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?

I work with men- lots have cheated on their partners, I hear them talking to eachother. My own husband tried to cheat on me before we split up- we were a couple that everyone openly said were the closest they knew. My husband was also "not the type"
Friends have had husbands cheat.
Im dating now, most of the men who are divorced are that way because they cheated, openly admit to having cheated in previous relationships or i find out that their marriages arent quite as over as they told me.
I think genuinely, most men will do what they think they can do and get away with.

No one is wishing misery. A pp said her marriage isn't good and her dh stays away a lot. It's not rocket science.
You need to calm down, no one is 'gloating'. Some posters have shared their own distressing experiences so try to show some sensitivity.

My husband doesn’t have time to cheat 😂.
Genuinely though, we do the same job, same holidays, same days off. Similar working hours.
He’s too busy trying to rush from work to wraparound care as he doesn’t want to be charged the additional £3 for going into the next hour 🤣.

It’s a lot more comfortable to think this is something which cannot happen in your marriage. It’s easier to “other” women like me and call us pathetic gloaters wanting misery on other women. I’d like to say to all women having experienced this shit, it’s not your fault, you couldn’t have known and it can happen to anyone of us!

I trusted my ex husband implicitly. I absolutely never believed he would cheat on me. Until he did.

It absolutely isn’t about wanting to see other women unhappy, quite the opposite! My point was that even men who are so far removed from “the type” can actually cheat. I was naive and completely smug about my ‘wonderful’ marriage, so when it happened my whole world, my reality, and everything I’d believed about my life was turned upside down.

Now I’m remarried, and I’m very happy. I trust DH as much as I’d trust anyone. I don’t worry about him cheating. I don’t check up on him or expect him to cheat but I know it could potentially happen. And if it did happen I wouldn’t feel like I’d been thrust into some surreal alternate life, where everything I’d ever believed was a myth. It’s not about wanting women to be unhappy, it’s about not wanting them to be in the hellish position that so many of us unfortunately once found ourselves in.

What is "the type"? If it's so easy to know someone would never cheat because they aren't "the type", tell us what "the type" is and everyone can avoid those people.

How on earth did he gather together the courage and the words to woo you?

“The type” is charming, flirty, shows no respect for his wife, socialises a lot, eyes up other women, probably a drinker, not having much sex at home.

My cheating husband was NONE of these things. That’s exactly my point. You can’t say “my husband isn’t the type”, because that doesn’t make them immune to cheating.

@DoubleDIYBlimey, small world, I would say tell me more, but I think I got it all in a nutshell. Without going into identifying details, who was the other woman? Did she play the ukulele too? It’s not you is it??!!

I’m not naive to think it could/would never happen but I’m 100% sure that my husband hasn’t cheated up to now

Oh it absolutely is.

They love it. They get an absolute kick out of posting these threads calling women naive and gullible, even down to the ones who are telling women that their husbands work away from home, of course they’re cheating.

I would bet money that some of the gloaters on this thread are women who are cheating themselves, and having a laugh at the victims of affairs because they know how easy it is to screw over a partner.

IME women are far more likely to cheat than men. But women spend so long being self righteous and pretending that they are always the victim while men are always bastards, that they get away with it far more often.

Do bear in mind that those men who cheat generally do so with a woman who is <shock horror> cheating.

You don’t understand numbers.
It is quite possible that 100% of people writing in have partners who don’t cheat, because they are the ones writing in…. The ones who have partners who might cheat perhaps don’t write in to say that their partners don’t cheat, because they know that they might cheat…. Simples.

It’s a dump-and-run thread anyway, from a poster who doesn’t understand the ‘math’ they cite.

Sad and lazy.

Some of you on here are delusional

You're a bit skewed. A random sampling may cheat, but the numbers are MUCH lower than what you're quoting. You've mixed divorce rates with cheating which is only about 13-20%.

Secondly, MN isn't a random sampling of humans. It's a specific type of human who finds such a platform useful. For example, on the erstwhile Ashley Madison, the sampling would be 100% pro-cheating.

Lastly, I'm a couples therapist and none of my caseload involves actual cheating at the moment. There were past forays into chatrooms (some do consider this cheating and some don't), but by and large my practice is desperate women who want their husbands to be emotionally available or just to do some dishes. It's pretty dark to see the world as filled with cheaters. I'd be horrified too if it were that common.

Why does it bother you?

I could bet my life that my partner hasnt cheated

My husband’s childhood was complicated and difficult because of his father cheating on not only his mother, but a long string of stepmothers. My FIL has been married five times to four women. Each new affair and divorce was an emotional crisis for my husband, who would grow attached to people in each new stepfamily, only to have them abruptly exit his life.

Having an affair is one of the last things my husband would ever do. Also, he works from home and I’m a SAHM, so even if he wanted to have an affair, he wouldn’t get much of an opportunity.

I think you're right OP. You can see it in the replies here "my husband would never"...

Every person is capable of cheating. I've known a couple of women who've had the mentality of my husband would never do that, he isn't capable of doing that, who have had there lives up ended by cheating. You have to trust your partner and get on with life, but never be so naive as to believe it will never happen to you.

You’re not being unreasonable and statistically you must be right - as you say - not all 30%, or 40% or whatever the numbers are, know that their husbands are cheating. There are probably some that are naive, delusional or just protecting themselves and then everything in between.

My exH grew up knowing his father was often unfaithful to his mother, seeing him leave her & return, and seeing their very unhappy relationship as a result of this infidelity

For this reason I was always sure he wouldn't cheat, especially once we had children.
But he still did.

They are though - calling people smug and naive is not very nice is it?

Yes, of course people cheat but you tell me - how is this knowledge meant to actually impact people in their relationships? how are we meant to behave in a practical way, knowing this?

Should we assume every time our partner is late from work= cheating! when he goes to the gym= cheating! when he's online or on his phone = cheating!, has a female friend = cheating! has a hobby= cheating! all of these could be cheating couldn't they?

Because anything but this is smug and naive surely, right? is this a healthy way to live do you think, and do you think this kind of approach will lead to a good relationship? Because frankly, if I was with someone who constantly thought I was cheating on them, that would piss me off and I would find it massively controlling and a huge red flag in a partner. Its far from "smug" to trust someone.

@Didimum

user00000000003 ·“There is a bitter nasty vibe to posts like this that seem almost gleeful about the thought of women being hurt and cheated on. It comes across as very bitter. As if people should be punished for daring to be happy.”

No, this is just the way you interpret those posts.