Are you 100% certain your dp/dh would never cheat on you?

[thesteelfairy2]

if you are why do you feel that way?

I am truly interested in the answers to this seeing as Mark Owen has joined the long line of celebrity cheating ar*eholes.

Also when I first met my ex h I would have bet a £million that he would never cheat on me. Even though it was in my face I trusted him implicitly because of all the things he said and his reactions to other peoples infidelities.

I personally am of the opinion that all men cheat given the opportunity, don't flame me though these are just my personal experiences of men. I have been in the army and worked mostly in male dominated environments so have extensive experience of random men and their relationship habits.

The only thing in life thats certain is death and taxes!

I think everyone has the potential for infidelity, and that everyone makes a choice if given an opportunity. In some ways i want my DH to remember that my fidelity for him is not 100% certain and vice versa - because I never want to stop making the effort for him and he better remember he has to do the same for me.

mal - i really hope that is the case - how would you feel about your h if he did admit to something?
Would he risk telling you all or do you think he may well stay quiet and not cause any upset. (whats done is done).
And a good solid marriage can still exsist with secrets.

I ask because a lot (and i do mean a lot) of very good men do get 'extra' sex that their wives and family NEVER find out about. There is a huge sex industry which is not funded just from the 'fringes' of society but by 'normal' hard working men.

I have worked in the health service and seen this first hand.

I am not stupid - and i would hope that my h would not do this again but it does happen.

I hope and trust now but would never say I KNOW 100%.

I think a more interesting question than the one in the thread title is "Were you 100% certain your dp/dh would never cheat on you?"

It is easy to be 100% sure until it happens.

I don't believe a good marriage can exist with ( big, life altering) secrets.

My husband is the most honest person I have ever known , he's incapable of lying, even to his own detriment, he would tell me the truth even if it would end our marriage and he actually was prepared to end our marriage when he thought I no longer loved him.

He would die rather than cheat on me - I honestly believe that.

WWIFN, at the end of 2008, we were in a bad place maritally, he was very unhappy but he says it would have never crossed his mind to cheat, he reckons if he had thought about being unfaithful it would have meant that he had stopped loving me.

Yes Mal, I agree with you about secrets.

I remember you being generous enough in recent threads to share that bad patch with us - but I can imagine my H would have said the same as yours, had an opportunity not occurred. Perhaps it's impossible to truly answer this question if when your husband was feeling this way, no-one else popped into his life?

However, as I alluded to upthread, my H did ask me that question - i.e. when he was behaving like a complete arse just before and during his affair, what would I have done if an attractive man had started wooing me with the intensity that OW had wooed him?
I had to be honest - and admit that I would have been sorely tempted. And tbh, at that stage my two barriers would have been messing around with the children's lives - and my moral code - but not him, I'm afraid.

How many other things in life can people be 100% certain of? Who would be foolish enough to say "I am 100% certain I will still have my job this time next year", or "I am 100% certain my house will go up in value?"

Unless there comes along a woman who looks like Seven of nine ( or Dr. Cuddy from House) , driving an Aston Martin Vantage and dangling an Omega seamaster watch in his face, then I'm 100% sure.

Things like jobs and house prices are not under anyone's direct control, as far as I know, sex with someone else is .

Mal - your h would equate cheating with not loving you.
BUT many men do not make that link.

I think many more woman make that link and so find the whole extra marital sex a no no.

I also think as whenwill has said it is about oppotunity.

When your marriage was at a low did you ever see that it would have got that low.

When my h had his affair i was well aware that an affair was possible but what i and many of our friends were shocked by was his willingness to destroy his marriage for it and his ability to lie to so many people.

so mal - can you now be 100% sure your marriage will not have another dip?

If i even for one moment thought my marriage would be as low as it was then i would be out of so fast.

Thats what i mean by i trust myself not to put up with a crap marriage again.

That "dip" was the only serious thing to happen in our marriage in 23 years, and it was quite short lived ( a couple of months), brought on mainly by external forces - job loss + financial pressure, also my FIL was diagnosed with cancer. I was also quite possibly mildly depressed at the time, DH confronting me with the idea that our marriage was in serious trouble was thankfully enough to shock me out of my inaction and make us both think about what we had and how to work things out. I had shut myself off mentally and physically , DH was understandably hurt and angry - the way in which he lost his job affected him more than he realised (until much later).

I don't believe we'll ever got to that stage again because we would see it coming and deal with any issues promptly.

Mal
that is why i question your 100% trust - you readily admit that your h job loss hit him harder than he thought it would and your reaction was i am sure not what you would have predicted.
My h affair was nothing like either of us would have imagined - my reaction was not how i would have thought.

It is because of these life changing events that i feel i do know myself better now - but also not to take anything for granted and not 100% so

It sounds as if you do have a good marriage and would sort out any future problems.
I am just not sure i could ever say with 100% certainty anything.

I'm not sure if this is relevent, it may just be 'me', but, although I wouldn't cheat my DW, the only times I find OW attractive is at times when our relationship is going well, when I'm happy and in a good mood etc.

When things are not going well, if DW is annoyed with me about something or some other stress then OW become entirely unattractive, and I'm more interested in fixing our relationship then some attractive other female.

No. The point is that, while you having sex with someone else is under your personal control and may be something you can be 100% sure about, your DH having sex with someone else is not under your control - so in that sense it is exactly like house prices and jobs.

I'd be very wary of ever saying I was 100% certain of anything in life.

It's perfectly fair to say that you trust your DH and believe that you share similar values and both consider monogamy to be the ideal. But 100%? Dangerous.

(The above is mainly to Malificence but also to all the other 100%-ers!)

What an interesting point stepsideways. I'd never consciously thought about it that way... I shall go away and think about that.

"he'd rather die than cheat on me"

sorry but really?

Die, as in death

If people want to believe that their partner/spouse would never cheat on them and that enhances their relationship, makes them feel secure or whatever who is anyone to argue really. Is the idea that we'll convince them that their partner may/will cheat? What does that achieve?

For me nothing is a certainty, but I am more likely to err on the side of will and when rather than whether! Nearly hired a PD!

goodness, although I am sexually faithful in my marriage if given the option of death versus a quick bunk-up wuth another person, I would hope that both of us would choose the latter

would you see your husband dead, mal, before accepting he might touch another woman ?

'cos that is kinda scary

TBH I think I am as confident as it is possible to be. I know his vies, his moral compass, his feelings for me and his family. I am more certain about him because he would hate to hurt me and he knows it would kill our current relationship which is open and trusting and wonderful.
I am not saying we would split but he would know and I would know that my trust in him was betrayed and that must affect how I view him.

But I can't rule out 100% a stupid drunken moment of weakness. I can 99% but I am not sure anyone can 100%. I know I would not cheat but I am not inside his head and he is human and falliable.

But what I can guarentee is that he would tell me and it would be a one off.

I absoloutely know he would not have an affair because if he ever cared for me so little that he would cheat repeatdely then he would have the guts to tell me and let me leave.
After 20 years I know if he lies, he knows if I do.
It makes planning surprises shit but it has its compensations

Would you actually want to be 100% sure that your partner would never, under any circumstances whatsoever, cheat? I am not sure I would want to live with that level of predictability.

I think one of the exciting things about relationships is that you can never be 100% sure about anything. For instance, suppose I was to become infatuated with someone else and start to ignore partner. In those circumstances I would consider it justified for him to consider cheating.

Another scenario: I was to become disabled in some way, or had a bad car crash and became impaired mentall/physically to the extent that sex was no longer really a practical option (has happened to people we know). In those circumstances, I would not necessarily expect lifelong fidelity, while at the same time hoping that he would do the decent thing and stick by me and the kids, but would it be reasonable to expect him to never have any kind of sex again, even if it meant going elsewhere?

I think that to feel 100% certain that your partner would never cheat is too complacent. My partner I think is aware that, in certain situations, I might be tempted.

Keeps him on his toes!

I've said for a long time that infidelity is no barometer of the state of a marriage - it happens in happy marriages and it often doesn't happen in unhappy ones.

I still say that unless someone has actually resisted an opportunity when their marriage was at a low - or when they were at a low personally - it is virtually impossible to say what they would have done, but I concede that there are people who just wouldn't be unfaithful, under any circumstances. I have a friend just like this - who is in a desperately unhappy marriage and has had lots of opportunities over the years, all firmly resisted - because she has strong views that infidelity is wrong. However, even she would say that she has been tempted - this just seems rather more realistic and honest in a long relationship.

It's therefore possible that Mal and her H are like my friend - albeit that fortunately in Mal's case, they only suffered a temporary lull in their long marriage.

I think when a couple are rebuilding after infidelity, they do have to become the sort of people for whom nothing could persuade them to be unfaithful again - and this is where my H and I are at right now.

I'm afraid that I think there are rather more couples whose fidelity to one another is governed by lack of opportunity, rather than a deep commitment to being faithful.

but that is a matter of personal choice.

I don't need the prospect of my straying to keep my partner on his toes, I would not wander off and get infatuated with someone else - I personally regard those two scenarios as fascile and childish, whereas you find our certainty in each other predicatable and presumeably dull.

I find it fantastic that my DH can be in a room full of women , be aware that they are attractive but only want to come home with me. That is far sexier to me than feeling like I have to compete or 'stay on my toes' or he may just be tempted off
Everyone will view these things differently depending on their own relationships.

For my part, it's 100% not going to happen. Mainly because I love DH (even when he's being a miserable grumpy old git) and it would absolutely crucify him (and why would I risk doing that to anyone, least of all someone I care for), but also because I simply couldn't live with myself afterwards for having let myself and our relationship down.
For his part... well, I guess I think it's more likely that the Queen would whip her top off and shout "Bollocks" at the State Opening of Parliament. How close to 100% unlikely is that?

My DH is complacent,. I am pretty sure that given the opportunity I would have cheated.

pagwatch - not casting aspersions on your DH, and not wanting to state the obvious but... he's not going to go home with any other attractive woman if you are there, is he?