I'm a consultant psychiatrist - here's how to tell if your lover will remain faithful

How do I find a man who won't cheat on me? This may seem a slightly strange question for a Harley Street consultant psychiatrist but in fact I got asked precisely this during a recent clinical consultation and it's not a rare query by any means. I published a book years ago, Simply Irresistible: The Psychology of Seduction - How To Catch and Keep Your Perfect Partner, about the psychological rules of attraction and how to know with absolute certainty you had found Mr or Mrs Right.

A waiting-list developed of readers who wanted to consult with me on whether they had indeed found the love of their life, or was it going to end badly? What red flags were they missing... because love is blind? For women, one of my key psychological tips is always to check whether your amore has several platonic female friends. The more the better. I'm not going to get into the famous debate from the film When Harry Met Sally, about whether a man can ever really be just friends with a woman, let's save that question for another time.

But suffice it to say that, whatever is bubbling under the surface, a man who has platonic female friends over an extended period, where he hasn't sexualised the relationship, is revealing much about his attitude to women. And it is a good one.

Most women won't remain friends with a sex pest or put up with annoyance, so it shows he can behave in a respectful way for a long time, that means he can exhibit restraint.

Psychologists know that, when it comes to physical perfection, a man will only be too delighted to court the attention of a woman way out of his league. Women, by contrast, can become uncomfortable dating someone they see as very physically desirable, precisely because they become more concerned about the possibility that he will stray.

Longer term, they tend to go for someone a little below themselves on the looks front in an evolutionary-inspired bid to stop them from straying. To use a sporting parallel, while a woman may consider herself '"Champions League material" in the looks department, when it comes to love she will play a division below herself. That way, the man feels forever grateful for what he has secured - he can't believe his luck and will never ever stray for risk of getting benched

Working in Harley Street, one encounters plenty of celebrities including actresses and models, some of the most stunning people you're likely to meet. But I can attest that they are just as insecure as the rest of us, especially when it comes to dating.

And having been so used to married men throwing themselves at them, this has fostered cynicism about the male ability to remain faithful. As a result many developed their own strategies over marital due diligence. One strategy such clients often used was to deploy a female friend to bump into their partner at a social event, and then flirt heavily. Really!

The results speak for themselves. If they cracked under temptation, he was rapidly ground under the heel of their Jimmy Choos.

Because they confide in me with their darkest and deepest insecurities, I see that the rich and famous hate being cheated on just as much as you and I. That insecurity it leaves them with, is, in fact, surprisingly familiar to us all.

Dr Raj Persaud, a Harley Street Consultant Psychiatrist and author of The Mental Vaccine for Covid-19, will be sharing his view from the couch every week on Express.co.uk