women his own age, and has never had a single impure thought about the body of a woman who walks past him wearing a bikini on holiday. I've seen all these claims on Mumsnet. It's laughably ridiculous to imagine that this could possibly be true, and if it is, you have married some sort of weird AI android who is not in fact an actual human man. Also I don't care how vehemently you claim your husband has never watched porn because I can assure you he absolutely has.

The posters who say just had 3rd baby and DH is off out golfing won’t help me, is asked what was he like before? he’s never done much!! yet you continue to produce children with this lazy useless lump!

This one always gets me too, but in a more sad way for the children.

If your DH is useless with your first child, don't keep having more and more kids then act shocked pikachu when he doesn't suddenly step up during even more stress. At a certain point you know what kind of father you're saddling your children with and continuing to produce more kids with a feckless dad is unfair on the children.

So only the layabouts cheat?

It seems to be the consensus here that if you’ve been in a relationship with a cheat they must have been the type that didn’t do their share of the housework or child-rearing; letched after women in the street and all your friends; they were abusive and shouty and just generally horrible men. Either that or they cheated because they weren’t getting enough sex in the marriage. And if you were cheated on, it must be your own fault for having married such an obviously deficient husband.

Believe me, my ex was perfect on paper. Hardly a day went by when i wasn’t told how lucky I was to have him. My family called him “Saint Michael”.

People like to console themselves with these incorrect views because it makes them feel safer.

I agree people can be blindsided by the unearthing of behaviour/an incident. Absolutely. I do, however, think that 99.9% of the time there have been red flags which have been ignored or deliberately swept under the rug.

Agree with this. I think some women have a bullshit-o-meter more sensitive to others. That's not a virtue, it's sadly just, historically, how women are socialised to think and behave.

I agree with this. It's easy to say 'there's always red flags', but I don't think there are, or at least, not so visibly. If they are a bad, horrible, abusive person, with a history of sexual incontinence, yes, but that's not most of my friends' husbands who have cheated; they are usually fairly normal but weak men. A past history of cheating is a good indicator of future likelihood, but often that only comes out afterwards.

That said, I don't ever say 'not my Nigel' because I don't think you ever truly know another person, and it's silly of family and friends to think any man is saintly or perfect or would never cheat, it's pretty common behaviour.

There was definitely no red flags when it happened to me, and that made me more naive. I thought cheating only happened in other people’s relationships where it wasn’t a shock when they cheated because he’d always been a bit of an arse anyway. So that’s really changed my views to make me realise that it can and does happen to anyone.