We asked members of the BuzzFeed Community who've discovered they were the "other person" in relationships to share their story. Here's what our readers revealed:
1. "When my husband and I separated, I briefly dated a coworker who also said he had been 'separated' for a while. To me, that meant living separately and moving toward divorce. To him, that meant not getting along with his wife. I found out when I went to his house for the first time and saw their family pictures and her stuff all over the house. Things ended VERY soon after that."
—Anonymous
2. "This has happened to me a few times. Once, I had been seeing a guy (who I had mutual friends with) for a few months when, one night, he was dropping me off and decided to confess by reaching into the backseat and lifting some things up to reveal a baby car seat. He told me he had a wife and a kid, but it was an arranged marriage (he was from Saudi Arabia). Another time, I got suspicious of a guy I'd been on several dates with, and by working backwards from his telephone number, I discovered his wedding website. Not only was he lying about his relationship status, he had also given me a fake name. Another time, I was seeing a guy who was in the military, and he accidentally left his necklace at my place, which had a dog tag that made reference to his wife."
—Anonymous
3. "When I was 22 and fresh out of a traumatic divorce, I started dating this cop. He was always helping his 'baby mama' do this and that, and I was like, 'Cool, he’s responsible.' Then, one day out of the blue, he confessed that his baby mama was actually his wife. I tried to break it off with him, but he wouldn’t let me. I ended up having to move states to get away from him. Throughout the entire ordeal, my only thought was, 'How dare a cheater have abandonment issues!'"
4. "I dated a guy for a few months, and we spent a lot of time together. One time, we had a picnic date, and he brought his toddler son along. He said he and his wife still lived under the same roof but lived separate lives, and that they wanted to divorce by the end of the year. I stupidly believed him, as I was young at the time. One weekend, I was grocery shopping and saw him, his heavily pregnant wife, and their toddler putting their groceries into their car in the carpark. He didn't see me, but I sat in the car and cried for hours. The hardest part was the fact that I had to work with him. I stayed in the job for a few more weeks before I handed in my notice. I just couldn't look at him after that."
—Anonymous
5. "I work at a wine tasting room in southern California, and on one of my slow days, my friends stopped by, and we ended up sitting on the porch and hanging out. At some point, I noticed this really cute guy and made eyes at him. He noticed me and came over with his group of friends. We were all having a good time, and then as I got up to cash people out, he followed me in and asked about my plans afterwards. We exchanged numbers, and he asked if I had a boyfriend, to which I replied no. I asked if he had a girlfriend, and he said no. Later, I met him and his friends at a club, and were having a great time. Conversation seemed to be going way better than I expected for what I deemed was just going to be a hookup. We decide to separate ourselves from the group and head outside. I suggested we go to my place, and he said sure. As we walked to my car, he pulled me into an alleyway, and we started making out and getting hot and heavy."
"I said we should head out and continue this privately, and he said he would like that, but 'someone might get hurt.' At this point, I was confused. He then started to give me super deep, genuine compliments, such as 'you're so amazing and intelligent,' 'theres so much more to you than what meets the eye,' and he told me that I should 'never settle,' and that any guy would be lucky to have me. It threw me off completely because I'd only known him for, like, five hours.
Later the next day, I called my best friend who had been there at my work the night before, and she remembered the guy. She asked for his number, and we used it to get a background on him. We found a Facebook post from, like, four or five years ago announcing his ENGAGEMENT! This man was married, and on top of that, he also had a kid. I was so disgusted and livid. A part of me still wants to tell his wife, but a part of me also doesn't know what to do since he's part of the Army, and the idea of retaliation worries me."
—Anonymous
6. "I dated a guy who said he was divorced. Turns out he wasn't. I gave his now-ex-wife ALL our IMs and texts. The documentation of his lies cost him an additional $600k in their divorce. He ended up marrying what he told me was the 'ideal trophy wife.' He liked to reach out to share how his life was 'so great,' even though I had 'tried to bankrupt him.' The so-called trophy wife was a pretty woman with a severe alcohol addiction, a toxic family, and a fun spending habit. They retired to Hawaii, then she left him to return to her family on the mainland, and she took a sizable chunk of his money with her."
7. "Back when Facebook was the main social media platform, I had been dating my boyfriend 'exclusively' for, like, a year. He had two phones — 🚨 red flag alert 🚨. One night, I was tired and didn't really want to drive to a party, and I told him that before I arrived for us to meet up. Well, I ended up driving him because he and his friends were already partying. At the end of the night, I was annoyed, so I just went home. I saw his phone fall between the seat and center console, but said nothing so he could panic about it later. He didn’t even notice the phone was missing. I went home with no intention of looking through it, but something told me to plug it in and look."
"I tried logging in to Facebook, but it was logged out, and I thought it was weird that his password had been changed, so I reset it using his email. He was literally asking so many girls to go get drinks and hang out. I did my research. Turns out he cheated on me with a girl who drove a motorcycle. It was safe to say I wasn’t his type. Talk about embarrassing."
—Anonymous
8. "During university, I got into a sort of friends-with-benefits relationship with a guy that ended up leading to an actual relationship. We were living together for a couple of months before he told me that I had to go stay with a friend for a while because his fiancé from the US was coming to visit. I was completely thrown because I had NO idea he even had a fiancé in the US, and it turns out he didn't tell me because he thought that since it was long-distance, he could have two separate relationships and not tell either person. But, then the fiancé made the arrangements, and suddenly, he had to look like he was living alone. I ended up taking all my stuff and spending the next four months sleeping on a friend's couch while saving up for my own place, and I basically never talked to him again."
"He also told his fiancé that I was an obsessive stalker so that if I ever tried to tell him about us, he wouldn't believe me. I never tried, but our mutual friends overheard him saying it."
9. "Years ago, my first love reached out to me via Facebook wanting to see me. We went out for breakfast, and all those feelings came back. We talked about giving it another go. So, we did for several months and got together when we could (since he worked out of town). On July 17th (I remember the date because my cousin had gotten married that day, and I told him I wished he had been able to go with me) of that year, he was texting me telling me how happy I made him and that we were meant to be together forever. Fast-forward to two weeks later, and I see he posted on Facebook about how he had met his soulmate. It was not me. Apparently, they had been dating since June. I texted him and said, 'Congrats on your newfound happiness.' He just said thank you. After that, he would still text me and send me funny TikToks. I still care for him, which really sucks, but everything happens for a reason."
10. "We dated for several months while he was in town half the week, every week, for business. Whenever he would leave to go home, I would tell him to tell his wife hi. Of course, he always got really defensive with this. Sure enough, I got pregnant with his baby, only to find out he was married with three kids at home!"
—Anonymous
11. "I personally don’t feel like I was the other person, but I guess I’ll let the commenters decide. Before I got with my husband, I was dating a guy in my late-20s. I was openly gay with my friends and family, and he was not. We were living in southern China. He was half Korean/Chinese, and I’m a white American male. This will be important later because of the cultural difference. We were dating for almost two years. His job was in real estate, which had him traveling a lot, but 90% of the time, he was in our shared town. We were coming up on our two-year anniversary when he went away for the Chinese New Year. We lived in the south of China, and he would travel up north to see his mom and her family. He was gone for a month, and when he returned, we spent every moment together."
"He was acting more romantic than he had all the years before. I thought maybe he had some kind of epiphany and wanted to take our relationship to the next level. I asked him if he wanted to move away with me to America and start a life there, and he said that he could never leave China. I asked why, and he avoided giving an answer. After relentless nagging, he confessed to me that while he was visiting his family, his mother introduced him to her friend's daughter. Because he didn’t have the guts to say no, he married this girl after only two weeks of knowing her. After two years together, this man went away for a month, got married, and returned to me like nothing happened.
His excuse was 'This is China' and that he had to follow his mother because she was traditional. Mind you, his mother and father were divorced. His father is Korean and lives in New York with his new wife, and his mother had a plethora of boyfriends during our two-year relationship. He wanted to continue what we had because 'I don’t love her. It is just my duty,' but I refused. When I got with my now-husband three years later, I asked him on our first date: 'Will you ever end your relationship with a guy to fulfill your duty of marrying a woman?' and he said, 'Hell no.' Needless to say, I chose right and have had the greatest adventure of my life with him for over 10 years now."
—Anonymous
12. "I met someone at work. He was brought in as a consultant. We went out for about six months and were perfectly matched in many ways, leading me to believe we had a future. He had his own apartment, phone, etc. No ring. He would go out of town a couple of long weekends a month. This didn't raise an alarm for me, as he traveled for work. Our company was small and very informal. One day, I was sitting in the conference room when a secretary brought in the mail. On top was a card with a woman's name on the return address. Lo and behold, the last name was the same as his, and she had put hearts on the card. I sat in the meeting stunned. I then asked my boss if he was married, and she said yes. She could see I was stunned, and she said he told her that he had told me. Well, he hadn't."
"Everyone at the corporate office but me seemed to know he was married. So, after a very painful confrontation, that was the end of that. Still hurts when I think about it."
—Anonymous
13. "I went to a bar with some friends and a date. My date ended up crushing on my friend, so I went outside for air. I met another random guy at the bar, and I ended up seeing this guy casually for six months. I met his flatmates, friends, sports teammates, and partied in town with him and his friends. He was slightly too casual, but I was trying to be cool, so I ignored it. One night at his house, he fell asleep in bed. I nearly dozed off when his phone lit up from a text, screen facing up. I was startled, so naturally, I looked at the offending noise and light, only to see his background was a photo of him holding another woman. I immediately got dressed and left while he remained asleep."
"The next evening, he turned up at my house after I blocked him and had been ignoring him all day. I confronted him about the phone background, and he told me the photo was of his girlfriend of two years, and I was his sidepiece! Not to mention the fact that nobody in his life who I'd met even bothered to tell me about this. I ended things then and there to avoid any more drama. That woman got pregnant, and they had three or four kids under the age of 5, then they split up, which is when he tried to reappear in my life for the sequel. Big no."
—Anonymous
14. "He kept going on trips out of state to visit 'friends.' I found the friend's Tumblr, which had pictures of them together looking a little too friendly. The next time I saw him after his trip, I kept finding strands of her hair on his clothes. That's all I needed to make myself get out of that situation. I always wondered if she knew about me."
—Anonymous
15. "I started seeing a guy I met on a dating site who I really hit it off with. We had been seeing each other for maybe six weeks when someone with his last name popped up on Facebook as someone I may know. We had been talking about his siblings, so I assumed it was his sister. I opened it up and saw a woman in a wedding dress standing with the man I was dating. It was their wedding photo from just a few years earlier. When I confronted him about it, he simply told me, 'Oh, I thought you knew.' No...you failed to mention that you were MARRIED! Needless to say, I ended it."
16. "I worked behind the mall and took public transportation, often walking through the mall to get to work. There was this guy who was often on my bus, and we struck up a conversation, which led to us seeing each other. Eventually, I found out he had a girlfriend (he wore this hat with her name on it). Being young and stupid, I continued seeing him, with most of our dates taking place during the day at his house. On Valentine's Day, he asked me to go on a real date, and when I expressed shock and surprise that he wanted to be seen in public together, he got mad and hung up the phone. Later that night, I was at a party when his name came up. It turns out he never broke up with the girlfriend, and the girl I was talking to gave me the girlfriend’s name and town she lived in. She wasn’t hard to find, and I realized he had the nerve to call me from her house, which he referred to as 'his other house.'"
"I had planned on ending things with him, and when I called his house, his stepmother answered the phone and was exceptionally rude to me. Side note: I called his girlfriend at 6:00 a.m. before she went to school and told her he was cheating on her with me and SEVERAL other girls. I hung up the phone, satisfied, and never heard from him again. A year later, I ended up working with the girlfriend, and they were still together. She had no clue it was me who called, and still has no clue to this day."
—Anonymous
17. "I started a new job and got to be friends really quickly with a coworker. After about a month, he started getting more and more flirty, which I was receptive to. One day, another coworker pulled me aside and let me know he was married. The wife worked at the restaurant next door to our office, and I actually knew her. I thought maybe I had been blowing things out of proportion in my head, so I didn't confront him. I just started keeping things on a purely professional level. He eventually asked me if he'd done something wrong, and I told him I knew he was married, and I felt uncomfortable being anything more than coworkers. He gave me this long story about her being a serial cheater, an alcoholic, and emotionally abusive, but despite that, he never tried to take things further with me because he was, in fact, married. It sounded exactly like something a guy trying to cheat on his unsuspecting wife would say, and I didn't believe him."
"That is...until I met his son. His kid was 16 and had started working at the restaurant with his mom/the wife. It's an even longer story, but over the course of a few months, I found out everything the guy told me was true and even worse. He was staying with her not 'for the kids' in the classic sense, but because he worried about them being alone with her. We got to be friends again (nothing more), and after another few months, I got a call from him at 2:00 a.m. They'd had a huge fight, and he ended up telling her he was in love with me. It was chaos for a while, but they did divorce. She lives in another state now, and we've been together for six years. Oh, and his two younger kids live with us full-time."
—Anonymous
18. "I told a girl I worked with that I finally put my foot down and told a guy I had been seeing off-and-on that I wasn't interested in his f*ckboy behavior anymore, and she asked more about him. He had a physical trait that was pretty unique, and she specifically asked me, 'Is there anything about him that is just...not like other guys?' I told her, 'Oh yeah, he's missing X part,' and she told me, 'Yeah, my friend moved in with him about two months ago.' So, not only was he cheating, but the reason he started coming to visit me more instead of having me come to his place was because he moved a chick into his place while I was out of town celebrating my 21st birthday with friends."
19. "Apparently, they weren’t physically together, but technically, they weren’t broken up either when my husband (then-boyfriend) and I started dating. She’d call almost daily, and once I started answering the phone, she’d say 'wrong number' or hang up. Then, she’d three-way, using his cousin to call. But, I knew what was up. She was sending messages on Facebook, so I confronted him, and he told me the truth. I told him, 'I don’t share men, so either you're with me or you're with her.' He chose me. 😉 She still tries to reach out every blue moon, but he no longer responds, and the cousin hasn’t called in years."
—Anonymous
20. Finally: "In June 2021, I ended up in the ER due to severe abdominal pain and vomiting up blood. I hit it off with the male nurse taking care of me throughout the night while I was waiting to be taken for emergency surgery to remove my gallbladder. We specifically connected after he saw my penguin tattoo, and he told me about swimming with penguins in South Africa. He was being pretty flirty throughout our conversation, and so I very subtly found ways to ask if he was married or in a relationship, to which he replied he was single. He had mentioned he was new in town, and I was born and raised here, so I offered to show him around and gave him my number. We texted a couple of times, nothing inappropriate, but never actually got together. Fast-forward a couple of months, and I receive a text from a number I don’t recognize asking who I was and why was I texting her boyfriend. I asked who her boyfriend was, and she said the nurse's name."
"I explained that I had been one of his patients, and we exchanged numbers, but that I had asked if he was in a relationship before exchanging numbers, and he had told me he was single. I told her that we had only texted a few times, and other than the fact that he lied about being single, our texts were very innocent and only discussed places to go to in our town and music. I assured her that I blocked him, and sent her a screenshot of my blocked list. Then, I told her that I understood what she was going through because my ex used to do crap like this all the time, so if she ever needed someone to talk to that had been through the same thing, she could always reach out to me. I acknowledged that that may be kind of a weird thing for me to offer, which she agreed it was weird, so I told her that if she ever changed her mind, it was a standing offer.
A few weeks later, I get a text from her, apologizing for being 'rude and confrontational.' I told her that she was in no way rude or confrontational, and that she should be proud of herself for confronting the woman she thought her man was having an affair with. I asked her what made her change her mind about talking to me, and she confided that she had no family in our state. She had moved here with the cheater, and after putting some thought into it, she thought it was really kind and classy of me to even offer to talk to her and show her support after she confronted me. I told her that women needed to show support and kindness to one another in situations like that. We ended up becoming really good friends, and she even recommended me for an open position at her work. She ended up staying together with the guy up until about two months ago after she caught him talking to more women, and then she finally left him."
People can be so cruel and deceptive!!! Have you ever found out you were someone's sidepiece? Tell us your story in the comments.
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.