How sure are you that your partner/husband wouldn’t cheat?

[Gerithegiraffe]

I have cheated in the past (on an abusive ex) but can hand on heart say I couldn’t cheat even if I tried on my husband. I spoke to him about it and basically said it would be so pointless anyway because I get everything I need from him (side note: not that not getting what you ‘need’ is any excuse for cheating, there’s NEVER an excuse for cheating)

i am prepared to be told I’m naive but I genuinely trust him a billion percent, and him me, and honestly feel like cheating is the absolute last thing he’d or I would ever do. I can’t really explain it but it’s a lovely feeling. I feel genuinely really sad on here sometimes when I see the amount of people posting about cheating partners and it just got me thinking how sure would you be that your partner or husband wouldn’t cheat?

Yes unfortunately I know a lovely lady who was married to a man who was apparently mildly autistic and therefore physically incapable of lying and it sadly turned out he was living a completely separate double life for years.

Oh I'm well aware that teachers can and do have affairs- I am also a primary school teacher, and at my last school, three of the four male teachers were married. Each and every one of them had an affair with at least one female member of staff.

One of them slept with two different teachers: the first one was married herself; the second one (the deputy head), his wife found out and left him, so he moved straight in with her.

One of the others cheated on his wife (a teacher at another school) with her TA, who then trained to be a teacher and came to work at our school. They were together for a few years until he cheated on her with a TA at our school. He was SLT, so above both of these women in the school hierarchy. The head told him that she couldn't fire him, but that he had to leave.

The one male member of staff who was single slept with three different female teachers, one of whom was married, another of whom was living with her long-term boyfriend.

This school had a real culture of nights out and staff parties, though, whereas my wife is almost always home by 5pm! (We have a 2 year old, so she prioritises spending time with her.)

In the off-chance anyone reading this worked at this same school, it's very outing, but felt quite cathartic to get that off my chest! It was and is a lovely school, but lots of toxicity among the staff.

What were women so sure it wouldn't happen to them before it did?

As far as I'm aware I haven't been cheated on in our 20 year relationship but I'd never be so up myself to think it wouldn't happen.

I wonder what your views on women who had been cheated on were before it happened to you.

@OnyourbarksGSG

and I haven’t put my own socks on in 22 years

This isn't normal.

You are probably right 😁

i will rephrase it to “I haven’t put on my own socks when he’s in the house”. I went on holiday with my sister a few weeks ago and I did indeed put my own socks on the few days I was away. It’s just a nice thing he likes to do for me. He knows I love my feet being touched and he loves to choose my socks and put them on. I like to bake a cake for him every week for his packed lunches. And home made pies/sausage rolls/quiche. I make his packed lunch every day for him. We went through a really rocky patch about year 7 and we came so close to divorcing at my request. I’ve actually served him with divorce payers 3 times. But we find that by daily doing the trivial little things/acts of service that mattered to the other person, it really helped us to fall back in love with each other. Running and sharing a bath and changing the bedding together is another one. We also never ever go to bed angry and that’s been revolutionary for our relationship.

i know i am/can be a nightmare to live with at times but he absolutely adores me regardless and i do him too.

I 100% trusted my ex husband, never in a million years would he cheat 🙄

Amen to that!

I both believe that anyone given the right circumstances can cheat, and that my husband wouldn't.

I actually think if the situation arose, I would be the one more likely to cheat. Even though I wouldn't.

I'm aware how much sense this makes none !

I am around 98% certain
Only because you can never be 100% sure about anything though

@LazyArsedMagician

I both believe that anyone given the right circumstances can cheat, and that my husband wouldn't.

You can't believe both?

100% I wouldn't

95% he wouldn't

Well, I do. Anyone could, I don't believe he would.

99.9% sure. But that's because I have trust issues, not because of him.

After 17 years with my DH and 3 young children I would have sworn over my children's life that he would also be faithful, he openly despised cheaters.

Well he cheated in the end. You think you know someone.

100%

I don't think either of us would ever cheat. My ExH cheated, my DP's ExW cheated and we're both adamant that we could never inflict the pain we went through on anyone else.

We met in the year after our spouses had cheated and in the beginning I did wonder whether we were somehow bonding over the trauma, but 11yrs in we are still in love, adore each other and treat each other with infinitely more respect than our former spouses treated us with.

I think its far more likely to be the case that the people who are cheated on were once themselves convinced their partners would never cheat and have gained a wisdom the hard way that other people have been spared. Perhaps spared for ever, perhaps only so far. I don't get the sense anyone 'likes' to think partners can never be 100% trusted, and to suggest that betrayed people want to punish others is hugely unfair. People are largely just sharing the lessons of experience, that the seemingly trustworthy are not always and there is no way to know for sure.

You absolutely cannot ever know in my experience.

@Upstartled
'I think that people who have had cheating spouses and partners might like to think that all men are capable of being disloyal and that all women should live with perpetual mistrust they now, or have always, endured.

Labeling those who are confident of their partners fidelity as naive may act as a kind of small victory or punishment for what will be called smug but is just people getting on with their lives with a person that they trust.

Yes, I'm sure of my husband's faithfulness.. Some people are just built that way'

You have completely misunderstood betrayed women's motivations on here. I wouldn't wish my worst enemy the utter pain I went through when my lovely, kind, empathic, thoughtful husband betrayed me. I would have been on here, prior to this, making jokes about how he wouldn't have the time, couldn't lie to me, was too anti social etc etc etc I trusted him 100%. Honestly thought I was more likely to cheat I’m the flighty, social butterfly.

It was horrendous when the lens I viewed my safe secure happy world was shattered. I fell so far and so hard because I was romantic rather than pragmatic.

I'm sure I speak for many betrayed on here that are not writing these posts to have a small victory (where is the bloody victory in going through a trauma) or handing out a punishment but a warning. A warning that might prevent someone else suffering the same earth shattering pain we did.

It doesn't come from a place of malice but of kindness. People are fallible and you can never really know what inner struggles they have that could lead them to self soothe with an affair.

Fairly sure but not 100%. He worked away a lot in his previous marriage which wasn't happy towards the end and had a lot of opportunities which he didn't take.

But he got married young, then w3 got together not long after he split up from his first wife. We've been together 20 years. But I sometimes wonder if he felt he missed out a bit if you see what I mean.

Also 8 think as men get older they get susceptible....

I was sure of my husband’s faithfulness too! You cannot know.

The only thing I am 100% sure of is my reaction should he choose to cheat. I value myself to highly to accept that kind of shit treatment from anyone. No one knows what another's person is capable of. Naive to think otherwise.

Whereas I am often baffled by how many posters on here are incandescent about infidelity on principle, and, as you say, ‘value themselves too highly to stay’, but are apparently broadly ok with years of selfish, oafish, inconsiderate behaviour, failure to co-parent, failure to deal with their fair share of household gruntwork, failure to prioritise the marriage by behaving like a considerate and egalitarian human being on an everyday basis.

You can't know anyone's thoughts, you can't know what life has in store for you in the future, and you have to accept that even the best of humans can make shitty decisions and fuck up. To think you can predict with certainty what another person is going to do, or not do throughout the rest of their lives, is either naivety, or arrogance.

We all know that the majority of affairs start slowly, with crossing boundaries etc, and it is amazing how people will rewrite history to justify their behaviour.

People and marriages change throughout the years. You can be faced with devastating life situations, or just the normal changes in life, that changes people and your marriage.

This year has taught me that- My husband's illness has caused a big personality change. It's not related to cheating- I am not even saying it is all negative, but it has certainly taught me that your life can change overnight and nothing is certain, nothing stays the same, certainly not people.

You can enjoy what you have in your marriage, you don't have to live in fear or suspicion, but why pretend to yourselves that you can predict your partner's future behaviour when you don't know what life has in store?

Indeed. So many think their husbands could never cheat but they really have no idea what goes through their heads. I myself have fantasies which would completely shock my DH if he knew! Often the image we have of our partners is just part of who they are. Someone can be a devoted, loving partner who adores you, yet still fancies the colleague they spend 8 hours a day with at work and who they fantasise about each night.

You're being very naiive, OP. What is this '... couldn't cheat if I tried'? It sounds like absolute disingenuous nonsense.

Anyone can cheat, if they want to/actually have the opportunity (many don't). Many people don't cheat, for whatever reason, but it would be foolish to pin that banner to the mast as an absolute. You certainly can't do that for someone else, no matter how well you think you know them. You really don't.