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 never love bombed him. You have a very vivid imagination!! I didn’t ‘devalue’ him at all. He devalued himself. 😂

He was a textbook narcissist and narcissists generally don’t get into relationships with other narcissists.

I am not suggesting you are a narc lol 😂

I am saying it's a narc trait to put partners on a pedestal that they can never live up to- thats literally how narcs operate!

More info here https://www.simplypsychology.org/narcissistic-love-bombing-cycle.html

I don't think many kids benefit from being abandoned by a parent. The long-term effects are huge. Cheating is shitty behaviour but they can still be a decent and involved parent to their child.

Cheating is NOT abandoning your child.

You said men that walk away from their children… they aren’t walking away if they are still involved with them and parent them, some 50/50?

If a parent abandons a child… then that child absolutely benefits from that person not being in their life. They have shown themselves to be fundamentally despicable

Yes, because I was referencing the post before mine where he not only cheated but walked out of his child's life.

And had nothing more to do with them?

'Within a week he had moved out and was dating her and he stopped seeing our child.'

It would appear so

So in my view… if he’s abandoned his child for the OW… then the child is better off without someone like this in their life

I do apologise! I thought you were saying that I was a narc because I put him on a pedestal! 🙈

The poster was saying it’s a “narc trait”
The poster doesn’t know you so wasn’t saying you have this trait

The confusion came from me just previously saying that I’d put my ex on a pedestal (paraphrased).

Then the reply came that putting people on a pedestal was a narcissistic trait. Hence why I thought she was hinting I was a narcissist. I apologised.

I think people should not ever think it’s impossible I have worked with 4 different individuals who cheated during the working day. One with staff. One who met up at 6.30 am allegedly on site another nipped out certain times same day every week why mistress husband was out and the last one female in lunch break nipping out for a shag they were all texting in work so partners none the wiser. It’s very possible unfortunately.

Why do you assume that the partner of someone cheating is also cheating on someone?

The person the cheat is involved with could be single and therefore not cheating on anyone making all your "math" stuff a nonsense.

I find the "I know him better than he knows himself" posts both sickly and patronising to the man involved and very reductive.

No one knows anyone better than they know themselves and it's almost offensive towards a partner to suggest you do - as if they are so basic and transparent they have no secret inner thoughts or feelings.

Maths not your forte is it @Euroamerican

Or, more likely, in the posts you see where women insist their husbands wouldn't cheat, the women who's husband would cheat, just aren't posting! Those with a positive experience, will post, those with a negative experience, stay quiet. That's human nature, especially on MN where any woman who admitted her husband cheats on her would get slaughtered! It doesn't mean the maths don't add up, you just need to understand stats, and how to read them.

This was me! It is now 8 years later and he lives on the other side of the world with her. He comes back once a year to see her family and asks to see child.

Child really isn't bothered, sometimes agrees, sometimes says they're too busy. It's actually easier to deal with having him not in and out all the time.

A few months after leaving he tried to do the every other weekend thing but was always cancelling as 'he needed a life too'!! It's better he's nothing than a sometimes dad!

I think a lot of people are ridiculously naive. A woman comes to mind who used to smugly boast that her husband would never, ever cheat. Everyone knew what he was like and that he was seeing other women left, right and centre. I think she honestly was blind to it. It's possibly a little conceited to think that your partner, 100% would not cheat.

Unless they are quite unattractive and as dull as dishwater and doesn't really go out or use social media then there is a good chance they will betray your trust at some point.

I thought he would never cheat, together 20 years and last week found out he has been having an affair for 2 fucking years

Most men would cheat if the opportunity arose and they wouldn’t get caught. Countless attached men have tried it on over the years. Naive to think your Dave is the special one.

I don’t think you can ever know with absolute certainty. An opportunity for a man to sleep with someone very attractive and not get caught would be so unlikely that it’s not something they’d have planned to have to turn down.

I don’t know if I’ve explained that correctly. It’s not something they have to concern themselves with basically.

My dh may be working abroad soon. He’s never given me any reason to doubt his loyalty so I am going to trust him one hundred percent. What’s the alternative?

I am also going to make a conscious effort I don’t end up spending extended time with any man where a connection might develop. Safeguarding our marriage and family unit is my priority but I can only be responsible for my part in it.

YANBU

When I met my husband, I’d been through about ten years of bad luck with men. Really bad stuff. No infidelity that I knew of but I’d been emotionally battered and bruised by living with someone with borderline personality disorder, he pulled some absolute insane traumatic stunts on me. There was another man who had more money than sense and was entitled and sexist. I felt like his slave, he did zero
domestic chores at home and treated me like his mum. Others were either terrible with money, liked to drink too much, or just commitment phones and blew hot and cold regularly.

The BPD guy really did a number on me. As a result of my relationship with him I was suicidal, needed 3-4 years of therapy to survive it, had my first ever physical and full blown panic attacks, developed agoraphobia. I really loved him but he killed my soul and he broke me in ways no other person had ever done. I remember after this relationship in particular deciding that I was NEVER ever going to give myself wholly to any other man ever again. In a way it was liberating. I felt free from what I now see as this blind faith we all carry that relationships are the most important thing in the world. They are not. Protecting yourself and your peace is.

After sort of recovering from the BPD man I was living my most peaceful life. Because there was no man in it. I’d fully fully come to terms with never having children, always being 100% on my own in building a home, saving finances for security, running a house, dealing with life forever alone. Then I met DH. He was the first man I’d ever met who made me feel secure from the day we met. He was gorgeous, intelligent, fit and healthy, hard working, kind, pulled his weight with household chores, he was as good as his word, never left me hanging, supportive. everyone loved him. Everyone.

I never gave him my whole heart.

I found out when our first child was less than a year old that he’d repeatedly booked and slept with prostitutes whilst I was pregnant.

Amongst the devastation, one of my first thoughts was a wry smug feeling. Which is a strange thing to say I know. But the fact I never really gave him my heart made me feel better. Men are capable of anything. Any man, any age, any background. They will
put themselves first and centre at all points.

All men have the capability of cheating. All of them. Don’t give yourself to anyone wholly is my advice.

I thought the same for all of an 18 year marriage. My ex was 100% completely trustworthy , dependable, never flirty , totally honest, hard working family man devoted to me and the dc. Except he wasn’t. It was all lies.
When he got found out for multiple affairs (plus a lot of debt) and left , his family were actually devastated. They had no idea either. His lovely brother cried in front of me and said he just couldn’t believe it. He was so shocked and upset that his hero big brother was a total fraud.
I don’t want to upset anyone but you never actually know what’s in someone’s head.