Mom Sparks Major Debate With Honest Answer To Her Husband Asking, 'Could You Ever Cheat On Me?'
Many were outraged by her sensible, realistic take on infidelity. But experts say she's definitely on to something.
Mangostar / Shutterstock As we all know, infidelity is incredibly destructive to a relationship, and while we tend to blame that on simple character flaws, there's reason to believe that's a bit too simplistic a view.
One mom on TikTok has a very different take on the issue of cheating that has divided people online. But some can't help but feel she's on to something.
The mom answered honestly to the question of whether she could ever cheat on her husband: 'Absolutely.'
For as much as we judge people who do it, cheating is actually far more common than most of us would think. The results of various studies and surveys on the matter range extensively, with some showing infidelity impacting much as 35-40% of long-term relationships and 15-20% of marriages.
Perhaps it's how pervasive cheating is that inspired TikToker, wife and mother Nika Diwa, known as @nikadiwa on the app, to be so blunt and honest about her answer when her husband asked her point blank in a recent video if she is capable of cheating.
Diwa believes 'anyone is capable of cheating' and says she sets boundaries accordingly.
"Absolutely ... I'm going to keep it 100 because anyone is capable of cheating," she responded when her husband asked her the question, to his shocked surprise. But the more she elaborates on her view, the harder it becomes to argue with her.
"I'm a human being. You're a human being. And I'm sorry, babe, I don't know if this is hard for you to hear, but everybody is absolutely capable of infidelity in the right or wrong circumstances. That's why boundaries are so important," she told her husband.
This has led her to make some strict but, in her view, necessary rules about her behavior and social life. "That's why I don't make dumb decisions like talking to guys one-on-one or hanging out in compromising situations," she said. "Even if people think I might be too strict, I don't care, because I'm not taking that chance. I'm not putting myself in a position to even be close... to potentially fall to temptation..."
Diwa's take on whether she could ever cheat on her husband sparked a lot of outrage, but many experts say she's right.
There's no arguing that Diwa's right about the human propensity to be attracted to others besides the one we're with — it's embedded in our biological make-up, after all.
Many people appreciated her honesty, and felt her take was indicative of not only a principled approach to personal responsibility but also a sign of a healthy relationship — as one woman on Twitter put it, it "highlights the beauty of continuing to intentionally choose each other."
But some felt like her solution to never be alone with other men was a puritanical take not dissimilar to former Vice President Mike Pence's supposed rule that he's never allowed to be alone with other women — and that it was indicative of a desire to cheat on her part.
Many even felt like Diwa was "telling on herself" and that she must have already cheated to even have such an opinion, and several found the very suggestion that we're all capable of cheating offensive and absurd. As one woman on TikTok pointedly put it, "I’m 100% not capable of cheating, I don’t need to stay out of any situation [because] I’d never do it."
But many experts, like therapist and relationship expert Esther Perel, totally agree that infidelity often happens simply because of basic human needs — as she put it when we spoke to her in 2022. Circumstances like "existential longings" and "experiences of loss" or "acute awareness of mortality," and even cheating to feel young and vital and wanted again, are common among spouses and partners who are unfaithful.
Importantly, Perel says, "these reasons have nothing to do with a bad marriage," and she says we need to rethink our knee-jerk, puritanical insistence that infidelity is indicative of a fundamentally and fatally flawed marriage.
"We start from a deficiency model," she told us, "so we often condemn marriages that have been very good and very strong... To trash all of that [good], to make the experience of the crisis or the affair redefine everything, is unfair to people’s commitment — both people’s, not just the person who cheated."
So it seems like Diwa really is on to something. Accepting that cheating often addresses basic human needs and hence is something we are all capable of under the right circumstances, rather than a diabolical character flaw, might not only be key to recovering when it happens — it could be a good first step in avoiding it in the first place.
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.