Falling in love is risk most people are willing to take, because when with the right partner, it is most the beautiful and rewarding experience a person can have. Unfortunately, there's a lot of people who take their partners for granted and decide to cheat on them – breaking their heart and tarnishing their trust in the process. These Redditors shared what happened when they were cheated on by their partners and the heartbreaking aftermath that came with it. Content has been edited for clarity.
Apparently They Had Already “Broken Up”
“My girlfriend and I were long distance, and she had a habit of going quiet sometimes. She’d been texting me for the last few weeks, but had made excuses not to come visit. I was used to this. She used to go quiet for periods of a few weeks, throughout our six-year relationship. She’d then perk up again. Her mum was bipolar, and so I assume that she was dealing with depression during these times. The other thing she did though, was convince me that my worries were paranoia. She used to tell me that I was paranoid a lot and that I had a problem. So I used to make a special effort to trust her, even if her behavior seemed odd or suspicious. I was in my teens when this relationship started and I didn’t know any better.
Anyway, I went to a party that my friend had organized. I met a friend of his who told me he had a new girlfriend. I was surprised he hadn’t mentioned her, so I asked who she was. This lady introduced me to my girlfriend. She’d told everyone that we broke up, and had been dating my friend for about a month. She didn’t bother to tell me.
Years later, when I was in a new relationship and I’d still think ‘she’s been quiet the last few days, I wonder if she’s cheating on me.'”
He Tried To Warn Him
“Not only did my ex-fiancée tell her co-workers that she was single, she would ask me to come visit her at work, take her out for lunch, then when she was asked about why her ‘ex’ was around, she’d lie and say that I was stalking her and wouldn’t leave her alone. We LIVED TOGETHER.
That was when I remembered that ‘her ex wouldn’t stop stalking her’ when we first started dating.
That was a sickening epiphany to realize that she lied at the beginning and made me ‘the other man.’ I had thought the worst of this dude, and he didn’t have any more of an idea than I did about what was going on. When he and I had a tense face off, he just said, ‘One day, she’s going to do this to you.’ I thought he was talking smack, but it turns out, he was looking out for me more than anyone. THEN to find out the woman I loved and lived with was framing me up as a crazed abusive partner…ugh I was sick to my stomach for weeks after that betrayal.
Everything was so messed up that to this day I don’t know whether she was telling the truth or lying about being diagnosed with a pathological lying problem. She could’ve just been saying that to deflect blame.”
Move On To Better Things
“Things had been a little shaky as I was working a lot and felt sapped when she wanted to go be social with friends, so I often stayed home.
I wanted to do something nice for her for Valentine’s Day, so I sent her friend a text asking if there was something that she may have mentioned she would like to do. As I was waiting on that text, I was in another room and I saw her phone buzz with her friend’s name. The number was below the name and since I had just sent her a text I knew they didn’t match.
There are very few times my blood has been that cold and feelings of dread.
I called the number with my phone and it rang and rang before going to voicemail. Needless to say, it was the other guy.
I confronted her about it, and she said she was waiting to leave and had a bag packed in case I found out. She had no intentions of trying to work things out, so a month later she had moved out.
I made a decision then that I could be broken up and miserable or that I could choose to be happy and be open to a relationship if it was available. I’ve since remarried and have two beautiful boys with my amazing wife.
Regardless of the shiftiness and horror of breakup stories, there is always the opportunity to be happy. Be the person that you can be proud of and move on to better things.”
Such An Epic Response
“My ex was having computer problems and wanted to go on Facebook on my phone. No problem, but I made her use Safari so I wouldn’t have to log out of the app. A couple days later, I was closing tabs on my phone and her Facebook was still open. Well, I saw her that she was chatting with her ex, John. Turns out they banged in our bed and were going to go out on a date soon.
In the messages, he asked her to ‘to wear something nice.’ I’m not the jealous type, so I left it. A couple days went by and she wanted to fool around. We started kissing and getting hot and heavy. Then, I whispered in her ear, ‘don’t forget John wants you to wear something nice on your date Saturday.’
The look of horror in her eyes was magical.
I put my shirt on and started walking out as she was crying and saying she was sorry.”
Breaking News: Cheating Husband Exposed
“During the early 2000s, my friend’s husband was deployed to Iraq. Together, they had a 10-year-old son and a happy marriage. One day, while he was deployed, I am at home when another one of our friends calls and screams, ‘Oh my God, turn on the news right now!’
I turn it on to watch a human interest story about a fundraiser at a high school 30 miles away. They’re doing Relay for Life or something, and as a ‘surprise’ to one of the participants, they had her ‘husband’ and father of her two grade school children do a video call from Iraq, and displayed it on the football jumbotron.
There on our local news is my friend’s husband, telling another woman and two kids how he loves them and can’t wait to get back home to them. The news eats it up, about what a great guy he is. That night, our group of friends convened and decided how we would tell her. I was nominated, so the next day I had to sit her down and tell her what we saw. She called the news station, and they were happy to let her come in and watch the story. They were also incredibly apologetic.
The story has a somewhat bad ending, I’m afraid. She called him out on his lies and they started divorce proceedings. He went on to legally marry the mother of his other kids and mostly ignored his son from the first marriage.”
She Was REALLY Close With Her Cousin
“My dad told me this story a few years back.
So…some of my mom’s family were visiting from out of town, and they had planned a night at the bingo, which my dad couldn’t attend because he was working from 6 pm to 2 am.
He finished work early, and on his way home, saw my babysitter on the street. My dad asked, You are not with my son?’
The babysitter replied, ‘Your wife called me at around 8 pm saying she wasn’t feeling well and that she would stay home.’
My dad drove home and tried the front door. It was locked and there were no lights on. He entered the house through the basement door and went up the stairs. That’s when he heard them a few feet away. My mom. And her cousin.
Two years later, he almost left her (with me in tow), but stayed so that I could have a normal life. Most of the time, I wish he’d left because he wouldn’t have worked 90 to 100 hours a week to avoid being home and could’ve been happier.
My mom had a longtime affair with her cousin, starting before she met my dad. She wasn’t happy either I think, but my dad was a good catch. Yes, I’m sure he is my dad (we look so much the same), yes they are still together, and after a year of being angry, I decided to let go, because their relationship has nothing to do with me. I’m just sad for both of them.”
She Was Bad News
“My college girlfriend and I lived together for a year when I realized she would always have her phone on silent or just plain ignore calls from ‘Jennifer.’
One day, I wrote down the number and called it a week later. It ended up being her other boyfriend who she had never broken up with before she came to college. Neither of us knew about each other, and she had being visiting him when she went home to see her parents on some weekends and breaks.
We broke up soon after and her mom said that sometimes you just have to accept things and how I owed her an apology for breaking up with her. But it gets worse.
She was a ‘dancer,’ who I found out banged a client and some frat dude and cheated on me a week before my birthday after I had bought us tickets for a cruise. She had a weird relationship with her female best friend who I found out she was sleeping with also, even though she called me crazy for even suggesting that something was up. She invited me over to talk a day after she got her own place and found a rubber in the bed.
Later, I found out she got with her neighbor the first day she was there. She also borrowed a ridiculous amount of money that she never paid back. She ended up reaching out to me years later when she moved to Texas after her new guy beat her and got her evicted from her office. A friend of hers had said she could get weed from her cousin, so she started chilling with some fake thugs out here. She called me at 4 am because they had gotten pulled over and the guys didn’t have licenses, but they did have illicit substances with them. She said she had to shove the cargo up her snatch and wanted me to come get her. I said call a cab.
A week later, she told me her grandpa wanted to see me (he lived close and remembered as the ‘boyfriend’) so I go by and she’s obviously messed up on pills but no one notices. She said the guys she had gotten pulled over with were giving her free pills because they ‘felt sorry for her.’ I told her that was not how that works and nothing was for free and to stop hanging out with them. Of course, she said she knew what she was doing.
A few days later, I got another phone call with her screaming crying begging me to come get her at some budget motel. Apparently, she kept hanging out with the dudes and they knocked her out and took turns with her and then left her. She said she passed out and woke up in the buff. I freaked out and said call the cops but she just wanted me to smoke her out and take her to her car. I told her I didn’t have any and I’d just take her to either her house or car. She freaked out and started screaming at the top of her lungs punching my car and windows while we’re driving down the highway.
Long story short, she left a week later to go back to the old boyfriend who beat her. She got pregnant, he dumped her and she moved to NYC to be closer to his other baby momma in hopes he’ll be forced to deal with her too.”
“It Ruined Our Family”
“I was in Florida on vacation with my girlfriend of six years, our 4-year-old son, her family, and a few of her friends. She had been taking pictures down at the beach all afternoon. We got back to the house we were staying at and everyone was in the kitchen making dinner. I picked up her phone and opened it up to text my family the pictures she had taken.
As I was scrolling for the thread, I saw her ex-boyfriend’s name. I opened up the messages and first thing I saw were videos of them fooling around that they had sent to each other.
I yelled, ‘What is this?!’ Her mom turned toward me and asked what was wrong and I loudly proclaimed what I’d seen. She said that she had gone out with some friends, gotten plastered, invited him out for a drink, and ended up doing blow all night. Then said she blacked out the next night and sent the videos. She claimed that was the only time she’d seen him.
Yeah, so when she fell asleep, of course I went through her phone again. She’d seen him multiple times throughout the previous two months and I found pictures of them together posing like a cutesy couple on their dates. Her brother and dad were so mad. I got out of there the next morning. It ruined the vacation for pretty much everyone and totally wrecked our family.”
A Catfishing Scheme For The Ages
“This is not quite cheating, but it’s…weird.
So apps are a thing in the gay community. A big thing. Bars are disappearing, so just meeting someone out and about can be a little difficult for a lot of us. I’ve had apps for bears (burly, hairy dudes with beards) for years now. I’ve chatted with a lot of men, some have become friends, very, very few have become any more than that. I finally met a guy a few years ago and it was fine for a while. I got rid of most of the dating profiles, switched all statuses to taken on the one app I used to connect with friends across the country and overseas.
I saw him on the app and that was fine. I didn’t care. He wasn’t looking to mess around, neither was I, so it didn’t matter. Life went on. A week or so later, he saw me on the app and got wildly petty about it. We had words, I explained why I didn’t want to get rid of it and assured him he could ask for my phone and look through my messages whenever he wanted. Thought we were good.
Oh. Oh, no.
Shortly thereafter, someone in town for work struck up a conversation. He’s good-looking, but I’m taken. That’s cool – he just wants to be friends and chat. Fantastic! Having a friend who just wants to be friends is excellent! We talk for months about all kinds of things and it never gets risque. Here and there, a random, faceless profile will ask for something dirty. Those folks get told to bug off because I’m not looking for that.
Suddenly, however, new pen pal telling me he’s been chatting with a guy looking for something physical who sounds a lot like the guy I’m seeing. He even points the profile out to me and while it isn’t my dude’s profile, they’re the same distance from me. The description is dead on, so I confront the boyfriend about it.
‘No, no, it’s not me! I’d never do that too you!’ he says, but the description is so close I can’t help but believe the pen pal. Something feels all wrong about this. He also physically kept me from leaving his apartment, which sent up all sorts of red flags. He also sat outside my apartment for a night and I only found out the next morning because he sent me a text about that. Creepy.
Anyway, I stay off the app for a few days, and in the meantime, decide things need to end. Nothing feels right, so I call it off. He cries, there’s crying, everything’s tears and awfulness, and he’s calling and texting rapid fire. He says I’m not allowed to break off a relationship, apparently – that’s something we both have to agree to. Uh…no. I can end a relationship if I want to. I decide to log back on to the app and shut it down, because I don’t want another way for him to follow me. But oh look, a message from pen pal:
‘It’s not your boyfriend. I asked him and he said it’s not him. Don’t do anything stupid.’
I messaged him back and update him. Weirdly, that account doesn’t message me back…another account does, identifying himself as pen pal who deleted the app but made another profile.
That’s weird…why is he yelling at me? Why is he so mad? What’s happening here? Why is his profile suddenly showing at the same location as my now ex?
Oh. Yeah, funny thing: these apps allow you to choose whether or not you show your distance to other profiles. Pen pal man and a bunch of the others who were trying to hook up weren’t showing distance before, but now suddenly they are. They’re all in the same place too. It doesn’t matter where I go, if it’s work, my house, a friend’s house, those profiles are all at the same place.
Everything scarily clicked. New pen pal? Nah. A catfishing profile meant to get information out of me. Guys hitting on me? All catfishing profiles. They’re all my ex. They’re all him. This person I thought was an interesting friend? Nope, just a lie. I contacted the app admins about it and they confirmed. To date, he’s had nine different profiles.
He’s been stalking me for the last three years, now.”
At Least Someone Was Honest With Him
“We were high school sweethearts and had been together for about seven years. We went to college together, worked together, basically spent 20 hours a day together. I left for the military and never got a single letter from her or heard anything about her from my mom (the only person who did write me). Somewhere in the first two weeks out of 13, I came to the conclusion that she’d died and people were sparing me the stress while I was in boot camp.
I was floored when I saw her at graduation. She seemed cold and distant, but she’d also recently gotten over a substance issue (or so I thought). I stayed with her for ten days before leaving for training, instead of staying with my mom, and I hardly saw her. She said she was working two jobs and going to school. I tried to understand and be supportive, but she also didn’t come home one night. We parted on weird terms, but she assured me she was just sad to see me go.
I was a few weeks into training and my family and girlfriend drove to see me. We had a wonderful three-day visit and when they were dropping me off, I got a phone call from a good friend I’d known for years. He told me how sorry he was. She had told him that I broke up with her when I left so I could have guilt-free casual hookups which was what I always wanted. He told me her sister found out we were still together from a text she had seen. He was so apologetic. I thought he was a piece of trash before, but that was the behavior of a stand up guy.
She denied, denied, denied. This was a REAL bad move on my part, but I pulled the texts from our shared account (back when you could do that) but I justified it because her new boyfriend had already offered to send them to me. With texts in hand, she still denied it. We both moved on and she’s married to him now.”
Lying Will Ruin Everything
“He changed his phone password. I left it for months until something just wasn’t sitting right in my gut. I unlocked his phone with my thumb and I didn’t even have to look – there was a messaging app open with a girl he was meeting the next day.
I sent him to work without confronting him. I reset passwords through a long chain of emails to finally access the one associated with the messaging app.
Low and behold, he had sent approximately 10,000 emails per year for the last four years of our relationship. He was living a whole second life and hiding it from everyone. Our relationship had never APPEARED stronger, and we had been seeing a therapist to work on strengthening our communication for eight months (clearly he was hiding his issues from the therapist as well).
At the time, I felt like it ruined my life. I remember thinking very clearly, ‘What did I do to deserve this?’ When I thought that, something inside of me just snapped. I calmly went and bought a giant coffee and cardboard boxes. I packed all his things up before he was home from work and changed our locks. The end.
I moved his things into storage and left the key along with a passive aggressive notes. He left me a short note, apologizing for what he did and owning up to it. He made a social media post telling everyone what he did and ask they leave him alone and support me. I saw him weeks later to talk, and he didn’t try hide what he had done.
I loved him and if he had come to me and admitted he had this problem, I would have helped him seek therapy. It wasn’t the subject matter so much that is the issue – an addiction is an addiction. It’s the lying.”
Girlfriends Come And Go But Bros Are For Life
“My neighbor was having his 30th birthday party and a bunch of people were over at his condo. He was sloshed and spilled his drink on his shirt, so he decided to change shirts. He asked me to come with him because he wanted to ask me something in private, so I went with him upstairs. He opened his bedroom door, and we saw his boss going to town on his fiancée. I will never forget the look on his face, his fiancée’s face, and his boss’s face.
The silence was broken up by a classic ‘this isn’t what it looks like’ routine. My friend responded with ‘If this isn’t what it looks like why was he so far inside you?’ I stood there in amazement and was in a state of shock. His boss got dressed and I walked him out of the party.
My friend came downstairs and immediately took a shot and announced: ‘My now ex-fiancée was caught having relations with my boss and I walked in on them with her legs behind her head. I didn’t know she could do that. Usually she lays there like a star fish. Let’s get really messed up.’
He was a mess for a while after that. Luckily, it was his condo. He owned and paid for both cars. His fiancée just quit her job to be a house wife. Instant karma.
It took him a year to date again. I set him up with a coworker of mine. They are great together.
The boss, well, he got what he deserved in the end. He was caught sleeping with the wife of the owner of the company he worked for. He got fired and my buddy was promoted. His fiancée….well, she moved in with her parents again and had to give up her lavish lifestyle. Last time I saw her, she tried to flirt with me and be playful. I shut that down and told her never to speak to me again. Girlfriends come and go but best friends only come by every once in a while.”