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The more cases I read about men and their cheating ways, the more I feel that most men have cheated, are cheating and will cheat if an opportunity were to arise.
I've found that the men who haven't cheated, haven't done so because of one these reasons (or both):
1) Lack of options
2) Fear of the consequences
1) Lack of options - Men who fall into this category haven't cheated not because they don't want to but because there is no woman that will give them the time of day. Whether it's because of the man's lack of humour, pot belly or age, no woman is willing to talk to him let alone sleep with him.
2) Fear of the consequences - Men who fall into this category haven't cheated simply because they fear what would happen if they did. They fear their wives leaving them and all the money and assets they'd lose in the divorce. They fear their children resenting them, their parents being ashamed of them, their wife's family berating them and their mutual friends seeing him in a different light. While it's good for a man to fear what would happen if he were to cheat on his partner, a lot of these men would cheat if given the chance. It's just that the fallout of cheating frightens them.
The only thing that makes a man not cheat is if: 1) he feels it's wrong and 2) he values his partner, his children (if he has any with his partner) and the life he's built with his partner and children. So many women think that they can stop men cheating when the simple truth is: men will cheat if they want to. The only thing that makes a man not cheat, is him not wanting to. It's disappointing that very few men think this way.
What does everyone think?
I remember a thread I read, it was about how men deal with being attracted to other women that aren't their partners. The most upvoted comment said pretty much something like "Do I want to fuck other women? All the time, everyday. But I don't do it because I don't want to hurt my wife" So if this man's wife was ok with him sleeping with other women, he'd definitely do it. He wanted to cheat but he didn't want to feel guilty about it, and I think that's very telling.
A lot of men will do atrocious things if they knew there weren't any consequences. I bet a good chunk of the male population would rape women and children if they were 100% sure they wouldn't go to jail. They don't see anything wrong with acts that most women would find disgusting and disturbing, they only 'control' themselves due to fear of the consequences
After reading papers on sex offenders, the part that really hit me was that a large amount of offenders are classified as “situational“ as in ordinary people who committed illegal, unethical, sociopathic acts only when an easy & consequence free situation presented itself. It infers people in general are situational sociopaths and we can’t really know how we’ll act in a situation until we’re actually in it.
When it comes to men and cheating, I view every man as a potential situational cheater until proven otherwise. Even he likely doesn’t know or doesn’t think he’ll cheat until a guilt free opportunity is dropped in his lap. The best way to know is if he‘s cheated before. If it’s a demonstrated pattern of behaviour—he’s a cheater and not worth any attention. Many men are stupid enough to tell you if they cheated if you just ask.
It's definitely why so many of them are obsessed with cheating or accuse women of cheating behaviors (hypergamy, monkey branching, just flat out opportunism just because), it's projection. Just like all of the other weird things they think about women, it's because they would and aren't capable of perspective taking.
As a woman, you can have almost any man you point at. That's the sad fact. They won't say no.
This might sound really pessimistic, and I'm prob jaded, but I don't hope or expect my partner to not cheat/not want to cheat throughout a relationship. 30, 40, 50 years of being with someone, the insane convenience, the prevalence of porn everywhere, the prevalence of a lifetime of male entitlement and values, being around other guys with different sets of values... the list goes on for the possibility of cheating and potentially never finding out. There's maybe 1% of guys who don't want to out there. And honestly I believe it's because they already found that sex with many women is ultimately unfulfilling or something. But there's no certainty and I don't want to spend my life trying to figure it out.
Idk what this means for my future yet, but I'm just not having sex with a partner.
Any man who cheats or is willing to cheat in any way is a his own character flaw.
sad thing is it doesn’t take much of basic human decency to be loyal to your partner
I mean this is true for any scrotey behavior on FDS. Men need to be a good enough person inside and therefore have morals to not do x bad thing
For what it's worth, I believe it's pretty easy to spot those men who secretly want to cheat but don't because there's a lack of opportunity or a high risk of being found out. They tell on themselves quickly. As for the rest who don't have that desire currently but might develop it in the future, there's obviously no way of knowing. But I think a good indicator is when he a) has had the opportunity to hook up with multiple people without any negative consequences but actively decided against it or b) has already went through a sexless / emotionally or physically stressful period with a previous partner and stayed faithful. Morals can still change over time, and even those of us who think we would never cheat might still make an exception one day when we feel we're justified. That's a risk we take in life. On average though, I do believe most men's impulse to cheat lies just below the surface.
I've come to this conclusion as well. All men are polygamists until proven otherwise, and I had to learn from experience. They will say anything at all and not mean it.