Partner (28F) and I (27M) started talking about loyalty last night. She mentioned that it is so important for her to be loyal to her partner but she said humans are not meant to be with only one partner their whole life and everyone she knows that has been in a long 10-20 year relationship has cheated on their partner at least once let it be flirting with someone kissing someone or having sex with someone else.
As a response, I asked if she thinks that if we are together for that many years if she thinks we will cheat on each other as well. She responds that it is a possibility if we are married and have kids if our lives kind of become boring or have problems in our relationship.
I was surprised by her answer, and I followed up by asking if she thinks it is possible we may cheat on each other now. She said it is always possible, she does not cheat on me now because she is very happy with me, how I treat her, and everything I make her feel, but she said if our feelings for each other change one day and we are too used to each other to leave, we may just cheat on each other.
I started arguing with her after this telling her she has a very bad mentality about long-term relationships and I am disappointed with the way she thinks and I am not sure if we are a good fit to build a family one day together.
She said it is weird I make a big deal out of it, and said I may get another girlfriend right now and she may never talk about this topic but cheat on me in the 2nd year, her talking about it doesn’t make it any more or less likely to happen.
This is a woman I plan on building a family together and has very good features to be a good wife and mother. She is always brutally blunt with me. I don’t understand if she is showing me potential red flags or if she just talking her mind.
I feel kind of lost and don’t know how to feel.
49 comments
I mean, her attitude is very concerning. I’d be heartbroken if I found out my partner had such a cavalier attitude about infidelity.
Hard pass for me.
Oh hell no. I wish I had listened to my ex when she told me how she cheated in all of the earlier relationships unless they were open. She said that she will never do that to me but in the end, did. We even tried open marriage after her cheating but the few rules we had, she broke them all. Trust your gut.
That conversation would have me considering how much longer the relationship has to live. It certainly wouldn’t be 10-20 years.
She has declared her intentions. If she gets bored or is unhappy with you, she will cheat. And then, if she does, she will say “There was nothing wrong with me cheating. I told you I would if I was unhappy in our relationship.”
Take her at her word. If you can’t deal with being cheated on, maybe you should reconsider spending your life with her.
Red flags waving all over the place.
đźš©đźš©đźš©đźš©đźš©đźš©đźš©đźš©đźš©đźš©đźš©đźš©đźš©
Knowing her views on infidelity, if you marry her anyway, you are basically giving her permission to play away, as the Brits say.
get out now. honestly she is probably either cheating now, has already done so or has someone in mind
everyone faces temptation. her attitude indicates she is a born cheater
I assume that a lifelong monogamous marriage with children is your desire? If so, then it sounds like you and your partner have very different opinions concerning what loyalty actually means.
If I were you, and the above question’s answer is yes, I would not pursue a marriage with this person. She is telling you who she is; believe her. It’s better to find this out **before** your lives are further integrated and with kids in the picture, and suffer a little heartache now, rather than ignore this and hope she will change later. This type of opinion/attitude will not change once she gets married to you. You are both still young and will have many opportunities to find the right person for you that will match you in your desire for a loyal marriage and having kids.
Flunked the girlfriend test, run
It’s odd how she talks about infidelity as if it were something a person has no control over, like it’s cancer or something. There’s no personal responsibility here. It’s weird. It’s definitely, definitely a red flag.
Thats rough..
>This is a woman I plan on building a family together and has very good features to be a good wife and mother.
Her opinion on cheating and long term relationships prove this is completely false. She does not have “very good features” to be a good wife and mother. Quite the opposite.
>She responds that it is a possibility if we are married and have kids if our lives kind of become boring or have problems in our relationship.
That’s her way of telling you when things get hard or boring she will make the selfish decision to cheat instead of the harder/right decision of ending the relationship.
>She said it is always possible, she does not cheat on me now because she is very happy with me, how I treat her, and everything I make her feel, but she said if our feelings for each other change one day and we are too used to each other to leave, we may just cheat on each other.
Cheating doesn’t just “happen” it’s a choice one makes. In this scenario the proper next step when you’re unhappy or bored is to communicate with your partner and work through it. If it can’t be worked through then the next step is ending the relationship. Cheating is a choice. A selfish choice made by cowards with shit communication and unhealthy copping mechanisms for the stress of life.
She just told you she will cheat on you one day. She told you this so that when she does she can say ” well I did warm you this was possible to why are you so shocked and upset! I was honest!”
She’s the worst possible choice for a wife and mother.
Do you want to be married/have children with someone who feels so nonchalant about cheating? She’s made it clear that cheating is no big deal and she probably will cheat one day, if she isn’t trying to tell you she has already.
>She mentioned that it is so important for her to be loyal to her partner but she said humans are not meant to be with only one partner their whole life and everyone she knows that has been in a long 10-20 year relationship has cheated on their partner at least once let it be flirting with someone kissing someone or having sex with someone else.
I don’t think this is true – however is she asserting that in every marriage/relationship that she’s aware of that is past 10 years both people have cheated on each other? That seems ludicris to me. The statistics don’t bare that out.
Also the whole bit about what humans are ‘*meant*’ for is suspect – this is an attempt to remove accountability. We aren’t meant for anything – we make choices about our lives and we live accordingly. To be ‘*meant for*’ implies there’s a plan for your life and evolution has no such plan and I’m unaware of any religions that call for their adherents to commit infidelity so I think your partner is just making stuff up.
>As a response, I asked if she thinks that if we are together for that many years if she thinks we will cheat on each other as well. She responds that it is a possibility if we are married and have kids if our lives kind of become boring or have problems in our relationship.
So infidelity is abuse and she’s essentially saying it’s possible that she’ll do that. To put it into another context, would she be okay with a possibility of physical abuse if you get too angry? I suspect not. So why should you put up with mental abuse?
>I was surprised by her answer, and I followed up by asking if she thinks it is possible we may cheat on each other now. She said it is always possible, she does not cheat on me now because she is very happy with me, how I treat her, and everything I make her feel, but she said if our feelings for each other change one day and we are too used to each other to leave, we may just cheat on each other.
This sounds like a threat. Further, her cheating on you is **her choice** – it’s not up to you whether SHE cheats on you. That’s a decision she makes.
>This is a woman I plan on building a family together and has very good features to be a good wife and mother. She is always brutally blunt with me. I don’t understand if she is showing me potential red flags or if she just talking her mind.
She can’t be brutally blunt/honest with you while also saying that she would cheat on you. Cheating is inherently deceptive.
I wouldn’t start a relationship with someone who takes no accountability in cheating (the whole ‘*if you treat her well*’ and all that).
This is red flag behavior. She’ll cheat on you and then retroactively say that you weren’t making her happy. That’s what cheaters do.
She’s full of chicken feathers.
Next!
She’s simply telling the truth. Most relationships are temporary, especially dating relationships, in your teens and twenties. Nearly 50% of marriages end in divorce, even more in 2nd and 3rd marriages. She’s not wrong.
That’s not wife or mother material. Pass.
Build your life with someone else who will stay loyal and love you through the good times and the bad. That includes the boring times. A monogamus/ marital lifetime commitment is an oxymoron when one is so flippant when it comes to faithfulness. Personally, if I didn’t care about faithfulness, I wouldn’t be married in the first place!
At least you know the excuse she’ll make when she cheats on you.
No dude this is not somebody you want to plan a family in a future with. She pretty much told you she gets bored with you are not real happy with you.
There’s no way I’d marry someone with this mindset. Sounds like a massive values misalignment.
She’s probably not wrong. Most relationships of ten to twenty years have probably had some kind of infidelity if you define fidelity as narrowly as she does here, e.g. with flirting.
She’s being honest and it sounds like she’s talking about distant possibilities rather than things she intends to do, but if you need a cast iron promise of absolute fidelity that may or may not actually be accurate, your perspectives are probably sufficiently different that you should think about this seriously. You know her best. Just by saying the words it doesn’t mean she’s going to cheat if she’s the kind of person who talks through possibilities honestly and clearly.
Plus, if she’s always brutally honest, you’ll know if your relationship is troubled or if she’s thinking about other people because she’ll tell you.
>I don’t understand if she is showing me potential red flags or if she just talking her mind.
She is doing both, as she is giving you the future parameters that show when she would cheat.
>I feel kind of lost and don’t know how to feel
Feel like you dodged a bullet by finding out now that she doesn’t see cheating as a hard boundary, and seems to be more of the ‘no harm if your partner doesn’t know’ mindset.
Better to know know than 10 years from now when you have kids and she catches validation feels from someone else and you end up a part time parent.
Honestly, her attitude about it would be a hard pass. Yes things happen due to strained relationships but it is always up to the individual to be faithful or not. I for one would want to bet on someone with the same views as me for relationships.
Dude, she’s NOT a keeper. Let her go.
I wish I had recognized the “humans are not meant to be with only one partner their whole life” line as the red flag that it is. Heard it from time to time over the course of my 22 year relationship. Discovered his ongoing affair last year, when I was 6 months pregnant. I would be naive to believe it was the only one.
Ditch her. She is not marriage material.
Fantastic honesty on her part. I really give her credit for not only being aware of her willingness to cheat, but her willingness to tell you.
Take the hint and run for the hills.
She has told you very directly that she will cheat on you if you ever stop being a source of happiness for her. Marriage is wonderful, and I highly recommend it, but it’s full of challenges and there can be stretches of sub-optimal happiness. DO NOT marry this woman and/or have kids with her.
Tough break because I’m sure you love her, but do not overlook what she is telling you.
She’s essentially saying it’s going to happen sooner or later
Unless someone is trapped in a marriage that is abusive, there is always a choice to make that doesn’t involve cheating.
What she is describing is the time when in a marriage communication between spouses is critical. It’s the time when you say, honey let’s get into counseling as I’m worried about us. It’s the time when spouses understand that a marriage evolves and that it will go through many iterations over the years in responses to life changes and the changes in roles that come with them.
My spouse and I are on Marriage 3.0. Maybe 3.5 considering the empty nest transition was start and stop because of the pandemic. Each change was due to a life change that put stress on our marriage. But we got help when needed and fought through. That’s what you do.
She’s telling you she’s not monogamous and probably will cheat on you in the future. The “right now” of her happiness and desire to be with you can change “later on” using her words. And it looks like she wants you to be okay with it bc humans can keep their clothes on around each other and we’re all fornicating in the streets like animals.
Thank you, next.
Major issues with her. Don’t marry her or you will be spending lots of money on divorce attorneys.
What utter bullshit. We don’t cheat because we can fathom how our infidelity would effect the people closest to us. It’s called being a human being.
Not trying to rub salt on a wound.. but talk about a dagger to the heart. It’s going to make you stress every time you two have an argument or go a week without intimacy. You’ll be wondering to yourself if she’s happy or not, when marriage is not always consistent. The ups and downs are going to come, no matter what, but it’s choosing who you want to spend the ups and downs with. That’s where loyalty and trust come to play. You shouldn’t worry, however, if she’d be cheating on you.
Does anyone pay attention to vows anymore? Are they even spoken at weddings now?
She’s already making excuses to cheat on you in the future. 10 years from now when you find out she cheated on you. She’s gonna say “but I warned you and you still married me”
Did you ask her if she is okay with you cheating when you get bored, or she isn’t meeting your sexual needs? I’m not saying you would, but she might be banking on your loyalty- that you would never cheat. So she doesn’t have to worry about you, and she can still go with the “I told you…”
Confront her with that- go into a little detail about sex with other women.
The problem with cheating is that there is always the possibility of falling in “love” with someone else. That is why we are not meant to cheat.
No one is perfect, and these things do happen. But you don’t go into a long term relationship with the possibility that you might cheat some day.
I kinda get what she means. I think what she’s saying it ‘of course I wouldn’t cheat on you when we’re happy and healthy, but no one can see the future and down the line things might change”. I mean, I bet there’s plenty of cheaters out there who genuinely thought they would never ever in a million years do that- but then circumstances change, passion fizzles… I think she’s just trying to be realistic
That said, I don’t agree with it. That’s obviously never something you should tell a partner. I don’t know how you’re supposed to forget she said it.
I think she is trying to normalize infidelity, which is not good if you don’t agree with having an open relationship.
She talks about infidelity as if it’s something you have no control over. I’ve been through two unhappy marriages and never even considered cheating. I would trust that what she’s saying is true and just move on.
I would not pursue a serious relationship with someone who had this attitude to fidelity.
Loyalty is a *choice*.. cheating is not something outside your control like an earthquake or a terminal illness. It is not something that *happens to you*, it’s something you choose to do or choose not to do.
uhh it sounds to me she’s soft launching her cheating on you eventually? while manipulating you into thinking it’s normal, common, including *you* by using the term “we” as if she’s so *graciously* leaving wiggle room for you to cheat too?
Tbh I could never trust someone like that again. I have a friend who spouted the same “beliefs”, I assume he cheats on every woman he dates because of that one conversation. idc if I have no proof or reason to think he would cheat on a specific woman. His mentality was reason enough because it was a long winded, fake woke excuse as to why *he* is capable of cheating.
Don’t start a family with her.
One thing me and my husband agreed upon when we started dating was that cheating is the only thing that neither of us will tolerate. We have and will get through anything, but not cheating.
I disagree with your partner, if one is unhappy in a relationship you first go to that person and you communicate and address the issues. Cheating is not something that should be considered as a “solution” so to speak when one is in an unhappy relationship. If the issues can’t be resolved then you separate and sleep with whomever you want. But cheating is highly disrespectful.
You seem to disagree, and it’s a very important issue. You need to bring this up again with her. Help her understand your point of view. Maybe counselling will help. Maybe she’ll change her mind. But if she doesn’t, can you spend the rest of your life with someone who thinks this way?
When people tell you who they are, believe them.