It goes without saying that cheating always sucks. And it adds insult to injury when you're married and actually catch your spouse cheating on you.
We've asked married people of BuzzFeed Community to share how they discovered their spouse was cheating on them, and they did not hesitate:
1. "Our nanny had asked if I had any extra phone she could use because hers had broken, and she needed one for a couple of months until she could buy a new one. My husband had just upgraded his, so we had his old phone lying around. I went to factory reset it and found unread messages on an app called Viber. He was messaging about how he'd never forget the time 'they' had spent together and how he wanted to be 'naughty' again. He also went on about how we don't have sex (lol, sure) and sent pics of his ugly legs and feet soaking in an ice bath. Anyway, he denied it, of course, but sadly, that wasn't the first incident."
2. "We'd been married almost 20 years. My now-ex was at a local park taking pictures at a Renaissance Faire. On a whim, I decided to surprise him there and see if he wanted to go out for dinner. Knowing he had a favorite parking spot, I located his car and parked next to it. I thought it was odd that his windows were rolled halfway down and had towels covering them. Out of curiosity, I approached his car — only to discover him naked in the back of his SUV with his arms wrapped around a woman. Big surprise, she was also naked."
3. "My ex said that she was sick and picking up meds from her parents' place. She also asked me to get her some comfort food. I guess she was trying to buy time because I was leaving work, and she wanted an excuse in case I beat her home. However, the apartment she was cheating on me in was across from the grocery store next to where I worked. When I was packing the car with her gelato, I saw her car. I knew who the dude was and had semi-suspected it. I knew where he lived, knocked on the door, and asked him to give these groceries to her."
4. "My ex had been out of town for a week to 'help his sick nana.' I was really close with his extended family, so we continued to hang out while he was gone. Turns out, Nana really was sick. However, he wasn't with her. He was actually just running around with his ex-girlfriend. His family felt awful that he was such a dick and told me everything."
"It's almost 15 years later, and I still consider them to be some of my best friends. Meanwhile, he's off doing Lord knows what." —deartoxichoney
5. "After over a year and a half together and deciding not to take a great job opportunity that would have involved moving away, I found my boyfriend's phone unlocked. He never leaves his phone unlocked, so this was a rare chance for me to snoop. I was hoping and expecting to find good things and maybe talks of a proposal. Instead, I found texts, pictures, and videos of him having sex with multiple men. After memorizing his ridiculously long, complicated password, I continued taking his phone over the next few months and took pictures of everything. I found his Grindr and had one of my friends catfish him. My breaking point was finding out that he was trying to get guys to come over to our shared apartment when I was at work."
6. "After struggling to conceive for a year, I finally got pregnant. At the beginning of my second trimester, I tested positive for syphilis. My husband found a prostitute and got syphilis from her. Fetuses that get syphilis and are untreated have a 50% chance of being stillborn. Three painful shots in my rear later, I had been treated, and my son was born healthy."
7. "One night, the space heater in our room shorted the power. I went to unplug it before I went to the breaker box when I noticed his cell phone lighting up with incoming text messages from a woman. They were selfie after selfie, all racy, and her messages were 'baby, this' and 'baby, that.' I sat in a chair with his phone, watching him sleep. Finally, I woke him up. He got mad I snooped on his phone, which I had NEVER done before. I demanded the truth, so he opened his phone and showed me a picture of a baby girl. He said, 'This is my daughter. That is the truth.' She was 15 months old."
8. "My husband found out he had terminal cancer so he confessed to me one night. I stayed because he was terminal."
—Tina, Facebook
9. "He asked me to set up his new phone. As I was setting it up, an unsaved number texted him, 'I love you,' and 'I miss you.' It was my friend's number. He then told me that 'he can't control what people text him.'"
10. "I walked into my boss' office, and my husband's picture was on her computer. She saw my face and said, 'Oh, sorry! My friend met this guy on POF, and she's debating meeting him.'"
11. "The other woman told me about my husband cheating. She then begged me to not tell my teenage daughter, who met her as a toddler — when he started cheating. She claimed she was a product of a broken home, too."
"So if you endured this, you’re okay with doing it to another family? And my husband (not for long) is a whole other (huge) bag of dicks..." —doza75
12. "My ex used his Apple account to set up my son’s iPad. I was in the kitchen cleaning one evening, and my son — who was two — was sitting on the floor playing on the iPad. He was watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse when he clicked out and said, 'Mama, look!' As a parent busy with chores, we don’t often look, and I said, 'Wow, buddy, that’s cool,' while still loading the dishwasher. He walked over to me, pulled my pants, and said, 'Mama, daddy!'"
13. "I had been feeling really uncomfortable and in pain *down there* for weeks. I ended up going to the doctor, who suspected I was having an ectopic pregnancy. I was told to rush to the hospital to be checked out but no pregnancy. A week later, I got a call telling me I had chlamydia. Given my apparent shock, the nurse said I 'probably needed to have a chat with my husband.'"
14. "My daughter asked me if I had a boyfriend because daddy had a girlfriend."
—Ann, Facebook
15. "My three-year-old daughter caught her dad cheating by pressing the record button on our answering machine. She recorded his conversation with the other woman. You should have seen his face when I played it back for him."
16. "I got a phone call from my best friend when she found a phone under her car seat. I didn't think much of it since she drives for Uber. She turned it on to see if she could locate the owner, and it was my husband's 'lost' phone. Turns out, he'd been hooking up with prostitutes across the country — he was a cross country trucker — for the last 1.5 years. I was 14 weeks pregnant at the time and ended up hospitalized with complications."
17. "My ex-husband is epileptic. After he had a seizure one night, he was out of it and pretty disoriented. Before falling back asleep next to me — after I took care of him, gave him his meds, and wiped the drool from his face — he grabbed his phone, tapped something out, and then threw it directly behind him. The phone landed face-up in my lap, showing a text to his mistress that said, 'I'm in love with you.'"
"Our divorce is final next week." —jessicahwright
18. "I once found a woman's t-shirt in our bedroom that wasn't mine. My ex tried to convince me that it was my shirt and that I must have just forgotten. Such gaslighting! I confronted him, He, of course, denied it. Everything finally came to an end when his phone rang early on a Sunday morning. He was still sleeping, so I answered. It was his girlfriend of six months! She was shocked to learn we had been together for six years and were living together."
19. "My then three-year-old daughter told me about the other women, but he convinced me that she had gotten it wrong. We had another daughter, and, about a week after she was born, I got loads of messages from one of the other women. She showed me texts sent between them and pictures of them together. Stupidly, I stayed with him."
"Exactly one year later, I kicked him out to go live with the latest one. Turns out, he only took my youngest daughter around this one because she was too young to tell me about it." —Eleanor, Facebook
20. "He sold my laptop to his brother without asking me first. He knew I was thinking about getting a new one, so he thought it would be fine. I calmed down when he gave me the money for it. The next morning, I opened his laptop to start looking for a new one. He had left his email open and, right in front of me, on his laptop was a picture of some naked lady asking when they were going to meet again. This was the early 2000s, hence the email and not a text. I confronted him, and he tried to pass it off as spam. I read through the entire email chain and, obviously, they had met and were hooking up."
21. "I went to Houston for a job interview. When I called home, my then-husband was really distracted due to a party he was having. Anyway, two days later, I got home. I was spending time with my four-year-old stepson. As I was holding him and telling him how much I loved him, he casually says, 'Like Jenna?'"
"I said, 'Who is Jenna?' My little stepson proceeded to tell me how daddy has this friend Jenna, who spent the night and told him and his older brother — who was six at the time — that she loved them so much and looked forward to being their mommy.
We got home, I called my father-in-law told him I was leaving, filing for divorce, and the reasoning behind it all. Never saw the kids that I loved again or the asshole! Changed my name back." —samantham4162a72e5
22. "My ex always showered. For 18 years, he showered. Suddenly, he started taking baths. He'd call his girlfriend and sext her in the bath. We lived in a very small house, so I could hear every word. I think my kids heard, too. I was too scared to ask. We’d be on a date — I was trying to save our marriage — and he’d leave to talk to his girlfriend of the moment. Even though I’m over him, I will never forget the shame of that time in my life."
23. "I found out my wife was cheating in a very difficult way. One day, I was cooking and my seven-year-old daughter answered the phone. It was a guy who told her, 'Go tell your daddy that your mommy is having an affair with me.' My daughter immediately started crying hard because she thought I would leave and never see her again."
24. "I found my ex cheating in our house. He was having a threesome with girls he'd met at his adult fat camp. I blacked out I was so angry. Somehow, I managed to take pictures of everything. I got a hefty settlement for less than three years of marriage."
"I got pictures of her license plate, hired a private investigator, and spoke to her husband. He cheated in North Carolina, where she could be sued for alien of affection." —jenniferjanvier
25. "I got an Instagram DM from a guy that I didn’t know telling me. He was my partner’s mistresses’ husband. He also let me know he figured I was away for the weekend since his wife was at my apartment screwing my partner."
26. "I found out because he was being too nice to me. We had gotten into a huge fight the night before I left to visit family. We talked a little while I was gone but no long conversations. When I got back, he was very doting and sweet — which was not normal. We had a rocky relationship, and the fight we had was about one of his 'friends' that I just didn't like. Long story short, he took her to a show instead of me because he thought I didn't want to go, but I told him I did."
27. "My ex — who was born in Korea and adopted and brought to the US as an infant — had started the process of finding her birth parents. She told me she was 'struggling' with it and needed some space to 'think.' I told her I'd stay with my parents and give her time alone. In that month, she told all of her friends, family, and new girlfriend that we'd broken up and I'd moved out. I continued to text her like she was my girlfriend, and she would show them my texts to prove how 'crazy' I was. When I finally went home, I found women's clothes and asked her if she'd been cheating. She denied it, and I knew she was lying, so I looked through her phone while she was showering. I saw what she'd been telling people. She also told them I was physically abusive. Then, she told me she deserved better than me because I was poor and left the next day."
"She even tried to convince my mom that I was physically abusive. I took everything except for large furniture and her clothing. I actually destroyed our brand new leather couch before leaving. I left her with the rent, and she tried to sue me to make me bring back the stuff I took and pay half the rent. The judge said no.
She is the epitome of narcissism. I used to hate her for what she did, but I'm glad she did it because I never would have left her. She broke me so that I had to build myself into the person I am today. I'm stronger now. I'm successful, and I'm in a very happy and healthy relationship." —Janie, Facebook
28. "My ex was in a bad car accident. His car was pushed into a concrete median and totaled. He was lucky to be alive and came home in an Uber. As he was explaining what happened, he started showing me pictures of the car — one of which was a picture of a female torso with a seatbelt burn."
29. "I checked our phone bill and constantly kept seeing the same number that I didn’t recognize. The phone conversations were sometimes as long as three hours, so I called and she confessed that she was the other woman."
30. "My ex-husband — immediately after we got married — asked for his best friend to move in with us. I said fine, he's a cool guy. Then, he wanted to bang him and begged me to be in an open relationship so we could have a threesome. I was hesitant but wanted to be supportive of him and his interests. Turns out, the friend was NOT into that but was into me — so he requested that he and I continue to do things. My ex-husband shrugged and said he didn't care as he was seeing other men already. I had no idea he had been using Grindr."
"Fast forward to the following year, I told him I wanted to focus on our marriage and wanted the open thing to end. He threatened me with divorce. So I said fuck it and kept seeing his friend, who made me very happy when we were together.
All three of us ended up moving states, and it turns out, my ex-husband had been sleeping with someone who was HIV positive without telling me. He also kept gaslighting me and completely tearing me down for anything I did.
I ended up demanding a divorce, and he told of his friends and family I cheated on him. He swiped 20 grand out of our joint bank account and left, then at the divorce hearing tried to get me back. Since then, I've been blissfully married to his now ex-best friend for two years, and we have two children. It's been hard for us to come to terms with the way he treated us, but we've helped each other through it. I still don't believe I cheated since he forced me into it." —kittenaerobics
31. "I was eight months pregnant with my second baby when I found out my husband was cheating on me with some girl we met at his niece's funeral. She was posting pictures and quotes about how 'the pandemic brought me someone special' along with things that gave me the inkling that 'someone' was him. They both made my last month of pregnancy hell — messaging me the things they were doing and making fun of me. He completely ghosted our kids financially and physically. It’s been nine months, and she’s days away from giving birth to his baby."
32. "He kept borrowing my car while I was in class or at work. One day, he didn’t pick me up. He said he had a family emergency in Atlanta. Turns out, he was down there staying with an ex-girlfriend and hooked up with another ex during those three days. In my NEW car. Literally had sex in the backseat. And bragged to the girls it was his car."
33. "I caught my dad cheating when I was 17 and came home early unexpectedly from a school function. He and another woman — who would later become my step mother — were in my parents' bedroom. They must have heard me come up the stairs because, suddenly, his bedroom door flung open, she pushed past me, and RAN to the front door while putting on her shirt and pants, her bra and underwear in hand. My dad came running out with boxers on and said, 'YOU SAW NOTHING!' Then he ran after his lover. I obviously followed as she ran up the driveway, down the street with my dad behind her yelling to 'come back, maybe this is a good thing!' (Again, he was only wearing boxers and barefoot.) She sped away, and I looked at my dad and said, 'You know I'm gonna tell Mom.' He tried to bribe me, but I obviously told her later that night."
"They had been married almost 30 years at that point, and that woman was in her home in her bed... The disrespect! BTW, the other woman was also married." —stacyg
34. "A few days after I married my first husband, he had accidentally left his email open. I started snooping and found hundreds of emails between him and another woman that he claimed was only his 'best friend.' I saw an email he sent to her the night before our wedding that said, 'I wish I was marrying you instead.' There were tons of emails trash-talking me to this woman."
35. "I found texts on my husband’s phone. The other woman was not only our young daughter’s babysitter but our roommate as well. 'Let her move in to save on child care costs.' 🙃 They both just walked around the house — day in and day out — messing around while I was at work and our daughter slept in the next room over."
"Heartless." —marisam4de6132ef
36. "I was six months pregnant, and we'd been together almost seven years. He cheated on me with a teenaged coworker with the same name as me. I saw the messages pop up on my Apple CarPlay in car while he ran into the store."
37. "My ex — who I'd been with for 24 years — insisted he wasn’t cheating when he asked for a divorce. I suspected for quite some time because I kept finding things like strange hair clips and clothes. I checked his voice messages, and there were several nasty messages from a 'supposed friend' that were clearly not 'friend-like.' She left her husband for my ex, too. After that, people came out of the woodwork to tell me about all the women he slept with. His coworkers didn’t even know he was married. He had worked there for 12 years by that time!"
"I’m grateful for my hubby now who is amazing to me."