No one ever expects their partner to be unfaithful, but it happens—and surprisingly often. According to a new YouGov survey, more than half (53%) of Americans say they were cheated on.
To better understand these situations, Reddit user BlushyBunnyBop asked people to share their worst stories about infidelity, whether they had experienced the heartbreak themselves or witnessed someone else.
The responses were raw, shocking, and sometimes even darkly humorous. Here are the ones that stood out the most.
#21
We were 2 years into a relationship and up until this point she was madly in love with me, called me a trillion times a day, always wanted to be with me, etc.
It was around the time she was helping her sister plan the sister's wedding. Her calls became less frequent per day. When I called her she usually wasn't available and I just assumed it was because of the wedding. Our dates became less frequent as well and I naively believed again it was because of the wedding.
About 1-2 months later I get a call from her other sister during work and it caught me by surprise. She told me she had something to tell me and somehow I just instantly knew what it was about. "My sister's been cheating on you."
It was with her soon-to-be married sister's fiancé's brother. They had all been going out at night because of the circumstances around the wedding. My ex found it fun and found his existence to be some kind of "sign from God." Like a movie/fairytale.
She continued to lie to me about it for weeks even though I already knew the truth. Her sister eventually forced her to "break up" with me and even during that moment, during that conversation, she didn't have the decency to tell me she was with someone else. I feigned a smile saying I always knew we weren't going to end up together and let her be on her way.
After our official break up, I still wanted her and kept trying to convince her to break up with him and come back to me. She continued to either deny the relationship; that she cheated; or would tell me that they stopped talking. This period of time gave me immense grief and I could physically feel that sinking feeling in my body every day & every night. This all accumulated to an intense pain in my abdomen that caused me to not be able to sleep at night until I was too exhausted to stay awake.
I begged her to stay or at least visit me over the Christmas holidays. She promised me that she would and then told me she had to be with her family last minute. I found out she actually took that time to take a solo flight to go see the other guy for the entire holiday.
I was in and out of the hospital for the pain for a while. My mom, not knowing that we broke up, called her to tell her I was in the hospital. She was upset but never came to visit even once. When it was time for surgery (my gallbladder was infected), guess who showed up to see me? Not her. Not once. Her sister did though.
My ex and her new boyfriend only lasted about a year. Turns out he was physically and emotionally abusing her. And neither of them was smart enough to know how to save money so they were both broke as well.
It was around the time she was helping her sister plan the sister's wedding. Her calls became less frequent per day. When I called her she usually wasn't available and I just assumed it was because of the wedding. Our dates became less frequent as well and I naively believed again it was because of the wedding.
About 1-2 months later I get a call from her other sister during work and it caught me by surprise. She told me she had something to tell me and somehow I just instantly knew what it was about. "My sister's been cheating on you."
It was with her soon-to-be married sister's fiancé's brother. They had all been going out at night because of the circumstances around the wedding. My ex found it fun and found his existence to be some kind of "sign from God." Like a movie/fairytale.
She continued to lie to me about it for weeks even though I already knew the truth. Her sister eventually forced her to "break up" with me and even during that moment, during that conversation, she didn't have the decency to tell me she was with someone else. I feigned a smile saying I always knew we weren't going to end up together and let her be on her way.
After our official break up, I still wanted her and kept trying to convince her to break up with him and come back to me. She continued to either deny the relationship; that she cheated; or would tell me that they stopped talking. This period of time gave me immense grief and I could physically feel that sinking feeling in my body every day & every night. This all accumulated to an intense pain in my abdomen that caused me to not be able to sleep at night until I was too exhausted to stay awake.
I begged her to stay or at least visit me over the Christmas holidays. She promised me that she would and then told me she had to be with her family last minute. I found out she actually took that time to take a solo flight to go see the other guy for the entire holiday.
I was in and out of the hospital for the pain for a while. My mom, not knowing that we broke up, called her to tell her I was in the hospital. She was upset but never came to visit even once. When it was time for surgery (my gallbladder was infected), guess who showed up to see me? Not her. Not once. Her sister did though.
My ex and her new boyfriend only lasted about a year. Turns out he was physically and emotionally abusing her. And neither of them was smart enough to know how to save money so they were both broke as well.
19points
#22
2013. I started dating this girl who was from a small town. She stayed over at my place or me at her place 3-4 nights a week. I came up with some reason why I was gonna stay at my place alone and left. I went to the bar and ran into this chick from HS. Things escalated and I took her home and had s*x with her. Next morning dropped her off at her car. She fell out of my truck and broke her ankle. 2 nights later me and my gf went to a friends house party. That girl was there and knew my gf from friends of friends and they got to talking about her ankle. Let’s just say I got caught in a bad way in front of everyone. I am fully aware I am wrong and am a piece of s**t. I am a faithful married man now.
18points
#23
After we got back together, because we broke up due to my insecurities of her cheating, her and her sister went out to the club on her 21st bday. I didn’t go and was fine with this for a few reasons.
1 - we were only dating again for a couple of months
2 - it was just her and her sister, her, her friends and I were gonna go clubbing the next day.
Anyways, we go out to eat with her family prior to that. We have a good time and I go home and don’t think about it.
Randomly around midnight, my heart just sinks and I just start getting really panicky. I start freaking out and for some reason get this deep intense feeling I’m being cheated on. On some stalker s**t, I googled how to check recent followers on IG and saw she in fact followed 3 men that night. My heart sank and it felt like all of my suspicions and insecurities were just true.
So I decide to sleep and in the morning go to work out to clear my mind. Ultimately, I text her and tell her I’d like to see her and ask her to come over. She does and we go sit down and I just flat out say “I don’t have romantic feelings for you” because I wanted to keep it blunt and quick. She freaks out and we argue, eventually I drop the fact she followed 3 guys and I know about it and that she did something.
Immediately starts calling me insecure, weird for stalking follower count, stuff like that. I agreed and immediately regret everything I did and said because just like our last relationship, I’m letting insecurities get in the way. So once I start to apologize and back track, I get called a piece of s**t and that I’m not a real man of God (we both are saved by Christ) because I wouldn’t be accusing her of doing such a thing, she’s a woman of God / been cheated on before.
She leaves and I text her I’m sorry and ask her to come back. A few hours later she says she doesn’t want it to be over but needs the weekend, where she went up her to her grandparents (which I knew about prior).
When she comes over, my initial plan was for things to be completely over then and there because it was clearly just a toxic relationship. After enough screaming at me, where I gave no response to it, she breaks down crying and starts saying stuff like I never loved her obviously because I’m not fighting for her, stuff like that. This literally k****d me to hear and I fell back in. We do work things out eventually but I just have an itch that I couldn’t scratch and kept that moment in mind and waited until I could get confirmation.
One night, I get into a bad accident and go to the hospital, and we plan for her to stay with me for the weekend as I could barely move. Well, we were just laying on my couch talking and cuddling when she eventually fell asleep. This was my perfect opportune as I had recently learned her phone passcode and I go through the phone and go straight to her birthday.
Sure enough, I see some texts. I won’t go too much into detail but ya I found out did in fact cheat. Beyond that, she invited him out after we broke up. Beyond that, she invited him out not even 2 hours after coming back to my house and making up with me. Beyond that, she was actively chasing him while he was turning down the invites. She actually tries to talk and hang out for more than a week after we get back together.
At this point, I needed to see more. I search my name into the bar and scroll through. Holy s**t. I don’t understand to this day why she ever started to talk to me again. One of last texts I saw before I couldn’t keep my composure was sent during our first break up, something along the lines of “I’m gonna go break his(my) heart I’m not mad about it haha feel a lil bad though” and her friend saying something along the lines of “he wants to be with you so bad but he doesn’t even deserve to breath the same air”.
This was after I wrote her a letter telling her how sorry I was for my “insecurities” and letting them get in the way of something good, and that I will do everything to better myself. Basically a letter saying I wanna get back together.
I got hit with pretty much every cheating trope/stereotype there is.
1 - we were only dating again for a couple of months
2 - it was just her and her sister, her, her friends and I were gonna go clubbing the next day.
Anyways, we go out to eat with her family prior to that. We have a good time and I go home and don’t think about it.
Randomly around midnight, my heart just sinks and I just start getting really panicky. I start freaking out and for some reason get this deep intense feeling I’m being cheated on. On some stalker s**t, I googled how to check recent followers on IG and saw she in fact followed 3 men that night. My heart sank and it felt like all of my suspicions and insecurities were just true.
So I decide to sleep and in the morning go to work out to clear my mind. Ultimately, I text her and tell her I’d like to see her and ask her to come over. She does and we go sit down and I just flat out say “I don’t have romantic feelings for you” because I wanted to keep it blunt and quick. She freaks out and we argue, eventually I drop the fact she followed 3 guys and I know about it and that she did something.
Immediately starts calling me insecure, weird for stalking follower count, stuff like that. I agreed and immediately regret everything I did and said because just like our last relationship, I’m letting insecurities get in the way. So once I start to apologize and back track, I get called a piece of s**t and that I’m not a real man of God (we both are saved by Christ) because I wouldn’t be accusing her of doing such a thing, she’s a woman of God / been cheated on before.
She leaves and I text her I’m sorry and ask her to come back. A few hours later she says she doesn’t want it to be over but needs the weekend, where she went up her to her grandparents (which I knew about prior).
When she comes over, my initial plan was for things to be completely over then and there because it was clearly just a toxic relationship. After enough screaming at me, where I gave no response to it, she breaks down crying and starts saying stuff like I never loved her obviously because I’m not fighting for her, stuff like that. This literally k****d me to hear and I fell back in. We do work things out eventually but I just have an itch that I couldn’t scratch and kept that moment in mind and waited until I could get confirmation.
One night, I get into a bad accident and go to the hospital, and we plan for her to stay with me for the weekend as I could barely move. Well, we were just laying on my couch talking and cuddling when she eventually fell asleep. This was my perfect opportune as I had recently learned her phone passcode and I go through the phone and go straight to her birthday.
Sure enough, I see some texts. I won’t go too much into detail but ya I found out did in fact cheat. Beyond that, she invited him out after we broke up. Beyond that, she invited him out not even 2 hours after coming back to my house and making up with me. Beyond that, she was actively chasing him while he was turning down the invites. She actually tries to talk and hang out for more than a week after we get back together.
At this point, I needed to see more. I search my name into the bar and scroll through. Holy s**t. I don’t understand to this day why she ever started to talk to me again. One of last texts I saw before I couldn’t keep my composure was sent during our first break up, something along the lines of “I’m gonna go break his(my) heart I’m not mad about it haha feel a lil bad though” and her friend saying something along the lines of “he wants to be with you so bad but he doesn’t even deserve to breath the same air”.
This was after I wrote her a letter telling her how sorry I was for my “insecurities” and letting them get in the way of something good, and that I will do everything to better myself. Basically a letter saying I wanna get back together.
I got hit with pretty much every cheating trope/stereotype there is.
17points
#24
I know two separate stories.
#1. Someone I know was I a long-term relationship (h**h school sweetheart) then f****d his dad, got caught, they broke up, but she's back with the sweetheart and now they all have family dinner like nothing happened.
#2. Girl dated twin 1 and cheated with twin 2 and got pregnant and switched teams. Also has kids with twin 1.
#1. Someone I know was I a long-term relationship (h**h school sweetheart) then f****d his dad, got caught, they broke up, but she's back with the sweetheart and now they all have family dinner like nothing happened.
#2. Girl dated twin 1 and cheated with twin 2 and got pregnant and switched teams. Also has kids with twin 1.
16points
#25
My girlfriend at the time cheated on me THEN dumped me on my prom night. She also danced the last dance (which she said was one of our songs) with the guy.
15points
#26
Caught my old boyfriend on Craigslist with an ad for "getting double d**ked down DL masc4masc with femboy". I was very naive and madly in love at the time that I accepted his excuse. "I just only get off on REAL p**n." Followed by him, leaving periodically at super late hours to go meet a "long-time old gay friend" who had a major crush on him. He would never admit to it fully, but all the signs were there. He even threatened to break up weekly because he felt like "everything was rushed" and "I want to explore." I asked him point blank. "You just want to f**k around?" And it was a "well, yeah. ".
14points
#27
Caught my ex texting someone saved in their phone as pizza hut. Thought they were just really into takeout… turns out, they were just really into someone else.
12points
#28
We were at a friend's relative's funeral. Turns out both of his girlfriends came to show support. It was a big occasion, hundreds of people there. The deceased was beloved in the community.
Anyways, he asked our friend group keep his girlfriends away from him and from meeting each other. There were so many people there that it wasn't too difficult.
Anyways, he asked our friend group keep his girlfriends away from him and from meeting each other. There were so many people there that it wasn't too difficult.
11points
#29
It was our wedding day he left for a few hours to take my niece home. He came back talked on his phone the entire time didn’t do anything with me. I watched the nun in a super expensive location while eating crackers. Went a head a took an ambien and just hung out.That should have been my first sign this marriage wasn’t going to work! But no I ignored it. He acted a fool one day screaming being his narcissist self. I had enough and went to my moms I got an alert on the camera and he was grabbing this b**ches a*s. Needless to say I filed for divorce the next day we were married 6 months.
7points
