We asked members of the BuzzFeed Community who have cheated or have been cheated on to share their stories. Here are their brutally honest responses:
1. "My husband of 25 years had an affair with his boss, a famous singer who hired him to play guitar in her band. He knew her for three months before he left me and our 9-year-old son. That was last May. He moved out the same day he told me I had made him miserable for years, and that the trauma of my sexual assaults were the reason he went looking elsewhere for a physical relationship. The shame, self-loathing, and gaslighting that followed left me gasping for air, but I still had to wake up every day and be a parent to our child. One day, the woman he left me for reached out to say if I ever felt like 'processing' this with her, she was available. Nine months later, I am READY, and I have a LOT to say."
—Anonymous
2. "I was the cheater. I had been with the same guy for four years and it wasn't going anywhere, but I had a very bad feeling that he wasn't going to let me out of the relationship without a good reason. I had tried many times before to break it off, but he always came back, saying he'd change, and I stupidly took him back and believed him. He never did change, but I had. I wanted out. So, I cheated and told him the next day what I had done. He broke it off, crying and screaming at me that I was a 'whore.' I haven't seen him since."
"I know that he shit-talked me to all of our mutual friends, which caused me to lose pretty much all of those friendships, but it was a small price to pay. I felt like I couldn't get out any other way at the time (I was only 18), and I was too ashamed to admit it to anyone what I was going through. I have since grown up quite a bit, gone to therapy, and am married. Never cheated after that — only that one time."
3. "I found Viagra tablets in my husband's drawer. I was shocked. One packet had been taken already, and one was full. I was running late for work, so thought I’d speak to him when I got back. I got home after work and found that he’d taken two tablets while I was in the office. I asked him about it and he lied to my face three times. The next day I checked his phone, and the day he took those tablets, he had taken an Uber 45 minutes away from the house. He had told me he was working from home all day that day."
—Anonymous
4. "I was in a long-term relationship with my boyfriend and we were living together when I found out we were expecting a baby. The night before my first prenatal appointment, he went out to celebrate with his friends. His phone was off all night and I was super worried. He showed up at the doctor's office on time, but was reeking of alcohol and covered in hickies. I broke up with him right after the appointment."
—Anonymous
5. "After two years of dating my ex, we started having a lot of issues in our relationship. It became really clear to me that we were simply not a good match, but I still felt like maybe we could work things out. My coworker (who was always a great friend to me) became a sort of confidante, giving me advice and talking through some things with me when my ex and I would fight. He'd even grab a drink with me after work when I was upset. Even though it started out totally platonic on both of our ends, I realized after a couple of months that I was developing feelings for him. One night after getting drinks we hooked up, and I ended things with my ex about a week later. The hookup was something that opened my eyes to how little I was invested in making my relationship work. I’m not proud of cheating on my ex, but I don’t think that this sort of thing should be vilified as much as it is."
"Sometimes romantic feelings develop naturally without you seeking out an affair. The heart wants what it wants, regardless of whether our brain thinks it’s appropriate or not. I shouldn’t have hooked up with my coworker while still dating my ex, but even if I hadn’t done that, it wouldn’t have changed the fact that my relationship with my ex needed to end. Four years later, I’m still very much in love with my coworker. We’re a much better match than my ex and I were, and I’m the happiest I’ve ever been. My ex has moved on as well and seems quite happy with his current girlfriend."
—Anonymous
6. "We were together for five years and finally got engaged. During the wedding planning, he started getting all stressed, saying it was too soon, so we called the wedding off. Then, he kept going to 'hang out' with his mom's friend, smoking weed with her, which was fine with me since I don’t smoke. Something was bugging me though, so when he told me he was going to hang out with her and went for a shower first, I opened his phone and saw her say ‘I love you’ and him say ‘I love you too, babe.’ I threw his phone at him in the shower and made him move out that night! I’m so much better off now!"
—Anonymous
7. "I want to cheat so badly. My husband has been lying to me since before we got married — on issues big and small. We have three kids, and he has fought me on setting rules and boundaries with our kids since the beginning. I hate him and I hate my life."
—Anonymous
8. "Five years into our relationship, my boyfriend decided to go on an extended backpacking trip after getting his degree at 25. I stayed home and worked for a few months and we planned to reunite in Paris and spend a month exploring the city. I didn’t find out until I got to Paris that he was in a full-blown relationship with another girl in England (even though we were still facetiming romantically every day), and he would not be joining me in Paris. I spent that month exploring the city alone drinking wine and crying."
9. "My gut told me to google my partner of two years. Once I did, their name and a cheater blog popped as the first hit and had been updated two weeks prior. I clicked the link to find photos of an online conversations between two women arguing over my boyfriend. Their profile photos and full names were on the pictures and I looked them up on Facebook. I didn't confront them, but I confronted him. He just said, 'Why are you googling me?' in hopes of making me the bad guy."
—Anonymous
10. "I struggled to keep control of my borderline personality disorder when I was in my early 20s. My main issue was hypersexuality. I had such a lovely boyfriend at the time, but he was an enabler of my mood shifts. He would give me a lot of wine and couldn't stand up to me when I was acting out. This 51-year-old man came and stayed at the pub I worked in and I found him hot in a George Clooney way, so I slept with him until he had finished his work and left the accommodation. I never told my boyfriend, but I think he must have known. I regret what I did deeply, and after our relationship ended, I took control of my mental health. I'm now in a long-term, healthy relationship, and have two beautiful little girls."
—Anonymous
11. "We were in a long-term relationship (two years) and had lived together for six months. A little after our two-year anniversary, I noticed he began acting a bit more short and snappy, like everything I said irritated him. I asked if he had feelings for someone else, and he swore up and down that he didn’t — he was just stressed. I went out of town for a funeral and missed my flight back. It took him forever to get back to me, which I thought was strange. Fast forward to the holidays when we were supposed to be hosting a Christmas party at our place. He tells me on the night of the party that a girl is coming over who I've never heard of, and we have a blow-up about it and cancel the party an hour before it was supposed to start. The next morning, I woke up to him on bended knee at my bedside with a ring. For some reason, I said yes."
"We did the typical social media postings, and the next day I received pages of text screenshots on my Etsy account from the woman he had been seeing for months, detailing their relationship and telling me that she only knew about me because a random mutual friend of hers saw the post about our engagement on Facebook and sent it to her asking, 'Isn’t this the guy you’ve been dating?'"
12. "My best friend (also married) and I went for a night on the town and ended up hanging out with a male friend of hers and his roommate since he had offered to DD for us. At the end of the night, we went back to their place for drinking games. The sober roommate ended up going to bed and the rest of us piled into bed and had a threesome. We were all pretty drunk and never spoke about it again."
—Anonymous
13. "My boyfriend of two years cheated on me with his friend. I suspected something towards the end, and friends even told me they thought something was up with them because he was always on her Instagram (I don’t have Instagram). So, I confronted him many times, and he denied it. Then, he said he 'needed a break from us.' So, after two weeks of being ignored, he started seeing the girl officially. He never even formally broke up with me. I also found out he DID cheat on on me with the girl towards the end of our relationship. Then, about a week after that, the girl showed up at my work to yell at me for 'sticking my nose into their relationship' and called me crazy. Excuse me, WHAT?! She and my boyfriend were sleeping with each other for two months before we broke up, and that was apparently none of my business?"
14. "I had been living with my girlfriend in NYC for a few months and we had a routine of attending separate gyms each morning and then meeting up for coffee/breakfast on Saturdays. This particular time she left for the gym first, which was unusual. She said she had an early session with her trainer. She left me a list of chores that 'needed' to be done before I left for my gym. I’m hyper-focused, so I finished them quickly and then left for my gym. As I got to the lobby of our six-floor walk up, she was standing outside the front doors kissing the 'gay male neighbor' that she regularly had lunch with. Lunch was always happening because 'he needed advice on being gay' and since she was a lesbian, apparently she was the perfect one to provide advice. I opened the doors and said, 'Looks like a good work out!' and left. I packed my bags and left on the train and never saw her again after almost two years together."
15. "I’ve been in a long-term and long-distance relationship for a long time now and it’s gotten to the point where I realized I ignored so many red flags for years and I don’t feel safe breaking up with him because he’s in a very dark place mentally. I love him with all my heart, but I don’t love him in a romantic way anymore. A few months back, I was at a party and had too many drinks and heavily made out with a friend of mine who I knew was into me. We didn’t sleep together, but we got really close. I eventually left, went back to my place, and cried myself to sleep."
16. "I dated my ex for almost five years — all throughout college and about six months after. It was a pretty small college community, and I always heard rumblings of him cheating, but it was always unfounded. I'd ask him or friends about it, and he would always gaslight me and call me 'crazy.' I stayed with him because it was the only consistent thing I felt during that time. After we broke up, I moved away and came back to visit our home town for Christmas. We shared the same group of friends, and I went out with all of them for drinks one night. One of them told me that they couldn't believe how strong I was to stay with him after everything he'd done, and several nodded along with him. I was dumbfounded and confused."
"My friends went on to reveal that he had cheated on me multiple times with multiple women, especially after leaving the bar before coming home to meet me before I turned 21, and also when I went to Washington, DC for an internship. They later told me that once our friends found out, he told them to not bring it up to me because we were 'working it out in therapy' and 'it was a sore subject for me,' although I never knew a single thing. He was saving face in order to placate me and keep our friends. To this day, I'm not sure the amount of times that he cheated or how I never fully suspected it, but after hearing all the stories, I knew he had. Specifically, one year on spring break, I had too much to drink and went to take a nap. Later, I found out that a girl who had given me red flags from the beginning had invited him to her room and they had a little fun. His current girlfriend was also at lunch with me after I found all of this out. Hope he has changed!"
—Anonymous
17. "I was in an abusive marriage for 20 years. It started right out of high school, and although lots of people tried to help me, I was in denial. I prayed constantly for god to 'heal my marriage,' but things just kept getting worse. He’d brainwashed me to believe I was useless and couldn’t take care of myself, and that I was only good for sex. I ended up falling in love with someone else. I was so messed up in the head; I thought there was no way out. I wanted to know, for once in my life, what it would be like to make love without fear, so I cheated. The experience opened my eyes to what two people could share, and I found the strength to break free from that bad marriage. It was very hard because I had to learn how to see myself as having value beyond what I look like — which matters even more as we age. Still working on it, but now my body belongs to me."
"My life belongs to me. It’s very hard for people in abusive relationships to see things as they are, but it’s so worth it to try to help them. If you see something, say something. It might take years to get through to someone, but each time someone speaks up, the volume gets louder, and the victim will start to hear you. In my case, I’m sure god wasn’t hoping for adultery, but by making me fall in love with someone else, he opened my eyes. Life is too short to let people treat you like garbage. Marriage also does not mean that the other person owns you and can do whatever they want to you."
18. "I was with my boyfriend for almost five years before I had actual proof of him cheating on me. We were long distance for the first few years, and then he moved from California to New York for me. I had some suspicions along the way, but nothing too striking. We had talked about getting married all the time, so one day when he suddenly became against it, I knew something was up. I never looked through his phone, but one night I had a strange feeling, so I looked through it while he was asleep. I found texts going back months to this girl I sort of knew, talking about 'ravaging' their bodies and making plans to meet up. He denied everything and said it was only emotional and never physical."
"After we broke up, a friend of mine found this girl’s Instagram (she had blocked me), and there were pictures of her with my ex from over a year prior. He had a completely double life and I had no idea, since we talked pretty much 24/7 and saw each other two to three times a week. They’re now married, and I often wonder how they can live with themselves, and if they’ll even last."
—Anonymous
19. "My husband had a mental breakdown six years ago. After years of therapy, with me supporting him and taking care of the kids, the house, and our relationship, he was treating me like a caretaker, and not a wife. He constantly criticized my appearance, my cooking, even my parenting. When a cute, younger male coworker started flirting with me, I flirted back, mostly by text. One time he took a vacation day, and jokingly invited me over. I took him up on it, and we had a fling for about a month. My husband never knew. I filed for divorce a year later."
—Anonymous
20. "I knew this guy from back in high school. We ended up living in the same town together and became good friends. I had a crush on him, but he wasn't interested in me that way. We lost touch for a while, but reconnected over Skype work calls when we had the same employer. He was just about to get married. Suddenly, he became really flirty. Our conversations gradually turned sexual. We ended up having sex a couple months after he got married and continued off-and-on for a couple years. It worked for me because it was safe for me and I wasn't going to get hurt because I knew he loved his wife. The guilt ate away at me though. I used to be the one married to someone who had a secret life — I got divorced when my husband came out of the closet."
"At one point, I created a fake Facebook account and messaged his wife. He was able to explain his way out of it, and after a break, we continued to see each other. I wasn't strong enough to turn him down. Eventually, he told me his wife was pregnant. I wanted to end it there, but he wanted to keep hooking up until the baby came. I felt like such a horrible person for having sex with him that day. I was afraid that he would find a way to convince me we could keep things up even after the baby came. But, he ended up giving me oral herpes genitally. He was always very passionate about going down on me and must have had a cold sore brewing. I ended it then and there. I still think about telling his wife, even though it's been over for a couple of years now."
—Anonymous
21. "We were together 17 years, married for nine, and had three kids together. We went on holiday and he spent hours locked in the bathroom with his phone. I accused him of cheating, and he told me I was 'paranoid and psycho' and he didn’t want to be with me anymore. We got home and he moved out. A couple of days later a phone bill arrived, and he’d spent £300 calling the same number while we were away! That’s when he finally admitted that he was having an affair with a woman he’d met on Facebook!"
22. "During my freshman year of college, I started dating a guy I met at a party. I hated my dorm roommate, so I moved in with him after knowing him for a week. As it turns out, he was a compulsive liar and a disgusting human, but I had gotten really close with his roommate and wanted to keep hanging out with the roommate, so I didn’t break up with him. So, for a few months, I was hooking up with his roommate every day while my boyfriend was at work. We went on dates, spent every day together, the whole nine yards. One time, I was giving the roommate a blow job when my boyfriend came home from work early. He never saw, but he did give me a kiss! Eventually, I broke up with my boyfriend and stayed with his roommate. I even continued living with them (cringe). I dated the roommate for two years. Surprise, surprise, he ended up being a garbage person as well. College is a wild time!"
—Anonymous
23. "We'd been dating for a year and he said he had to go out of town to help his sick nana (and I knew for a fact she was sick). We didn't talk much while he was away, and he said it was because he didn't have good service at her house. I was hanging out with mutual friends, including some of his family, and the vibe was off. Finally, his brother sat me down and told me it was their mom who was taking care of their nana and that my boyfriend had been spending the week with his ex who was in town. I immediately went to his place and grabbed all of my things. I'm glad it happened though because he was seriously abusive and I was too afraid to leave him before that."
24. "I just had a gut feeling. We’d been together nine years, and I ended up finding him on 10+ dating apps/websites, under 7+ different names. He tried to say it wasn’t him as I looked at a picture of his face wearing a shirt my mom bought him for Christmas. He thought I was gullible. Not gullible enough, buddy."
25. "We were together for seven years, lived together for five, and were engaged. He moved across the country with me and our two dogs for my dream job in NYC. Meanwhile, he was having an affair with a girl back home in the midwest. They would meet halfway under the guise of his 'late hours' at work. He lied about 'work conferences' and FLEW HER OUT and stayed with her in a hotel mere miles from our apartment. He couldn't afford bills because he was paying for HERS — all unbeknownst to me because I was working 10-12 hours a day and coming home to take care of all the chores, the cooking, the dogs, etc."
"I spent any extra energy I had trying to help him deal with his progressing anxiety and depression issues. I gave up the opportunity to go home to visit my dying grandfather so he could visit his friends and family (and also, as it turns out, HER). Upon his return, he confessed he had been having an affair and he was heartbroken because SHE had just dumped HIM. He actually had the balls to come to me to comfort his broken heart. Needless to say, he moved out quickly thereafter (though before he moved out, he had the audacity to ask me not to start dating anyone until he was gone...LOL). At the end of the day, it wasn't the cheating that hurt the most — it was the betrayal. Someone I trusted so much didn't trust me enough to simply say, 'Hey, I'm unhappy and I want out.'"
—Anonymous
26. "I was doing long distance with my now-husband and our relationship was struggling. I felt like I was putting in 150% and he was barely putting 50% — financially, emotionally, you name it. Out of the blue, an old flame contacted me and I started receiving the attention that I craved. As the story goes, one thing led to another and I was unfaithful. This went on for a few months, then I came clean to my partner. We made a commitment to be better and he forgave me (like the angel he is). Over two years later and we are married, own a house, and have three dogs. I still think about what I did and it makes me feel sick and ashamed. I honestly wish that I could have been better. I know my cheating made us stronger, but I really hate what I did and I have a hard time forgiving myself."
—Anonymous
27. "I'd been with my husband for four years. He was military, so we married young. He got home from a deployment and was acting all levels of sketchy. Eventually, he kicked me out. I was floored, but agreed to move out to keep whatever level of peace was left. Two months later, I went to get the rest of my stuff while he was out of town. The house was a DISASTER. I'm talking five-foot weeds, cockroaches in the closets, dirty litter box (even though he gave the cat up for adoption right after I left) — just disgusting. I went into the bedroom, and amongst the trash was all of 'her' things, including dirty underwear. Literally five pairs just strung around. I then found an empty box of condoms, which must not have worked because then I found the empty pregnancy test box. Oh, then I found the abortion paperwork."
"At this point, I already knew we were divorcing, so I didn't really care. I sent him a message about how rude it was for him to leave the house like that knowing I was coming by. He ignored all of that and tried to explain away the pregnancy tests (which I didn't even mention), saying that his lesbian friend got knocked up and she was staying with him. Sure, buddy. Months later, I asked for my card at a bar (I have a very distinct last name) and a woman heard it. She asks if I was so-and-so's ex wife. She then told me the whole story. He cheated on deployment with an officer's wife (also military, but enlisted) and got her pregnant. He then had to get rid of me to move her in. It was a whole thing on their ship. I'm so happy I never had his kids. I gave him four years, but I still dodged a major bullet."
28. Finally: "During the first year of COVID, and not long after mandatory lockdowns began, I was working from home (that we shared together) and our HVAC repair man pushed our sectional back against the wall, exposing an iPad I’d never seen. Luckily, it was unlocked. Unfortunately, I spent the next three hours sitting and reading in complete shock. There were graphic pictures and conversations with over 20 women (one of whom my boyfriend and I had both gone to college with) lasting the entire duration of our relationship. I told him to come home, but not before taking as many screenshots as I needed to protect myself. I refused to be gaslit by a man so comfortable with manipulation and lying."
"To this day, I have those screenshots to remind me of how far I’ve come (leaving that relationship) and I recommend any woman in a similar situation do the same. A narcissist will destroy the evidence and act like you misunderstood or are making things up. GET THOSE RECEIPTS to protect your sanity. While starting over is beyond hard, it’s worth it!"
If you've been impacted by cheating or have a story of your own, you're welcome to share in the comments below.
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.