I had an interesting memory triggered by some things in this thread concerning partners who seem very moral and together regarding the idea that cheats are awful and they never would, but then go on to break that illusion.
It’s possibly ten years now, but me and my late mum bumped into a relative, she was the sister of my uncle by marriage. For personal reasons we don’t speak to him now, but we had seen her enough over the years to be well acquainted.
She broke the news to us that her and her husband had separated and she told us he had had an affair, she also revealed that after this affair came to light, she discovered that he had been cheating on her their whole marriage, probably 40 years by this point.
When she first brought him home to meet the family in the late sixties, they had all fallen about laughing about him behind his back, not nice but il explain the reason. She was a tall, leggy Sandie Shaw type, considered an absolute doll as was said at the time, don’t worry she enjoyed this. He on the other hand was short and considered not very attractive, they looked a right odd pair together, but they fell in love. The family all came to love him, he was charming, but as she said to us, one of the things she found most attractive about him were his morals! He was dependable, he wanted marriage, children, his moral values included lifelong fidelity, he couldn’t abide men who cheated on their wives. They did well money wise, we are a working class family so were amazed and a bit jealous, they had two kids and even adopted a third to give a poor unfortunate an amazing life, their house was incredible, they just seemed to have it all.
But this unattractive but dependable man went on to have woman after woman behind his families back. She rejected all the gorgeous blokes way back who she thought were only after one thing, and back then that one thing could land you with a dangerous backstreet abortion, as another poor aunt experienced (you wouldn’t believe her experience as told by my mum), and she chose who she thought would treasure her and be by her side for life, only for him to literally lie and waste her life.
Im not entirely sure of my thinking with telling you all this, but it can be impossible sometimes to gauge other humans. As OP has found out, they can hide these appalling sides to themselves and we have to remember that it wasn’t our faults. No one could have seen these things coming, these sudden character reveals that this is not who you married, and sometimes even mr dependable can turn out to be mr twat face, I’m not sure if those were actual characters in the Mr Men series of books!