Hey,  I want to see if your best instructor can seduce my fiancée. If he can, I pay you triple and cancel the wedding. If he can’t, I pay your regular private training and I have my bride.”

I got this email a few months ago. We didn’t take the client — our mission is to help guys succeed with women, not run sting operations — but I see where he’s coming from. How can you tell if someone is going to be faithful?

There was a study in Great Britain back in the 1980s where they took DNA samples from test subjects and their parents to see how cancer-resisting genes were (or weren’t) inherited. I don’t know what they concluded about cancer, but I do know that they looked at the samples again a few years ago with modern technology and discovered something shocking:

About one in 10 test subjects was not actually related to his or her “father.”

Women don’t cheat any more than men (or any less, given the same opportunities). But it pays to do your due diligence — let’s look at three simple rules, in order of importance.

Most of all, it’s about her
Some women will never cheat, no matter what. Some women will always cheat. Most are somewhere in between. In my experience, the biggest predictor of whether a woman is going to cheat is whether she’s done it before.

How do you find that out? Ask her — as soon as possible after meeting her, so she’s not as worried what you might think. Make it easy and comfortable for her to be honest; for example, tell her a story about a female friend of yours who ended up cheating on her boyfriend because he was so awful to her and eventually broke up with him. Tell the story as if your friend’s actions were perfectly normal and acceptable, then ask the woman if she’s even been in that (or a similar) situation.

People do change, but if your partner has cheated on every other man she’s been with, your odds aren’t very good.

       2. Second, it’s about the relationship

That’s where the quality of the relationship matters. Many women cheat when they’ve mentally checked out of the relationship (though many other women weren’t planning to end the relationship before they started cheating — and then rationalize that they must have been about to break up, because why else would they have cheated?).

It’s not just about being a good boyfriend, though this is important. Women tend to have a greater variety of emotional needs than men. Make sure you’re giving her that variety. If you’re a bad boy type, surprise her with romance. If you two have a routine, break it with spontaneity. Don’t be boring or inaccessible, or you’re just asking for trouble.

       3.   It’s only a LITTLE bit about opportunity

This is where most guys go wrong. They’ll spend hours grilling their partner on where she was and who she was with and why her phone wasn’t on, but won’t invest that time into the relationship instead — which would be far more productive.

Let me tell you three little secrets about this:

Unless you go all CIA on her, there is no way that you can keep tabs on your partner 24/7. Don’t even try. If she wants to cheat, she’ll find a way. That’s why the first two rules in this article are so important.
If you are often suspicious of her, you will probably drive her to cheat. I can’t count how many people have told me that as long as they’re getting punished for cheating, they may as well get some enjoyment out of it.
Don’t trust your intuition. When a woman is suspicious that her man is cheating, she’s usually (not always) right. When a man is suspicious, in general, it doesn’t mean a darn thing.
Don’t be a fool. The night you and your partner have a big fight and she’s had a few too many drinks and you’re at some celebrity party probably isn’t the night you want to leave and tell her to find her own way home. But in general, work on your relationship, not on your suspicions, and choose the right woman to begin with and you’ll be fine.