"AITA for suspecting my wife of infidelity because she said that for her cheating is not the worst thing that could happen in a relationship?"

I (41M) have been married for 7 years to my wife (39F). We are childfree by choice. We have a great, stable marriage, without major quarrels and disagreements, full of respect, tenderness and passion.

My wife is a very intelligent, successful woman and I admire her very much. She has a calm character and she is not in the habit of judging other people. She often mentions how annoyed she is by how easily her young students (she’s a University Professor) pass moral judgments and call anything they don't like “toxic”. It also always surprised me that she really has no jealous bone in her body.

For example, whenever I texted her that I was going out to lunch with a female colleague from work, she would write me back "OK honey, have fun." She never inquired about where I was when I went out with friends or stuff like that. Of course, I’ve never cheated on her or did anything that would break her trust.

Last week me and my wife were having drinks with her close friends. The subject of infidelities came up – I think it started when some friend said that her sister just found out that her husband cheated on her. Everyone began to talk about their experiences, opinions and emotions related to cheating.

That's when my wife said that she personally doesn't think cheating is the worst thing a partner could do to her, and that she would be able to forgive infidelity as long as it was a one-time thing and not an affair that dragged on for months, but that she would rather just never find out about it. I disbelieved her at first. I asked what kind of things she considered worse evils than cheating.

She said that she doesn't consider infidelity to be evil at all, just a hurtful decision based on a character flaw, and that in general she doesn't consider many things evil. She said that personally it would be harder for her to forgive abuse, humiliation, or lack of support from a partner in a situation where she really needed it.

I relate this conversation in detail, because it was the cause of everything that happened afterwards. I couldn't understand my wife's perspective, and I thought from the beginning that something like this could only be said by someone who has cheated themselves or was currently cheating, and wanted to rid themselves of guilt. I told her that I now find it hard to believe that she is faithful to me.

I asked her if, if she cheated on me, she wouldn't tell me about it either, because she herself "would rather not find out." She said the question made no sense, because she would never cheat on me. That she was only talking about her own opinion and knows that my opinion is different and that I consider infidelity a dealbreaker.

I said I can’t believe her. She said that she would never again reveal any of her opinions to me on any serious topic if my reaction is to accuse her. She started crying and immediately went to the bathroom to calm herself down.

I wanted to go after her, but her friends stopped me and told me to give her some time to be alone and cry it out. They told me that she is speaking from experience because her previous long-term partner had cheated on her and she forgave him (they broke up a couple of years later because he wanted children and she didn’t).

These friends known her for much longer than I do and they said that as far as they know, she was never unfaithful to me or to anyone else. When my wife came back, I apologized to her and she accepted. The rest of the evening went on as normal.

We returned home and went to bed, but I couldn't fall asleep. All the time I had doubts, I could not stop thinking about what my wife said and about our whole relationship in general. What if the reason she is never jealous is that she herself has been cheating for years, only she doesn't care because she doesn't consider it "evil"? It’s like that thought became stuck in my head and I couldn’t get it out.

I reached for my wife’s phone (it’s not password protected) and started looking for potential lovers, scrolling through her messages and emails. I didn’t find anything suspicious and was about to give up when my wife woke up. She saw what I was doing and she didn’t even say anything, she just looked very sad. She stood up, picked up her laptop, unlocked it and put it in front of me.

She said "search it too, if you want," or something like that. I immediately apologized, closed the laptop and put away the phone. I hugged her and I told her that I love her.

We went back to sleep. Since that situation she is quiet and cold. She talks to me normally but something feels off. I know what I did was wrong and I apologized for it, but was it really that big of a deal? Wasn't I at least a little justified because of what she said?

What do you think? AITA? This is what top commenters had to say:

throwawtphone said:

How the hell are y'all married for 7 years and this is the first you ever heard of 1. Her stance on cheating 2. Her past experience of being cheated on and 3. What her relationship deal breakers are? How do people get married and not know apparently anything about each other?

BomberExternal said:

It’s wild that a single convo could lead to a whole ass marriage ending 😂

Southern_Math_8238 said:

Bro she explicitly tells you that for her humiliation and lack of support are worse evils to her than infidelity and you choose to IMMEDIATELY humiliate her choose not to support her and then act surprised that she no longer looks at you the same? The amount of dense you need to be to think that what you did is forgivable, needs to be studied by science.

Separate_Kick3186 said:

Wow. The art of self sabotage is so on point here. What is wrong with you OP? How from that conversation did you come to the conclusion that your wife was cheating on you? How? What kind of mental parkour did you do? Wife says she can forgive cheating if it's a one time mistake, OP:"She has been cheating on me all our marriage". Wow.

And FSmertz said:

YTA. You did one of the things she considered worse than cheating. Just like that. Quite an accomplishment!!

In the comments, OP added this update with some more info:

We only had very superficial conversations about cheating, for example when we found out our mutual friend was cheated on we talked about how it is an awful situation for him and how he needs our support. Or we often said to each other that we would never ever cheat because we love each other so much.

At the beginning of our relationship we agreed that we will not talk about our previous relationships in detail. She only told me that she and her ex broke up because he wanted to have children with her and she was sure that she wants to remain childfree.

I knew of course what her relationship dealbreakers are, but I assumed cheating is one of them, because that is an almost universal dealbreaker. I know I've messed up, I felt really insecure and let the worst, irrational thoughts dictate my actions. I will do everything to make it up to her.