It really should go without saying that cheating is pretty high up there on the "things you shouldn't do to your spouse" list. But unfortunately, not everyone gets that memo or cares.
So, we recently asked married people of the BuzzFeed Community to tell us about how they learned their spouse was cheating on them, and they did not hold back:
1. "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.'"
"He was lying about his age, his job, his education, me, everything. Luckily, I was already at the breaking point, so I just kind of laughed and told her who he actually was. It was slightly awkward, but my boss' ex-husband was also a cheating piece of shit, so at least she was someone who I didn’t need to feel embarrassed in front of. She got what it was like." —thelategreatnobody
2. "I got off work early and decided to take myself to the movies. He showed up at the same movie with the other woman."
3. "I was shopping on my ex’s computer when a Facebook message popped up. The curiosity got to me, and I found multiple messages of him expressing his love and regret of marrying me to his high school girlfriend who he considered his 'best friend.' Plus, messages between him and other women."
"Some went as far back as the beginning of our relationship. Text messages, Instagram messages... I began getting texts from other women he knew telling me about things he sent to them or asked for via Snapchat and how he talked bad about me to them.
I tried to make it work, but he continued to talk to his 'best friend' even though I explained to him why I wasn’t comfortable with it. He just didn’t care. He told me I shouldn’t make him choose between me and her. So I made the choice for him." —mads2222
4. "The first time, I opened AIM on our shared computer. His account was logged into and some girl was messaging him, arranging to meet. I was pregnant with our second child, so I stayed."
"The second time, I went to put a romantic Christmas card in his overnight bag (he was going away for work) and found a box of condoms. I had had a birth control implant put in after our daughter was born, so we didn’t need them." —carleenh
5. "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."
6. "I was eight months pregnant with my first baby at the time. We had moved earlier that year across the country where I knew no one. I was feeling frisky and propositioned my husband one evening, but he recoiled at my touch, and something about it seemed very off."
"I had a bad feeling and looked at his phone that night — something I'd never done or even suspected before. I found thousands of messages clearly showing a relationship with a girl ten years younger than me that dated back to the past three months. He saw me with his phone and pushed me down the stairs to get it back from me." —emelianta
7. "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."
"The wreck happened at 6 a.m. He was supposed to be headed to work. After I saw that and asked WTF was going on, he told me everything. Without the accident, there is no telling how long it would have gone on."
8. "I went away for the weekend to visit family. I came home to find long brown hairs in the shower."
"I'm blond." —miss_tee
9. "I got married young. He was active military, so we spent weekends together. During the week, I went to college in a different city, and he went to his base. During finals, I got this weird MySpace message — yes, that long ago — from a girl I'd never met with a link that said, 'I think you should see this.'"
"I click the link, and it's my husband but with a different profile, different name, and different location. Plus, he's 'single' but on the page leaving 'I love you' messages to some other chick.
Come to find out, the random girl who sent me the message was friends with the girl that my husband was dating. She did some snooping and found his real page with me on it. Luckily, one of my professors said my grade was high enough that I didn't need to take my final — because I don't think I had my shit together mentally to do the exam. Lessons were learned." —laurennzanutto
10. "He told me with no explanation that he wanted a divorce, and that's a multi-month process. We were still working on the divorce part when I found out that his son had just been born."
"It wasn't exactly hard to do the math and figure out the reason that he wanted a divorce had been because he got the woman he was cheating on me with pregnant.
I knew things weren't great, but apparently, while I'd thought we were working on it, he was busy sleeping with someone else. Then, once she got pregnant, it stopped mattering if he kept 'working on it' with me." —toritc198
11. "My ex-husband had been in another state for a few weeks for work. Instead of coming home for Easter weekend, he said he wanted to save money and was going to see his (male) friend who lived nearby. That Saturday, I see he’s been tagged at a restaurant on Facebook with his ex-girlfriend."
"He really didn’t even try to hide it or deny it after. He just said that I deserved better. Well, he was right about that part."
12. "We used to work in the same company. I resigned when we decided to get married because there was a 'no married couples' rule. Three years later, while he was sleeping, his phone going off with messages from work — but he was exhausted and didn't hear them. So I looked at it to decide if it was an emergency. It wasn't, but I saw another message from a female colleague. Something in me told me to click it so I did — and holy shit the messages."
"I couldn't believe what I was reading! I trusted him 100% before this and never once doubted him. I took screenshots, sent them to myself, and deleted the ones on his phone. I woke him up and asked him if he was cheating on me. First, he told me no. Then, when I said I know about the other girl and the messages, he confessed.
Then he said he was sorry and blah blah blah. I left and didn't come home that night. I didn't speak to him for three days before he confessed to his mom about what he had done. My mother-in-law called me crying, saying she just found out about it.
He told me there was nothing physical about it, just messages, so I decided to forgive him. It was the hardest thing I've ever done, and we just celebrated our seven-year anniversary last December." —tajleo
13. "I handled the money and paid our bills. One of his credit cards didn’t come in, so I went looking for the paper bill. It was nowhere to be found, so I checked the account online. I noticed a $1,000-purchase for gym equipment. Um, where was this $1,000-dollar gym equipment? 'Cause it was NOT at our house."
"Well, I dug around some more. It had been delivered to our hairdresser. I still remember his mother defending him, saying he would never cheat on me, 'You guys have been married for 15 years.' I said, 'In 15 years, he has NEVER bought me a gift for a thousand bucks. Has he ever spent a thousand bucks on you, mom? I rest my case!'" —prozac_4all
14. "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."
15. "My ex dumped me at my parents' doorstep one week before our first wedding anniversary — with not much more than an 'I’m sorry, I don’t want to be married anymore.' It was totally out of the blue, I had no idea anything was wrong. A few days after our anniversary, just over a week later, he moved a coworker in."
"They’d been seeing each other for well over a year, from before we got married. He never admitted it to me, and — despite me asking how long they’d been seeing each other behind my back — he always denied it.
This all happened in the late '90s, I found out for sure about five years ago when I ran into a mutual friend who happened to be another coworker of his. She spilled it all. Even though I’m happily married to the most wonderful guy in the universe, I was SO mad. Like, come on, guy. You can’t hurt me anymore, just admit it. I feel like I would’ve got closure faster I’d he’d have just told me the truth." —alih26
16. "I knew something was off when my ex started spending a lot of time at his coworker's house. Then I got really suspicious when I started seeing scratch marks on his back — he told me they were from working out. We ended up breaking up, but we had to live together until I could find a place for myself and my dog. A couple of weeks after the breakup, I got a Facebook message request."
"It was from a girl that he had been seeing for months while we were together. She had no idea about me or that we had been together for two years. I immediately confronted him. He tried to deny it, but she sent me the receipts. He ended up with no girl and an empty apartment because everything in it was mine! Now, I’m happier than I could ever imagine with the most perfect man!" —mckennaboston
17. "My ex just stopped coming home one night and refused to answer his phone. This went on for days while I was frantic. When I finally hear from him, he tells me he already decided we broke up days prior — all without telling me first — and that's why he didn't come home or answer me. He also says he wanted to be with some girl he just met because they were 'in love,' and she already had a kid which was what he wanted. And I couldn't give him that 'cause I wasn't ready."
"Fast forward a few months later, I find out they lasted about that long. A few years after, he got a girl pregnant, and he's been arrested more than once for refusing to pay child support." —pullhandlesupnotout