This article is like an episode of "Cheaters." And I don't know about you, but that show gives me anxiety but is also necessary because it shows you just how awful humans can be. Besides, who doesn't love reading or viewing other people's messy drama? (exactly) So, without further ado, grab some popcorn and enjoy.
(Content has been edited for clarity).
‘Her Choice, Not Mine’
“My ex-wife wanted to have a baby. She was in her mid-30s and believed she was running out of time. We tried, and it wasn’t happening as fast as she wanted.
After over a month of not doing the deed (which should have been a big red flag, in retrospect), she came home took all her stuff and just left. Only once she was gone did she eventually admit to me that she went and got herself pregnant by another man.
And we got divorced.
By the way, the other guy was someone she had not apparently known long or well, and he wanted nothing to do with the kid. So she is raising it now as a single mother. Her choice, not mine.”
You Only Live Once
“I suspected I was being cheated on, but nothing was solid, so I never brought it up. But he didn’t realize that the Apple devices got synced together, and one day I was using one of the devices for something and messages started popping up in real time. I got to read their conversation as it was happening, as well as past correspondences. It was gut-wrenching because neither of them cared. If I remember correctly, they were talking about a past hookup and how I had no clue and his response was ‘YOLO.’
I confronted him about it that night. He begged and pleaded for me to stay. He tried to convince me they never actually hooked up. He also tried to convince me it was just a big mistake on his part and that I mattered more than her. But in the end, I knew I could never stay. How could I stay with someone who reduced long-term cheating on his spouse to ‘YOLO’? All the begging and pleading was empty and I knew it.
I felt sick for a long time. Moved out. Got therapy. I was poor, really poor. But honestly I was much happier with getting out and getting help. And I’ve been happier ever since.”
Only The Beginning
“I was with a woman for seven years (married) and had a daughter with her. It was our kid’s birthday, and she received a phone call from someone. She played it off as the wrong number.
Twenty minutes later she informed me that she was having an emotional affair. I ask…’like on the internet?’ And she replies ‘no, in person.’To which I responded, ‘have you slept with them?’ She said, ‘yes.’
It turns out the phone call was the guy’s wife… telling her she was dropping him off at our place and that she’d better tell me.
They had been having an affair for six months. My wife at the time had no leg to stand on. She claimed abuse, tried to sell everything in the home after I was ejected (Army’s cool-off plan).
After the dust cleared, I dropped a bunch a weight, started traveling the world and took my daughter to places that I never imagined.
My ex-wife hates me for it. She’s still with the man she cheated on me with and they are both hateful and miserable.
I thought my life was over then and as it turns out it had just begun.”
‘Deal With It’
“I knew something was going on and then my close friends had a pseudo-intervention to let me know I was in a broken relationship and that my wife was cheating on me. I went and found the guy and talked to him for confirmation. After that, I left and disappeared for a little over a year. I don’t think I even talked with anyone over that period of time. I just spent a lot of time reflecting on who I had become through that relationship and then spent a great deal more re-establishing some sense of self-worth.
It broke me for a bit. Honestly, I came out a much stronger person for it. It sucks but looking back, the amount of personal growth I went through was worth it.
The guy my partner cheated with was an acquaintance. I had seen him at parties and other social events and had talked with him on a few occasions prior to this. When I confronted him, he panicked, and that gave it away. He did admit to it, and he started crying, which just infuriated me. I wanted to attack him but didn’t. What can you get out of beating the crap out of a crying dude? Nothing.
He knew what he had done and didn’t care until he was confronted with consequences. As much as he cried, he stayed with her after our divorce. And about two years down the line, she pulled the same crap on him and he tried to buddy up with me. I frankly let him know I wanted nothing to do with him or his poor decisions.”
Sometimes You’ve Gotta ‘Lawyer Up’
“I saw her Facebook messages to him where they were planning a mountain trip. We were separated trying to work on rebuilding our marriage (don’t ever do that by the way). Just as bad as the affair was the two of them taking my son to see a movie together. I hired a lawyer, filed for divorce and ended up taking custody of my son, the house, the dog, and she is paying me child support. So I have that going for me, which is nice.
And when it comes to ‘separating’ I’m sure there are some success stories out there, but I just know I’ll never separate like that again – I’ll just end the relationship. My ex already had her mind made up that she wasn’t interested in actually fixing our marriage. She was attempting to string me along and have her affair behind my back while I stayed with my parents and supported her financially. She wasn’t expecting me to lawyer up like I did and put up such a fight for my son and home.”
A Blessing In Disguise
“I caught my partner heavily flirting with people at parties a few times. Then I got deployed and returned, and she showed up late for my unit’s arrival after drinking a six-pack. She left my son and me, soon after to abuse substances and live with the guy I can only assume she was sleeping with. I have had full custody since we split and she’s not a big part of his life.
Her best friend at the time told me she cheated on me. We got divorced, and I remarried a great person later. I also worked hard and made a nice career for myself in cybersecurity.
My son is in middle school now and doing well. He’s a good kid, who just has a lot of difficult to answer questions since I’ve always made it a point not to badmouth my ex in front of him. My son and I moved back to my home state when I got out, and she stayed in her state. She doesn’t have much to do with him, which in a way has been a blessing from what I have heard she has been up to.”
A Hard Time In My Life
“My partner at the time felt pretty guilty, so he started being less and less covert about it. It just sort of slowly became apparent. His cheating wasn’t just physical; it was a relationship. He was buying her gifts, taking her out, fixing her car for her, etc. So as he got more into it, he was obviously spending more time away from home. I am not suspicious or jealous naturally, so at first, I thought they were just friends. He finally told me he wanted a divorce, still not admitting that it was an affair and insisting they were only friends. I asked him for three months of counseling before we decided for sure whether to split up. He agreed, but he didn’t put in much effort as he was already one foot out the door. I couldn’t stand to be in that house with him anymore, so I found a cute little place to rent on Craigslist and moved out. I took the cat with me, and she and I set up a home together and got on with our lives. It was a tough time in my life, but I’m grateful for the direction my life took after that. I hadn’t realized how much that relationship was holding me back from doing and being what I wanted.”
‘Maybe She’s Happy’
“My partner and I never technically got married. We were engaged and had been together for five years. I proposed, and she said yes. Two weeks before our wedding was supposed to happen I got off work early, came home to find her sleeping some scraggly, homeless looking dude in our bed. Instead of murdering them both on the spot (which was my first instinct) I walked out and stayed with my parents for a couple of days. I went back to the apartment, and she was gone, and half of my stuff was with her. I then went to her work, she quit, and no one had seen her. I called her parents, and they wouldn’t talk to me. I didn’t even get the ring back.
A year later, a notification popped up on Facebook, ‘People You Might Know.’ The profile picture was her, in a wedding dress, next to the guy I caught her cheating with, in our bed. So, maybe she’s happy. I don’t know.
I spent the next two years under the influence and ended up doing something idiotic. I wasn’t successful, but I still think of trying again sometimes. I went through some major depression and self-worth issues that I still don’t even think I’m over. I’m off the drinks and am doing better than I was…but it still weighs on me every day.”
The Suspicions
“One evening my wife said to me: I don’t want to be married to you anymore. The next morning I told her, if she didn’t want to be married, she should probably leave. She said she wouldn’t leave me alone with our kids because I was a ‘danger’ to them.
I had good reason to be suspicious she was cheating on me.
That afternoon I called the other guy, out of the blue, and told him: I know my wife no longer loves me, I know she loves you, I can respect that this is the way it is, I won’t try to get in your way, I just need you both to not try to get in the way of my relationship with my children.
There was a long pause, and then he (unwittingly) confirmed the suspicion for me.
That evening my (now ex) wife told me that, despite what she told me in the morning, I wasn’t a ‘danger’ to our kids, and she would be finding a new place to live.
I’d like to say the crazy got dialed down from there, but it didn’t. Sociopath narcissists bring on the crazy. But at least I have an amazing and wonderful relationship with one of my kiddos.”
Nine Years Ago
“I was pretty oblivious to my partner cheating on me for a long time. Keep in mind that we lived in a fairly small town (5,000 people), so people ‘know things.’
I was bragging up my now ex-wife to a coworker. Saying how proud I was of her for finally getting a job that she loved after being a stay at home mom for about the last eight years. I was talking about how she was working as a ranch hand on a few weekends long cattle drives, staying in the bunkhouse of the cattle ranch. My coworker said she knows that ranch, only lived a few miles from there and that there was NO bunkhouse. The only residence there was a single house that the ranch lead hand lived in by himself.
That confused me. I asked my ex about it, and she denied it up and down and had an explanation for all of it.
Fast forward a few more weeks, and another person I know in town was talking with me, and I mentioned my ex-wife being at home, which surprised them. They told me that they thought we split up. It turns out the guy she was messing with was this person’s cousin. Their cousin had told them all sorts of graphic details about what he and my ex-wife had been doing, and now they were sharing them with me as I kept saying things like ‘no way’ and ‘they must be talking about someone else.’
Faced with this new information, I confronted my now ex-wife again just outside our house as the kids were inside. She initially tried denying it again, but then finally came clean. I was gutted. I was a grown man crying uncontrollably in my laneway, and she got in her truck and drove off to be with him again that night, leaving the kids and me at home.
I could barely eat or sleep for days, the only thing that kept me sane during my waking hours were my kids. I focused on keeping everything as calm and stable as possible for them every day. They saved me.
It’s been about nine years now. I haven’t been in a committed relationship since. I don’t know if I ever will be again.”
Kicked To The Curb
“My ex-wife was having an affair with a co-worker.
Here’s the story:
I was hanging out with my daughter one night (who was about 10 at that time), and I got a knock on the door. It was one of my wife’s co-workers who had never met telling me my wife was with one of her co-workers at a restaurant and that she thought I should know.
I drove to the restaurant and saw her with some dude having dinner. I threw my ring right on the ground in the restaurant and told her she could have it.
The next day after talking to my wife’s sister, I agreed to speak with my wife, and we talked it out, and I said I would need some time to figure stuff out.
The next day, some dude showed up at my work and handed me an envelope and said ‘thought you might want to see these.’ They were pictures of my wife and her co-worker kissing with a time stamp of the day after I caught them at the restaurant.
It turns out all of her co-workers saw what she was doing to me and felt like they should tell me.
So I kicked her behind to the curb and never looked back.”
‘I Moved Far, Far, Far Away’
“We were together for 10 years and married for two. I flew home for a week to visit family and came back to him saying he realized he didn’t miss me and wanted to move out. No prior fighting, no issues, no signs at all. He initially said he didn’t know what he wanted in his life but that he needed space to figure things out and that once he figured it out, he would move back home.
I found him texting a married co-worker while packing and I knew right there. The two of them had been ‘chatting’ for months apparently as friends.
He moved out, and she left her husband and kids two months later, and I find out she was pregnant. I filed for divorce and moved far, far, far away.
I don’t know if they are together still or married or what the situation is, but I know it just hurts to be betrayed so callously.”
What A Fox…
“My high school sweetheart and father of my two oldest kids was missing-in-action. I called his mom’s house, and his buddy answered. I ask for my boyfriend, and he asked if it is ‘Angie.’ Uhm no. Who is Angie? It turns out she was his new girlfriend. Also, she was pregnant. I left.
Fast forward a few years later. I’ve been married to someone else for four years, my ex is married to someone else, and I suspect my husband is cheating. So my ex’s wife is picking up the kids for the weekend, and she asks me if my husband and I are okay. It turns out my husband’s truck was at Angie’s house when my ex’s wife picked up their daughter for the weekend. Wait. What? So they leave, I drive over, see his truck, knock on the door and guess who answers? Shirtless? Yep. My darling hubby. Seriously? He follows me home, a big fight ensues, and I kick him out. I’d like to say that this girl was gorgeous and they just couldn’t resist her, but the opposite is true. She looks like a droopy dog on something.
Fast forward a couple of years later, and I’m remarried (still married 18 years later) and we’re at a bar, watching a friend in the band that night. Angie shows up. I point her out and threaten penile dismemberment if he ever even looks at her. She contacted me on Facebook shortly after asking why I didn’t like her. I was flabbergasted. How could she not know?
I knew her before because our mothers were drinking buddies. And I’m not sure how she met my first ex, but I know how she met my second one. She would drop her daughter off for sleepovers at my house, so she could spend more time with her brothers (my kids). Otherwise, they’d only see each other every other weekend. So, being naive, I invited the fox into my hen house.”
Parents, Partners And Adults
“My partner was acting like a different person. Our fights became toxic over time. The intimacy had stopped entirely, and he went out of his way to never be alone with me. These were all red flags for me, and I snooped through his phone and found the messages confirming he was cheating. So I sat down and thought through things. We got together right out of high school and had out oldest soon after, and four months after got pregnant with our youngest, so we were trying to figure out how to be parents, adults, and partners all at once with no support.
So after the initial screaming match, we sat down and figured out just where we both went wrong that had led to this point, some of it as a couple, some of it outside influences (crappy friends and fake family), but the personal stuff we never took care of. We started from square one, both got into therapy for our personal issues, I went back on my medication, and then we picked up and left the state. We learned how to fight fair and slowly started building trust back and making sure we have an open line of communication at all times. Three years later we’re still married and doing better than ever, although we’re still trying to figure out new obstacles when they come up, only now we do it as a team.”