Why do the men in my life always cheat on me?

[Lifeistoohard]

Feeling really down - have had 3 serious relationships in my life (1 marriage with children) all ending with infidelity :-( During my 15 year marriage my exh cheated on me with a friend, a work colleague, who knows else, anyone he could find who was willing. I was completely unaware of this, very naive, never thought that someone would treat me that way. Now my latest relationship is over after 2 years, we were talking about moving in together, growing old together but I found out that he has met someone else (younger) a month ago and has been secretly seeing her and am quite devastated. I told him abut my exh and how dreadful that was when I found out, yet history is repeating itself :-(

Is it me? I'm not unattractive and I keep fit, I'm a bit shy but fundamentally a nice sociable person, I like sex (though need to relax a bit first), why do the men I love always prefer someone else? I have good female friends who like me but men seem prefer a sexier, more confident woman and that is not me. I'm feeling quite terrible about myself, would appreciate some wise words if anyone is there. I have cried so many times now about men cheating on me, I never expected life to be so hard.

'Men's Fitness' is hardly representative of the population as a whole, quite apart from being American. It's a very specific socio-demographic.

Mens Health Magazine, a publication aimed at 20 something males and used primarily as a vehicle to flog fitness gadgets and protein shakes. Hardly a peer reviewed study to make a sweeping statement about half the worlds population on.

I imagine if you asked the male readership of New Statesman, Spectator or Economist the same question you would get a different set of figures.

There was a thread on here last year titled something along the lines of "name change and make a confession", it seemed to consist largely of posters admitting to infidelity or being the OW.

Using your approach can I assume from that sample of women that most women in general are unfaithful or daft statements like "Most women will cheat, given the opportunity."

Guys, you can believe what ever you like about the proportion of men who cheat.

I've based my conclusions on the evidence of my own life and that of my friends. I picked that survey because it was literally the first thing that came up when I googled "infidelity survey".

If you have been lucky enough to only experience cheating from 0-20% of the men you've ever had a LTR with, then, good for you.

I'm aware I fall on the cynical end of the spectrum, undoubtedly as a result of watching my dad have an affair pretty much every year of my childhood, periodically leaving my mum only to come crawling back when the latest OW kicked him out.

Your conclusions are based on personal anecdotes and are no better than my personal anecdotes.

For instance, from my experience of observing my friendships and work acquaintances over the years it has been mostly women who have cheated or had full blown affairs but it would be absurd for me to extrapolate those observations across the whole female population.

A quick google search from me digs up a few surveys that tell me women are more likely to cheat then men, you can find any old survey online to fit your preconceived views if you look hard enough, it?s called confirmation bias.

Your conclusions are based on personal anecdotes and are no better than my personal anecdotes.

Well, yeah. Unless any of us here has run a scientific study across a broad sample of population, and accounted for false negatives (i.e. a lot of people saying "Who me? Never!" despite having had more bits on the side than my breakfast plate) then we're ALL giving our opinions based on our personal experience.

Like I said - I know I'm on the cynical end of the range. Other people are more trusting, or more optimistic. Obviously I think I'm right