Redditor u/polyaprotic asked, "People who cheated in a relationship, why?" Answers ranged from super complex to, surprisingly, very simple. Here are 19 reasons people who've cheated have shared:
Note: Submissions have also been sourced from this similar thread.
1. "I walked in on her with a co-worker, so I revenge cheated with someone close to her. It created a triangle of emotional damage. I learned how to process the bad stuff in a healthier way once the dust settled from the three of us destroying each other."
2. "I cheated because I am self centered and felt like having sex with someone else to inflate my ego. It was good to know I still could get it, and getting away with it was a bonus. It was fun acting single and having a long term relationship. I eventually met someone that filled those insecurities. I have never and would never cheat on her."
3. "For a year and a half, every time she started a fight with me, the first thing she said was, 'There's another woman, isn't there?' So when I learned that the attractive new lady at my job also found me attractive, we started knocking boots every day after work. I figured I'm getting accused of it, might as well be guilty of it."
"What I found out after the fact was that she had been less than honest about the relationship between her and a male friend of hers for the entire time we'd been together. I now believe that she was projecting and constantly accusing me of what she'd been doing."
4. "I cheated because I didn't have the emotional intelligence to end it like a considerate human being."
5. "My thinking was always, 'It has absolutely zero effect on my feelings for my partner, so if she never finds out, it may as well never have happened." Something along the lines of a tree falling over in a forest miles from anywhere."
6. "His side chick was my best friend. She thought we were in a polyamorous relationship, but it in reality he just wanted us both. I told him I'd be OK with it if all three of us got to date each other, but he lied and told her I was OK with it just being the two of them. It turns out, it was me that my best friend actually really wanted to date, and my boyfriend was just an 'extra' since we happened to be dating at the time. So, I cheated on my boyfriend with her and stole his side chick. I stayed with her for a while, but we mutually decided we were better as friends and are still best friends to this day."
7. "I was the other guy. A woman I'd known for a couple of years was becoming increasingly disillusioned with her husband, he was drinking too much and getting more and more emotionally and verbally abusive. We had a two-month fling because she wanted to feel valued again."
"She dumped me and told me she was going to make a proper go of her marriage. She gave him six months to quit drinking, or she was going to kick him out. He just got worse, and the final straw was when he drunkenly dragged their eldest kid out of bed at 2 a.m. to berate him about the state of his bedroom. She officially kicked him out and a week later we hooked up again. 22 years and two grown-up children later, our fling is going quite well."
8. "I cheated on two of my girlfriends with the same girl. I had problems with both of those girlfriends — they would both have complete emotional shut downs that made it hard to ever share anything with them. I was never allowed to talk about myself or all of the struggles I went through. The girl I cheated with was my best friend who I could go to with those issues. She would let me talk and vent, and I ended up cheating."
9. "When I was in college, I was dating a girl I went to high school with. I really lacked emotional maturity. I started talking to and became interested in a girl on Tumblr who lived on the other side of the world. I should have broken up with my girlfriend about a month into the relationship, when we had a conversation about how we didn't think we'd work out long term, but hindsight is 20/20. Now I'm married to Tumblr girl."
"We met ten years ago, and I gotta say, it has been great. But boy was there a lot of learning for young me to do. Looking back, I feel bad about the people I cheated on, and I have reconciled with them. If I could go back and do it again, I would simply just break up with the person instead of cheating. It would have caused a lot less pain."
10. "I truly had no idea what a healthy or functional relationship looked like. My parents were married for almost 30 years and had already started the cycle of cheating on each other well before I was born. My grandma used to tell me stories of being friends with my grandpa’s girlfriends 'because she just wasn’t toxic and jealous like other women.' In the relationship where I cheated, I was being treated like garbage. I was financially supporting us both even though I was ten years younger and a waitress, and was enduring a lot of abuse from a very broken man. I felt trapped in the same cycle I had watched my mom and my grandma live, and I didn’t really know better."
"A guy at work started paying attention to me, and I loved it. He was sweet and poetic and romantic. He was committed to helping his sister raise his niece, and was out of the house and working instead of drinking my paycheck away and punching holes in my walls. A little harmless work flirting quickly escalated and before I knew it, I was having a whole ass affair.
I started to prepare myself to leave my boyfriend for my affair partner, when I found out that my boyfriend had been cheating on me with anyone he could find on Craigslist. He was even stealing money from me to pay sex workers. Any guilt I felt for cheating evaporated right then. I threw all my clothes in a trash bag and drove to my affair partner's house, ready to start our new life together. He had another girl over and basically admitted that a lot of what he had said to me was because he thought I would never leave my boyfriend.
All in all, it was a mess. If you’re unhappy in your relationship, do the work that will either fix it or get you out. That new person is flawed, too. They won’t fix you or fulfill you, only you can do that."
11. "I wasn't over my ex when she came knocking and I didn't value my new relationship enough. I crossed a line I never will lower myself to cross again. I felt like shit for years after it. It's really not worth it, no matter how you try to justify it to yourself at the time."
12. "I cheated because I was a dickhead who thought sex was the same as affection. There are reasons for that, but I’m not going to make excuses. That being said, I’ve been faithful for 25 years now."
13. "After sex I told her (wife) how great it was. Her reply was 'I've had better.'"
14. "Insecurity, poor self-image, and an inability to put aside morals in exchange for stroking my ego. I was bullied all throughout school, was depressed, and felt angry. So when I started actually getting attention from women after graduating, I went nuts. My ego was exploding. I'd lie about where I was going, delete text messages, have alternate accounts, etc. I thought I was sly — I wasn't. She knew. They always find out. I've changed a lot since then, and thankfully we're still together, but it hasn't been without its trials and tribulations. There are times I see the hurt in her eyes, and I wish I could take it all back, but at the same time, I really don't think I'd be where I'm at as a person today if it weren't for that experience."
"It took a lot for me to realize just what type of person I actually was, and I woke up one morning looking in the mirror, and didn't like the person who was staring back at me. It was like an out-of-body experience where I didn't recognize myself, but I knew I hated what I was looking at.
It's taken a lot of work to repair the relationship. I make sure I tell her every day that I love her, that I'll forever be hers for as long as she'll have me. If she were to tell me tomorrow that she's done, I wouldn't hold it against her. She's my best friend. She's helped me grow as a person, and has been way more patient than she had to be. I wish I could take what I know now, go back in time, and start all over, just so she wouldn't have that hurt and that doubt that I know is eating away in the back of her mind. She doesn't deserve it."
15. "This happened like 20 years ago with an ex. I was a 22-year-old young gay, and he was around 40 I think. The age gap was something that always rubbed me the wrong way — I was constantly doubting the relationship. We even kind of broke up a few times because of it, but we got back together. We'd been dating like four months by this point. One night I was at the club with some friends and I decided that if I was constantly doubting our relationship, it was because it was something that I wasn't okay with. So, I decided to break up with him. He wasn't with me that night, so I decided I would tell him the next day. Since I was already at the club, I thought it wouldn't matter if I met someone new, so I hooked up with one of the club dancers."
"It wasn't until the next day morning that I sobered up and I realized that I didn't want to break up with him, and even worse, that this meant I had just cheated on him. I felt awful, so I called him later that day and told him everything while crying, assuming he'd just break up with me. Instead he told me to meet somewhere public, brought me a gift, and told me he was OK with it. He understood what I was feeling and said it's just one of those things that happen. I was confused by his reaction, but we stayed together for a few months more and until he broke up with me. I ran into him a few times at parties and things were OK. He never stopped being nice to me, which I really appreciated."
16. "Our relationship started off strong. We had a good thing going and I even thought I was gonna marry him someday. Slowly though, it felt like the facade was being pulled back and I could see that he was bitter about every single thing in life, and it was draining. I would ask him to come over and I'd be happy we were just spending time watching together watching TV, but the minute he would get there, he would complain about it being late or that he shouldn’t have come. And then there was all the gaslighting. I felt like I couldn’t even have an opinion without it being wrong in some way or him finding the negative light. Of course around his or my friends it was all picture perfect, but it stopped feeling that way."
"I didn’t intend to cheat. I know it’s wrong but then again it happened and I accept I participated. The first time was a drunk night with a friend after venting our problems. I felt so ashamed when it happened. I swore that would be the only time. Then two months later, I was feeling real low with my boyfriend and didn't want to go out. I was messaging a friend about hanging out, and they happened to be free. There were no plans for sex, but it happened. I was gonna break up with my boyfriend, but we were days away from a big trip that I couldn't back out of due to money. We had a good time together on the trip, so I stayed with him.
The more and more it happened, the easier it became. I started doing it more and more in my free time until the relationship was over. I know what I did was wrong and I accept that, and that whatever emotional abuse I faced doesn’t change or make what I did justified. I’m just glad it ended for both of us so we could heal and be in a better place."
17. "I cheated once, and it was because she cheated on me first. I'd already been cheated on before, so I was like, 'Well, this time I'm getting revenge.' I didn't feel any better. It made me feel almost as shitty as I thought she was. I haven't cheated again since."
"If you're getting cheated on, don't demean yourself by sinking to their level. Just give 'em the boot."
18. "I honestly don't know what got into to me that evening. I'd been heavily drinking and smoking, and it felt like all my emotion regulations were gone. I had a sudden urge to hit on someone else, so I did and we ended up kissing. I regretted it a lot, but I felt most guilty about wanting it to go further."
19. And lastly, "Because I wanted to have sex with someone else — nothing more to it. Not for revenge or disliking my partner. Just simply had the opportunity to fuck someone else and have a different sexual experience."
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.