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.

Have to say as lovely a sentiment as it is, I do hate the whole cheating and attractive thing..... Oh Cheryl's lovely how could he? What and if she was ugly then who could blame him?! I consider myself alright looking, my DH got the better deal but that certainly doesn't kepp me safe!

Sorry but I just hate it when people are more shocked that a man is willing to fuck over his average wife than his beautiful one.....

as you were.

I think the Cheryl thing is more a case of thousands of men saying if they'd been in his shoes they never would have cheated, just because she is so, ahem, popular... not so much that they'd never cheat on a "fit bird" but might on an average one!

UD, methinks you are being a little generous. It's something people say all of the time.

Have to say I agree with you Posie. Might be showing my age, but I read an article once about Joanne Woodward, who enjoyed a long apparently faithful marriage to Paul Newman - and she said that she wished she'd had a dollar for everyone who'd said how amazing it was he'd stayed faithful, given that she was so plain...

However, it does come back to the opportunity thing again - and as far as I can see, it wouldn't matter a jot who people are married to - or how happy the marriage - some people cannot resist an opportunity.

UQD

see. i don't miss trick now do I

Actually he goes to lots of dos via work and I know that there are lots of women who are interested in him for at least a couple of reasons...

"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?"

Yes, absolutely reasonable in my view - it's "for richer for poorer, in sickness and health, forsaking all others for as long as we both shall live". Even severely disabled people can have fulfilling (if unconventional) sex lives.

My FIL was 52 when MIL became ill, she was so bad that lifting her from a chair could break a bone, so sex was definitely out of the question, she was like that for 3 years until she died, she's been dead 12 years and he hasn't had sex in over 15 years, he says he's never wanted another woman, so it's perfectly possible.

As much as I love sex, if my husband was unable to participate in any way, I would still never want sex with another man.

I will be faithful to my husband for my whole life, whether he is alive or not, it may be extremely odd to others but it is something I believe in, it has nothing whatsoever to do with religion either. I don't expect my husband to feel the same way, I might add .

LeQ...serious question for you

Why have you never told these women they are being played for fools ?

I don't want to pick on you LeQ, but I picked up on something you said on another thread, you said your DH would "never believe you" if you told him about his friend making a pass at you - why wouldn't he believe you and why haven't you tried telling these women what their husbands really are?
That would really make me sad, sitting talking to these wives with the knowledge you have, I wouldn't be able to hold my tongue, I really wouldn't.

AF, dying doesn't frighten DH, no-one who can go out day after day and do airfield bomb disposal has much fear about death in them, he would be afraid of letting me and letting himself down by way of infidelity though , I do realise that men like him are incredibly rare btw .

I've realised I posted something I don't agree with and feel I want to post a correction... not that anyone else would care, I do realise!

i put something about the quality of a relationship affecting infidelity, implying that cheating doesn't happen in apparently good relationships. Sadly it does IMO and I didn't want to imply that any relationship affected by infidelity is automatically rubbish.

As you were.

ok, mal

maybe I am afeared of death, but I would rather myself or dh had a jump than died

anyway, it's daft innit

its like swearing on someone's life when you are convincing someone to believe you...means not a jot, tbh

I never swear on someone's life..it is silly

LeQ, I sympathise

and tbh, if you were wanting to tell, the time has passed

it would be too weird to tell now, after you have been privy to this knowledge for some time

if MrQ had been up to something, would you want someone to tell you ?

I couldn't stay friends with people like that and I would expect my dh to not remain friends with those men either in all honesty.

A similar situation actually caused my DH to lose his job in 2008, amongst other things, he wouldn't cover for his boss's infidelity with another member of the staff, his boss expected him to lie to his wife as to his wearabouts and DH simply wouldn't do it, that was the start of the witch hunt that cost him his job. DH was stitched up good and proper by this "man" and although he was eventually vindicated, it affected him badly.

His moral courage and integrity is part of the reason I have such certainty about him.

I agree with you Mal - and like Happy Woman says, perhaps if more people came off the fence and stopped colluding and pretending it was "none of their business", there would be less deceit. Likewise I've been in your H's shoes - and refused point blank to lie - but fortunately, it didn't cost me my job at the time. Good for your H - I always think moral courage and doing a difficult thing is rewarded in life in the long run.

LeQueen perhaps it is too late and perhaps you are no longer close to these people, but these days I would find it virtually impossible to listen to a woman (or man) expressing complete confidence in their spouse's fidelity and say nothing. I think my approach now would be to tell the deceived spouse, but add that I had no expectation and would make no judgement about what he/she did with that information. And I would tell no-one else about my disclosure.

To the unfaithful parties, neither my H nor I would have any hesitation at all in condemning their behaviour - and in fact we have both done that during the past year.

WWIFN, like you I would now tell the other wives - again without expectation or judgement. I reached this conclusion after too much (and too bitter) experience. I retain huge gratitude towards some of XH#1's colleagues, who tried as hard as they could without losing their jobs (he was their boss) to let me know. I did hear them; I never did thank them.

Something that isn't clarified often enough is the business about turning a blind eye. "Blind eyes" take many forms, from blind denial to all-seeing choice. There's more to a marriage than sexual fidelity, and some people - men and women - choose marriage despite infidelity. They may have any out of hundreds of possible reasons for their choice: the point is, they can't make the choice unless they have facts from which to choose.

A while back, I posted a "WWYD" question about a frantically unfaithful ex-colleague of mine, whose profile we found on a sex site. Mumsnetters' general concensus seemed to be that we shouldn't have told his wife (she was lovely; they had 4 kids). In fact, at least three-quarters of my male colleagues - and about half the female ones - were unfaithful on a regular basis. I loathed the institutional hypocrisy over it!

Yet ... the Mumsnetters, saying "Don't tell", are supposedly a decent sample of wives with children. Are they saying they'd prefer to live in ignorance?
I don't know

McQueen - i can understand why you h would not believe you. Not because he thinks you would make it up but because he would see it from a different point of view.

To some a hand on the knee or a pinch on the bottom is nothing more than flirting whereas for some it is a signal to wanting more.

But i think if you 'feel' uncomfortable then you should distance yourself.

We had a friend who did know what was going on - he was always dh friend more than mine - he made a choice to not tell me and now i have cut him out of my life. I know he feels upset and angry by that but not as upset and angry as i felt.
He was not a friend of my marriage and i have the right to not see him.
It does upset dh too as he would love to invite him over but i just know i would be so angry at him.

I would HAVE to let someone know if i knew someone was being unfaithful - i would give them the choice over their life - i would rather they were angry with me for 'interfering' than live with myself for 'allowing' it to carry on. But thats just me.

I think my DH is as capable of cheating as I am.

I trust him wholeheartedly, know he loves me, values our relationship and is a genuine person who never lies to me and is incapable of deliberately treating someone badly...

...however, cheating is not about the person being cheated on. Sometimes it is about being caught up in the moment when other circumstances (alcohol/ problems at home or work/ strong attraction) come into play. The cheater is not necessarily thinking straight, or even about their partner, they are following an urge etc etc. None of which makes it excusable, but in this sense he is just as capable of cheating as me.

This is obviously discounting those people who never have any intention of remaining faithful. In my definition of cheating I am including everything from touching/ kissing upwards.

I couldn't definitively say I would never cheat - although I don't want to have been stupid enough to have put myself in that situation - and therefore I can't say it about my DH.

Iwould be absolutely furious if someone told me, without being specifically asked, about anything that my partner had done. I would think it was none of their business. What happens in other people's relationships is up to them, not anybody else. We have known MANY people who have strayed in their relationships. They are normal, everyday couples leading their own lives in whatever fashion they chose. I would never say a word - it is none of my business how they chose to conduct their private lives. To be honest, I am not that interested, per se. I have been told a few things involving other people's relationships that I just know that the local busybodies would LOVE to get their hands on. I say nothing - no-one else's bloody business.

To be honest, if a bunch of busybody, know-it-all mothers with an agenda to save their world from infidelity came marching up with a self-satisfied grin and started telling me stuff I would probably punch them on the nose. Go and take their meddling, moralising, self-righteous agendas somewhere else, thank you very much.

This idea that everybody is living in a kind of 1950s Britain with 2.2 children and roses round a picket fence is just so naive. Apart from anything, look at the divorce rate.

My philosophy is to never say anything to anyone that would upset them - unless they had specifically asked me a question and I was sure they wanted the complete truth.

There are as many different types of relationship as their are people in them. Sometimes people chose to turn a blind eye, other times people want to live in a state of blissful ignorance, othertimes the truth is too difficult to deal with, yet again some couples have different ways of living. All are within the law and all are up to the people in them and no-one else.

More harm than good comes from meddling in other people's lives and "telling tales" is nearly always done for one's own agenda and to feel smug - it is not done to do a favour to anyone, and it doesn't.

You are all being so naive - look at all those married people dating sites - there are thousands of people on them - who do you think they are all? It clearly fulfils a need of some sort and a moral crusade against it is not going to save the world, however much the bible bashers and fundamentalists would want to.

And, before the smug, self-righteous married moralising come bashing at my suburban door with wilted roses, I have a very good relationship with my partner - it works but it is certainly not perfect THANK GOD and neither are we.

I don't see the point of getting married if you are going to cheat-it isn't something you have to do. The chances of me cheating are nil, whatever the circumstances, and I would assume that DH was similar. Loyalty comes top for me. I made wedding vows and I don't break promises. If you don't want to keep them, simply don't make them in the first place!

This is all so depressing