Recently Reddit user poubella01 asked the men of the community, "What did/do you think of your 'mistress?'"
Welp, these men didn't hold anything back and instead revealed what truly happens when you cheat on your partner. Sometimes, it ends well, and other times, it's just a complete mess.
So, here are some stories of men cheating on their partners, and how everything turned out for them:
Note: Some submissions include topics of domestic abuse. Please proceed with caution.
1. "I messed this woman’s life up. It’s been over a year since I broke things off, and she still talks about me to coworkers. She said she would marry me in a heartbeat, and I said if she’d agree to a prenup, then yes. She refused. I thought she was after me as a 'way out' (she makes $40,000 a year, and I make 10 times that). I randomly ran into her months ago — she had tears in her eyes and hugged me before I could say or do a thing. She told me how much she missed me, and I knew at that moment it wasn’t the money. She loved me…truly and deeply in a way that I couldn’t return (and I’ve been in that position before). I know how much it sucks to have love for someone not being returned."
"I destroyed her by making her think I’d leave my wife (which I honestly had planned on doing). Hell, I had talked to divorce attorneys, but ultimately, I just couldn’t.
I hate myself for it. I hate that I cheated on my wife. I hate that I lost my affair partner as my best friend. I hate that I hurt two people who I supposedly loved.
We fell in love, were extremely compatible, and the sex was the best I’ve ever had. There was a deep connection there unlike anything I’ve had before or since.
My wife found out, and we are working through it. I'm doing better now as a husband and a father. I try to make up for what I did every damn day, even though I know I never will — but I’m not going to stop trying."
2. "Two of my coworkers were involved in an affair. She was single and he was married. From her perspective, they were in love, and she thought he was going to leave his wife and kids for her because she became pregnant. He didn't. He was able to save his marriage, and he started to ignore her at work. He was a manager, and supposedly he and another manager were treating her terribly to the point that she left. They all made her seem 'crazy' and 'obsessive,' and for three years he was all she ever talked about. It's all over, but now she's a single mom and everything is great for him."
3. "She was/is my dream woman. Every single thing about her was exactly what I was looking for. She came into my life as the girlfriend of my friend a few months after I had given up looking for her and settled to have a family. I never said anything to anyone. We got close as friends over the years but never crossed the line in any way. Both couples got married and had kids. 15 years later, both marriages were going down the shitter, and the woman and I supported each other in a 'hang in there, things will get better' type of way. Still, no boundaries crossed...yet."
"And then, one day, things seemed different. Hello and goodbye hugs were closer and longer. She seemed to want to be by me more. She would brush against me occasionally (and as someone who has pretty much been invisible to women my whole life, I didn't really pick up on it). One day at a wedding, she asked me to dance and she just kept looking at me and smiling, so then I asked her about us and if it was something she was interested in. She said yes, so we made plans to have an affair.
It went on for about six years and I was in heaven. We both couldn't quite get a divorce for reasons I can't really say until about five more years. Then one day, after being able to spend a wonderful morning together, one of the happiest days of my life, she decided at some point that day that we were done. She never said anything to me, and we still haven't discussed it over 10 years later.
I just noticed that she didn't seem to want to talk anymore — hellos and goodbyes weren't as emotional. She would look away when I looked at her. Any attempts to schedule times to get together were either ignored or turned down. Eventually, I got the hint.
And it broke me — I had spent 30 years of my life looking for the perfect girl, and then she just ghosted me in the end. I believe I was just a revenge affair to make her feel better about her situation, but once she decided to get a divorce, she didn't need me anymore.
Two years later, she came back to ask for support with her current boyfriend, and then she told me things about that relationship that just crushed my soul. I don't think I could ever be with another woman after that. And now, after supporting her for 30 years, she has ghosted me yet again, knowing how I feel and leaving me to rot, trying to forget everything about her.
I guess you can say I got what I deserved. I never thought I would be a cheater. I have never cheated before or after — I wasn't that type of person. There was just something about this one woman that I had to see through."
4. "I was in a dead bedroom situation where I had been married for 10 years, and at least eight of those years, it was sex maybe once or twice a year. A woman I worked with (seven years younger than me) started to make passes at me. I finally felt sexy again. She knew I was married, but apparently, one of my colleagues told her his wife's 'a bitch.' Within a few weeks of our escalating flirtations, we were having sex. Within four months I'd ask my wife for a divorce because, as my grandmother liked to say, 'Life's too short to be unhappy.' I married her three years after my divorce became final — 12 years and three kids later I'd say I made the right choice."
5. "With many compounding things in my family and work life reaching a boiling point, I became very insecure. So I did what a 'stupid' man does, and downloaded dating apps. Initially, this was done to seek some validation and bring a smile to my life when I needed it. It helped me remind myself that so many people wanted me when it seemed no one else in my life did. Then, that festered into using Tinder profiles to fuel a resurfacing porn addition. I never once met up with any of those girls, but it was a terrible and nasty thing to do to someone I wanted to marry."
"My lady obviously caught me, and it was impossible to explain any of it because it didn’t make sense to me either. At the end of it all, she left me, and since then, I’ve lost 20 pounds, cut my porn usage to about once a week (down from about three times a day), and go to therapy twice a week.
Overall, I would NOT recommend cheating of any type. Just be mature and communicate with your significant other about the problems you are going through."
6. "I'm a guy who identifies as gay, and I was in a love triangle with two women. The whole thing was just me thinking with my dick — I admit my reasoning was unusual and very 'stupid.' See, my current girlfriend is really beautiful and lovely — I decided to be in a straight relationship with her. So, you could say I had FOMO bad because I was just with men before (until I met my current girlfriend). I liked sex with her — it was new, great, different, and fun. I wondered if other women were just as good. I stupidly chose to try out more ‘options’ with different women (thinking with my dick, as I said). Another partner and I met and flirted, exchanged numbers, and agreed to meet. I didn’t feel much guilt at first — just very horny. We started to get to business and then the guilt hit me like a ton of bricks. I thought about my girlfriend at home, and how she wasn’t put off by my past (sometimes women are). She loved me so much."
"I felt so bad being greedy right then — I didn’t want to risk losing my girlfriend with another partner. The worst part of this is I would ruin our son’s life with this shit — I didn’t even think of him.
But I did what I had to do — I got up and left. We didn’t have sex, but we did kiss and feel each other up. But to me, that was bad enough — I felt sick to my stomach on my drive home. I never wanted to see her again — ever.
I knew that I would run into this other partner at work. I explained to my secretary that we would need to have lunch delivered from now on — I was ghosting her. I don’t know how men go through with these things and go home to their families like nothing happened. I felt so guilty and it showed.
The woman I cheated with and me are both garbage humans. I don't think good things of her — I am really okay with only having sex with one woman (my girlfriend) for the rest of my life. No more FOMO. I do not need to lose my family just to play the field."
7. "I cheated and got caught after a three-year affair. I was in a sexless marriage for years and there was no love anymore. Our relationship was cold and robotic. I met a woman who was also married and in a pretty bad situation as well. We started out just talking shit about our spouses, which slowly escalated into hanging out outside of work and eventually hooking up. Our first sexual encounter was easily one of my best, as we were both very attracted to each other and stuck in very horrible situations. We were really into each other and spent a ton of time together. I got caught because her husband found out about the affair and contacted my wife on social media about it. Divorce sucks, but I'm a much happier man now. I never looked down on my 'mistress,' though — she was in a pretty emotionally abusive relationship, and at the end of the day, I was cheating, too."
8. "She was a mess just like me — there were no sensible boundaries. She was MORE than a mess than I was, though, as I wasn’t the first she was cheating with (we’re both married). I think of her with compassion and hope she got herself together and created the life she longed for. She is one of the very few girls I’ve fallen in love with — she was 'the one who got away.' But circumstances would never have allowed us to happen (in a different life, perhaps). Still, there’s no love like the one I’ve built with my wife over many years. It’s two different things. Today, I know the feelings for the woman I cheated with were just limerance."
9. "I had a spiraling marriage that should never have happened. A married (albeit very unhappy) woman from my past emerged at a very sensitive time and we had an affair. Her husband proposed to her when he found out he might die in a brain tumor extraction surgery, but she was never in love with him. She regretted accepting the proposal. I was deeply in love with my wife, but right before the marriage, she turned into a completely different person and things were dead before they even started. I lied to myself saying that this could've led to a happy relationship between this new woman and me. Several things have happened between us that have led me to believe the crushing resentment of how she handled her divorce and how she was the one to come on to me when she knew I was married. It's a lot to bear."
"I’m still in love with this woman and I will always care about her, but everything about this was doomed to begin with. My marriage, her marriage, our post-divorce relationship.
There seems to be a bit of a mutual distrust, and neither of us can possibly say it’s not warranted. We know what we did and we feel terrible."
10. "I have never cheated on any partner I've had, but a friend of mine is doing that. His wife knows about this other woman but doesn't say much (as long he is giving her money for her and the kids, she is willing to look the other way). He is gonna make the 'mistress' his second wife, though, because ironically, he is more pissed off that his wife doesn't seem to care that he has a 'mistress.' So, in his mind, he wants to ruin her happiness by pitting his 'mistress' against his wife by purposely giving her a luxurious life (but just giving the bare minimum to his wife). And why does he want to ruin the happiness of his wife, people ask? She admitted she still loves her first boyfriend."
"Even worse, he is infatuated with his wife's 19-year-old niece who he is sort of sugar daddy-ing. Weirdly, he brings her around to introduce her to us like she is some possession.
I try my best to avoid him — I disagree with his way of life. But as the other guys consider him one of the boys, I just keep a cordial distance from him. I know when his life implodes with all this drama, he will not be the great guy the rest think he is."
11. "She was the greatest person I’d ever met. I had never believed in the whole twin flames or soul mates thing for most of my life, but she changed that. I know people say the grass is greener where you water it, and that is true, but it also takes two to make things work. I had never met anyone in my life who's made me feel the way she made me feel. I wanted to put the work in — I wanted her to feel special, and it came naturally. I did cheat and I don’t condone that — I know it was wrong. After two years of having an affair, I divorced my then-wife. I made sure to leave her in a 'good place' financially, which I know means nothing but I still cared about her even after I realized she was not what I needed in life. This new woman and I had an amazing two years together, and everything just worked so well. It was a night and day difference from my previous marriage."
"She was hit and killed by a drunk driver shortly after our two-year anniversary — I’ve struggled for the last 10 years and have not been in a real relationship since. I feel like some days maybe that’s what I deserved for cheating in the first place, and I have struggled even with therapy since she passed.
Our time was short, but it was the greatest time in my life. She was the most amazing woman I’ve ever known, and I miss her every day."
12. "Not sure if this is considered cheating, but I do think it's mentally cheating. My ex and I were in a rough patch — I was working a lot to get us our own apartment while we stayed with her mother. She got fired from her job and seemed content staying home. She appeared detached from me with her face buried in her phone. There was no sex, and they barely addressed me when I got home. One day, I was riding my bike to work, and I came across this woman walking down the sidewalk. I playfully flirted with her out of boredom, but what surprised me was that she turned around as I passed her and waved me over. I spoke with her briefly. On that day, it was my birthday and I was in a good mood. And oddly enough, it was her birthday, too (she proved it by showing her ID). We exchanged phone numbers and agreed to meet the next day."
"The next day came, and I was off from work. So, while I was en route to her apartment, I stopped at this bridge over the freeway. I saw my girlfriend in the car with her brother on her way home. My heart was jumping through my chest — I quickly threw my hood on and raced across to the next street. While I was at the girl’s apartment, I was waiting for my girlfriend to send a text mentioning she saw me, but it never came.
With a condom burning in my pocket, I was contemplating if I could go through with stepping out on my girlfriend — my first serious girlfriend. Right when we were getting down to it, the girl said that she wasn’t working, and I asked how she supported herself. She said she worked as a sex worker.
And then it hit me. I was seriously contemplating still going through with it, but my pride wouldn’t let me do it. And at the same time, I knew I couldn’t continue the relationship knowing I had parts in infidelity.
So I went home and the whole thing lingered on my mind for a while."
13. "I'm still with the person I cheated with nine years later, and things are great. I was unhappy in the previous relationship and had been for a long time. I lacked healthy communication skills and struggled to express my needs, and on top of that, my needs weren't being met. As soon as I found someone else willing to meet my needs (first sex, but that was a gateway to safety and intimacy), I cheated. I now have a great relationship with my ex-spouse. I regularly go to therapy, take ownership of my poor choices, and have grown a lot."
14. "The other woman wasn't a 'bad' person. Her husband was mean and abusive, and my wife fell out of love with me but 'wouldn't let me go.' I eventually left and I lived with the woman I cheated with between my first wife and second wife. She gave me a son and passed away from liver disease. I would have never married her — we were really toxic together and brought out the worst in each other. She only slept with her ex and me (that I know of) after her marriage."
15. "I was in a poly relationship with my wife and girlfriend when I met another woman. My wife knew about her and was 100% on board, but my girlfriend was not. I take full ownership that I cheated on her — as for this other woman, I loved her immensely. Way more than I should have, tbh. I'm sure many people think they know my thoughts, feelings, and motivations better than I do. But I never had a single negative thought about her — I loved and respected her deeply, and would have wanted to continue our relationship if circumstances allowed."
16. "The reason I fell for them in the first place is they showed me a tenderness and softness I rarely experienced in my own marriage. However, when you’ve built so much with your partner (especially when there are kids and your image to worry about), it’s the hardest freaking thing to leave your family for another woman. It’s just too much to ask. I loved the woman I was cheating with to death, but I couldn’t leave my family for her. A part of me thinks that she’s sometimes 'foolish' to continue entertaining me, but I usually voice my concern for how things seem to be going."
"I tell them how it’s going to go if we keep this up and what’s going to happen if I have to make a choice. And most importantly, if they'd still want to be with me even though I have a whole family I never plan on leaving.
So maybe they are 'foolish,' but they might say they are just trying to 'live' and do what makes them happy as well. In all honesty, I think 'mistresses' get the worst deal out of everyone in the picture."
17. "Not me personally, but my uncle was married to my auntie for over 20 years before it came out that he was having an affair. My auntie was neurotic, he was always working, and neither of them was happy. It was a shitty way to go about it, but he is now remarried to the woman he cheated with and has a kid with her. He's the happiest I've ever seen him in my whole life."
18. And finally, "I met my current wife while still being married and living with my ex-wife. I met my current wife on a Wednesday, and by that Saturday I was out of my ex-wife's place. We didn’t have sex until a month later (I still consider it cheating, as I definitely made out with my now-wife the day we met). The moment I cheated, I knew my old marriage was over, and it gave me the push I needed to get out of an unhappy marriage. Luckily, my ex-wife and me had no kids together. My marriage has lasted longer than my first one, and we have two beautiful kids. I regret not breaking up before cheating — I was too immature, but I’m definitely happier now."
Note: Some submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
If you or someone you know is in immediate danger as a result of domestic violence, call 911. For anonymous, confidential help, you can call the 24/7 National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 (SAFE) or chat with an advocate via the website.