AIBU to think the "100% sure he’s never cheated" crowd are naive and delusional?

[IceCream233]

I’m looking for a bit of a reality check on relationship statistics.

I often see threads on here where 80% to 90% of posters insist they are absolutely, 100% certain their husband has never cheated.

Trust is great, obviously, but looking at actual statistics, it's just mathematically impossible for everyone to be right.

General studies on infidelity show that around 50% of married men will stray at some point. Plus, we all know that a massive chunk of people who cheat are just careful enough that they never get caught.

The math completely falls apart here. It means a huge portion of women who feel totally secure right now are actually being lied to, they just don't know it yet.

Are people just telling themselves "not my husband" as a coping mechanism to keep themselves happy? Is a bit of delusion just a basic requirement to survive a 20-year marriage?

AIBU for looking at the cold numbers instead of just relying on a gut feeling?

Exactly what happened to me. Everyone told me constantly that I was so lucky because exDH worshipped the ground I walked on. I thought that he was genuinely the most “good” person I had ever met and I adored him. He couldn’t lie, I could read him like a book. He came straight home from work every night and was a doting father and husband. We were intimate every day. I was a million percent sure he’d never cheat.

Until I discovered that for five years he’d been nipping out of work once a month for “meetings” in hotel rooms with various colleagues.

I now believe that anyone can cheat.

Been with my fiancé for 14 almost 15 years. He doesn’t have a high sex drive and even when we were younger it wasn’t that bad. He doesn’t entertain strip clubs or anything with his mates comes home if their going off to a strip club on a night out, he’s incredibly respectful of other women and calls his mates out on their behaviour. We both are open with our phones and know each others passcodes so there’s nothing to hide but we can use each others for the internet etc if one’s is on charge upstairs or dead for example. I trust him 99% because trusting anyone 100% is unreasonable but I really don’t think he has or would ever as long as the relationship remains as it is - also expecting our first baby in 3 weeks and he’s been nothing but attentive supportive and proactive the whole time. Totally stopped drinking in solidarity with me not being able to have a cheeky cocktail or anything. Sorry he’s a good one 😂😂

It’s heartbreaking 💔 Because the unfortunate reality that can choose to face (or not) is that men are not hard-wired by nature to be faithful. They will (and do) answer the call of the wild and you can either bury your head in the sand and pretend they don’t or you can accept their primal programming for what it is. Mother Nature doesn’t care about men being “faithful.” It’s pretty low down on her list of priorities.

I just don't get why any woman would 100% believe these things:
He's not the type
He doesn't have time
I know him better than he does
He's not a flirt.
I believe lots of men are faithful, but I also know some are not. My DH might cheat, he might not. One thing I know for sure I'm not going to create a delusion for myself that he couldn't just because I think I know him so well. Husbands dont cease to become autonomous humans just because they marry us.

Know lots of men who are married with kids who cheat and never get caught (or she stays with him regardless). It's extremely common. Some of the things partners have told.me their friends have got up to have never ceased to amaze me. Absolutely gobstobbing stuff, but men don't often pull their mates up on it. Unfortunately believe you are right OP

Women aren't hardwired this way arguably either. That's why sperm is designed in the way it is and why eggs 'choose' sperm. Because women could have multiple partners and evolution is designed to find the strongest match for the egg and sperm. Many sperm don't have DNA in the head but rather are there to 'block' the pathway of the sperm of other men. We are just told men are promiscuous to remove any accountability for their actions.

Everyone you know is happily married, what does happily married even mean? This reeks of delusion, I'm sorry but it does.

I know this couple!!

People are in denial and delusional. Their friends don't tell them when they have issues in their marriages or cheating etc so no one is real about their actual lives. I imagine it's also so much easier to get away with this behaviour if your partner believes you could never ever do it.

Meh I don’t think cheaters in general are particularly clever or great at hiding it.

I am confident my husband hasn’t ever cheated on me. Couldn’t say he will NEVER cheat on me in the future? Not with certainty but I would say it’s extremely unlikely.

I was in that club! Mine didn’t cheat in real life. But had online relations which did destroy our own. His love care time and money went to the online fantasy. I think that counts.

Dh has never cheated - 100% sure of that and we both work from home so I would know.

Same here, I trusted him implicitly. It was only just before he actually left me for another woman that he actually told me if other times he'd done it; then I started looking into what had happened before the big reveal. He had only told me about the ones that he thought would tell me about what he had done. Looking back over the years I honestly think it was more. It made sense of some things various people had said over the years. And there were some who did suggest he was cheating, but I said oh no he wouldn't. What an idiot I was
He had regularly "joked" that our child was the milkman's, and other suchlike accusations, I have honestly never cheated. Looking back this was projection.

I am 100% certain my husband does not cheat, we're always together and on the few occasions we've been apart he's been in constant contact with me. I've never had reason to doubt him ever, he's not sneaky in any way. We pull together through thick & thin. Previous relationships including my first marriage were very different.

To be fair, though, women who have to visit a sexual health clinic because they've contracted an STD in what they believed was a monogamous relationship isn't exactly a random sample of the population...

Totally right! I think more insecure people are the type to say not my husband/boyfriend. Or delusional and precisely for the reasons you’re saying, it’s the ones that say mine never would, I traut them 100%! I just think that if semi-inevitable happens, they have so much farther to fall. Having a realistic view of human nature and anyone can cheat under the right circumstances, is in my view the much less risky view.

Whilst I am in a 20+ year marriage, the status of affairs neither here nor there, I would never completely rest on my laurels, and, I am not at all paranoid, I trust him not to, but I’d never say never, or he was incapable.

Having your eyes open to the possibility does not mean living your life looking over your shoulder. To acknowledge the possibility is not saying you think they have or are likely to cheat, just that statistically speaking, it’s likely, around 50/50 in fact, and, the same with yourself cheating! I am very secure, but it could happen, I don’t check my husbands phone, social media, check up on him in any way, nor he on I. Neither of us would be so naive as to say it could never happen though!

Like @ExpressHydration I knew my former husband would never cheat, until he did.. he'd been seeing her for a YEAR.

i think everyone has potential but it can vary as to who gives in

how did he keep it secret eg what methods did he use

How can you be so sure?
I'm not married but I have 2 very good friends who were convinced that their husbands would never stray.
And they did!

@LadyEleanorRosalindWhitethorn He met her at work. He always liked a drink & would go out a couple of evenings a week, so, easy peasy.
I was a mum of four with never a minute to wonder.. maybe I should have done.

Holy trinity

heres one for everyone , for those that have not seen the show it was a bbc one called cucumber

this is the henry test basically if your faithfull hand over your phones to your partner and if your all good then your good so to speak

‘At some point’ doesn’t mean they’re at it all the time
Those I know who have strayed tend to have done it once maybe twice and returned swiftly to the hearth.