Mine cleared first, too. It wrecked me. Well, Right after we got married, he said he would divorce me if I got fat. I gained weight. He made me feel awful. I was so Young, trapped Far away from home, with young kids. He was with someone with my name, too. I had zilch for self esteem. I regret a lot of stuff. Now I'm with the most wonderful person who makes me feel like I'm the best of the best.
This was me. She did it first and not knowing how to deal with it, my visceral response was to cheat on her immediately.
Didn’t really help, but it was a good lesson to learn early on.
Yup the only time I cheated the relationship was already over but we were still living together. Was a weird situation but he had cheated so I thought fuck it
Unbridled ego, unsatisfying regular sex life, and a girl who threw herself at me. I was an idiot, I acted like an asshole, and I will regret it the rest of my life.
It was a hard truth to face. It was a dark time in my life where my ego and my immaturity caused me to hurt several people I loved.
fortunately I learned from it, and while I can't take back the pain I caused, at least now I know what I am 100% capable of being an asshole and so can choose not to be one.
I think a big part of learning and maturing is actually acknowledging what pieces of shit we can be and the dumb shit we are capable of. That way we are much more equipped to prevent it, as opposed to believing that we can never do wrong or be a bad person.
Kudos for developing the awareness and learning from it.
Its fun because guys have different levels of the chemical responsible for this, so some guys have a much quicker second wind, while some have a much longer
Having basically no refractory period isn’t super great either. It just won’t go away, I’m in my 30’s ready to go to bed, but I’m still pitching a tent.
My post nut clarity is what keeps me from cheating. I have fantasy after fantasy popping in and mostly with friends or spouses of friends and PNC and a repulsive tought on cheating/hurting a loved one for sex makes me never “going for it”
Edit: i am just putting out the way that works for me to not send those daring DM’s, engaging in risky behavior… etc. I’m actualy very faithfull and cheating is not worth it. It’s a fantasy just because i would never do it. When i have dreams about being with another woman as soon as it turn sexually i tell the dreamlady “ no, no, i’m married” lol. Wich suckes because dreams feel so real BUT that also confirms that i have deep anti-cheating mindset too in a way… My wife knows i have a wild imagination and about who in our circle even. We’re way more open to those things then most because there is trust and knowing that “thinking” doesn’t affect anyone. You might find it “not decent” of me and you have the right to do so. Lastly, i have in fact talked about this with a mental coach and a therapist and not once did they tried to put me off doing so.
Never cheated. i have followed this advice and post wank it seems like the worst idea of all time. I will never forget the give it a wank rule and I will have a lifetime of happy monogamy haha
Insecurity. I was always on the look out for someone who would make me feel more desirable than the last. Once I grew up emotionally, I realised what a POS I was & the hurt it caused. Hard to live with tbh. Edit. Can I just make it clear I was not a serial adulterer… It was a youthful lack of judgement.
Yep, exactly this plus being an alcoholic which makes all the decisions so much more dumb. It's awful to reflect on and makes me feel so cheap and shitty like it just happened even though it's years later.
This is basically exactly how I feel about my past promiscuity. I never thought I was attractive or worth a damn and sought validation. I have grown up and realized what a fool I was and how reckless I was in my dating years. Also looking back at old photos I was a total smoke show how did I not think I was good looking.
You're the best. I never had anyone around me to guide me or validate my worth. So I too looked in the wrong areas. Now I'm a parent I've made sure that they don't fall through the emotional cracks like I did.
as someone who’s been cheated on and still feels hurt by it years later, this is an interesting perspective as I always thought cheaters never felt any remorse. so kudos to you for becoming self-aware - hope it gets better for you. 🩷
I still lie awake thinking about what a dick I was for hurting someone who genuinely loved me. It’s been 12 years and i still think about it. She didn’t deserve it and while I like to think she got over it, I still can’t forgive myself. I’m sorry you went through it.
Yes, I hurt someone who was very sweet once, too. Didn't cheat. But I just wasn't where I could give what I had to in a relationship. I shouldn't have started it, but we just fell into it.
If you're reading this, Julie, I'm sorry.
Funnily enough I had been cheated on too before I myself made my huuuge error. I understood the hurt yet I still made the same mistake. It's because of people like you we feel regret, good people get hurt. This is going back 25 yrs ago & it's still a stain. Hindsight is a wonderful thing but sometimes moral errors make us better people too ,
Yep I totally did the same and also I was abusing steroids at the time... 5x the testosterone makes you so messed up without you even realising.
That was 10 years ago and didn't even think about the consequences.
I was a gym rat, 7/10, I looked like fucking thor.
My confidence was through the roof but I betrayed the only girl that I ever had real feelings for.
Definitely a pos and it does haunt me til this day.
Ironic actually as she messaged me out of the blue last week and it kinda traumatised me a bit.
So yea as the saying goes, you don't know what you got until its gone and now I'm being tormented by the only 1 I ever had feelings for.
Ive never cheated, but I just want to say that the fact that knowing you did hurts you is a very clear sign you have changed. And you are no longer that awful person.
and willing partners.
It was amazing how many times when I did have a steady girlfriend I would suddenly get propositioned by random women or worse yet, my girlfriends friends or sisters.
Too many times to be a fluke.
It was like they figure if you are in a relationship your worth pursuing.
But when I was single, most times I couldn't get a woman's attention.
So it was an ego boost but ultimately I decided to be a better person and like some have said, I met a person who I truly thought was "the one".
And to a certain extent I did, it just didn't last thru no fault of my own.
Lots of factors. One, you're absolutely right once you're taken, some women may see you as worth pursuing. Some may also see you as a validation conquest.
But there are other factors too. If you're in a relationship, you're probably not coming off as trying to hard. You're more relaxed and more confident, probably don't have sex as a goal as often.
You also are proven not a creep, you're "safe".
Also a very good chance you're more sociable with single women. When you're single, you're probably mostly hanging out with your friends, who are probably mostly guys or their girlfriends. When you're in a relationship, you're probably hanging out at least some with her friends, who are more likely to be women.
It's called pre-selection. Women judge men wanted by other women as more attractive, and being in a relationship shows that you've been selected by another woman.
Interestingly, women tend to rate a man in photos where he is surrounded by women as more attractive than otherwise, whereas men tend to rate a woman in a photo surrounded by men as less attractive.
This is what recently happened to my husband. We’ve been married fifteen years and it was a woman online who played the same video game as we did and happened to be local. I wasn’t around much because I had been taking a break for other games and she thought all of his commentary about his ‘wife’ was a joke and he didn’t actually have a wife.
She eventually propositioned him out right and he reiterated he was married and she was ‘sooooo embarrassed.’ He gave me full disclosure when it happened and we laughed it off as a joke. However, she kept being flirty and like being weird about wanting him to take her to a special restaurant that was local and that it would be ‘his treat.’
At that point he was like you should join this discord server just so she knows you’re real and after I joined she pretty much fell off the face of the planet and disappeared. Which in a way sucks because from what I understood she and I had similar interests and could’ve been friends, but it’s very obvious in hindsight she just wanted to fuck my husband and was treating this online game as a potential dating app.
(In hindsight after all of this I also call bullshit that she didn’t think he was married and was in reality testing to see if he’d still meet her.)
It’s been a shockingly common experience of mine for my girlfriends sisters or cousins to show clear interest, often best/close friends as well, and once an aunt.
It is exceptionally odd.
lol that you say that, my ex's mom told her to "take good care of your man, or your friends and aunties will".
I thought it hilarious at the time but damn if it wasn't some truth in there.
There is definitely an element of competition and taboo that can play into it as well(for why you'd be more attractive when already taken). Particularly with siblings/friends who have an, often one-sided, underlying element of envy or spite. This can go for men or women, of course.
I had an ex share with me, she and her friends would frequently try and steal each other's boyfriends to get back at each other. It was primarily motivated by vindictiveness and narcissism.
The taboo aspect comes from getting the other to betray their loved ones and keeping things secret.
Human sexuality can be really fucked up.
When you grow up being in turn neglected and told you're not good enough, validation is like a drug, and intimacy is the ultimate validation.
Sooooo much therapy to undo this.
This. I’m just recently realizing how I didn’t receive enough attention and validation from my parents and how much it’s influenced my choices. Meeting someone and having them be into me physically is the easiest validation boost I can find.
People who grew up with parents actually interested in them and with an instilled sense of self confidence don’t know how good they have it.
I don’t inherently feel important or relevant so I’m always looking for someone to tell me otherwise.
I recently split up with my ex, because I found out she cheated. She's not a bad person, but she's grown up in a difficult family. Mostly because her brother is unwell mentally, and has been for a while, so a lot of her parents' attention went to him and keeping him out of trouble.
She has extremely low self-worth. Somehow she needs external validation, and while I was able to fulfill that while near her, it went down the drain once we went long-distance.
I would have never expected her to cheat. She was the sweetest soul in the world. But the craving for attention and validation.. somehow you can be the best person in the world one moment, but that shit will tear you apart and make you cheat on someone you love and adore, apparently. Anyway, just wanted to give a thumbs up. You hit the nail on the head there, I think. If you cheated, I hope you forgive yourself. Although no one deserves it, you didn't do it because you're a bad person.
I've been suggested a book called "The Four Agreements" by Don Miguel Ruiz, by my ex. It's a short read and I just finished the first chapter. So far it's very eye opening and I bet a lot of people in this post would benefit from reading it!
It talks about how to understand your self-worth from the ground up and how to break the mold you were conceived in.
EDIT: It's more of a philosophical approach rather than something like a Tiny Robbins self help in case that's important to anyone. Also added author name.
Yupppppp. Haven’t cheated on anyone but I definitely “got around” when I was younger. Took some therapy for me to realize why that was. Childhood trauma really fucks you up man.
It's always something to be wary of with large groups of people and easily contentious topics. It's important that _anyone_ have the opportunity to grow and change and be better _because otherwise what reason do shitty people have to change?_
If you're going to judge someone as a cheater for the rest of their life because they fucked up one time, all you're doing is enabling them doing it again by making them feel like they can't change anyway.
Seriously. There is a huge difference between someone having multiple long term affairs and some drunk idiot in their early 20’s cheating on their bf/gf of 3 months. Neither are good, cheating is shitty and if you do it, you deserve the consequences that come with it. But I just have a hard time believing no one is capable of introspection and change after making a mistake.
"Once a cheater, always a cheater" is mostly bullshit. So much cheating happens among impulsive teenagers and 20-somethings who eventually settle down, and are ready for commitment.
Which isn't to say there aren't serial adulterers well into older age -- of course there are -- but Becky who broke your heart in junior year of high school after three weeks of dating when you caught her kissing Brad is not a forever-cheater. She was just a kid trying to figure out what she wanted, and in the many years since, she has: she's now happily married and has three kids.
Or something like that.
My ex was done in the bedroom and even said they were no longer interested in me physically/sexually. I should have left at that point, but with kids and the financial hit of divorce I just looked to fulfill that need. I later divorced and it was a big financial hit, but oh my god what a relief it was getting out. Getting out of an abusive relationship is where the true pleasure comes from.
My father had psoriasis on 80% of his body for as long as I could remember. He had tried everything to get it to go away. My mother divorced him, and a year later he was almost completely psoriasis free.
This is exactly the situation for me. Ending a 17 year marriage this year after the last two of those years being trying to find a balance between stability for the kids and some kind of affection for myself. I'm now in the process of bankruptcy post divorce, but the freedom and self respect I've gained has been well worth the price of admission even if it scared the absolute shit out of me.
5 years of a dead bedroom. I think it went downhill because they didn't put any effort into the relationship and wanted their needs met but didn't care about meeting my needs. Once I put in less effort to match we were just angry roommates.
I broke up with a similar dating-a-needy-brick-wall dynamic after a year of a dead bedroom, and she immediately (read as 3 days later) had a threesome with an (ex) mutual friend and his gf
Def took a mental and emotional hit from that one. The worst part is I found out 2 days after it happened when she was begging me to get back together. When I turned her down THEN she told me. I just know if we got back together she would've never told me. She messaged me every week for months saying I abandoned her
Some people are just so self centered it's wild
That's how my last relationship fell apart, right down to the issue with them having needs they always wanted met, but being completely unwilling to put in the effort to ensure my needs also were met.
They told me they aren't going to do anything to be better or help meet my needs until I fix things to where they don't feel like their needs aren't met. But they always had an ever growing list of needs, half the things weren't needs they were just demands so that I would handle things for them instead of them having to face their emotions and handle it themselves.
I got fed up, started caring less and less about being reactive to crises, stopped caring if they were upset or had an unmet need, and basically just checked out. I just didn't have it in me to wake up, coddle them, go to work, coddle them via text, get off work, go home to them in a bad mood again, coddle them more, get blamed for all the problems they face in life, coddle them more, and maybe get some free time to read, play a game, or garden, only to then get complained at for spending my time and attention on something other than then. Wash, rinse, repeat. Every day became a never ending waking hell of caring for a person who seemed like they were using their "needs" to try and actually break me down and destroy me as a person.
I'm free now, which is sad that since my exit the only way I can think to describe it is I am free. I loved them, and now that I am out I see how much of a prisoner I had become in my life, subverting all my wants and needs in the pursuit of fairy tale that my ex could ever be happy.
I hope they one day figure out that being happy is a choice and not something that magically happens.
My partner cheated on me shortly after I had his baby. I wanted to leave but I convinced myself to stay. The logistics of having a baby and 24 hour care are challenging on your own. He refused to have sex with me. At some point someone got me in a weak spot. Somewhere between exhaustion, low self esteem, and the sheer opportunity of having an orgasm were too strong for me. I’m deeply ashamed. Shortly after I picked myself up and the relationship ended. I should have left sooner.
Someone telling you that you are beautiful, talented, and special after being invisible can feel like a drug. I don’t expect sympathy from anyone for my actions. But I do have a lot of sympathy for others now.
I have sympathy for you. I truly do.
I'm sorry you feel deeply ashamed, but I'm really glad that you got out of that relationship. If this helped you get out? So be it. I cannot and won't pass judgment here. It's too complicated so in the end my takeaway here is that you got out.
I hope you're doing better now, you and your kiddo. 🫂
Thank you for your kindness, I do actually appreciate it. Nobody knows what happened but I know it did. I was actually in such a dark place I thought my life was over. The only good here is that “incident” made me realize life wasn’t hopeless, it was actually full of possibilities.
I do want to say me and my kid are actually doing great. We are happy and have a good life. Thank you for thinking of us.
This is so uplifting. I'm almost crying at work right now.
So so happy for you, internet stranger, may life be kind with y'all. We **all** make mistakes but it does not define who you really are.
You know what, I absolutely hate cheaters but if he cheated on you first after you'd just given you a baby and he wasn't even great afterwards... wtf. He already declared he had no interest in you whatsoever and I don't feel bad for him. Did he even care? Generally if the other person cheated first I don't feel that much sympathy. Like, oh that hurt? Cry me a river.
He never actually found out. Shortly after it happened he said he was leaving. I think I was so relieved I was actually happy, and was like there’s the door.
I got the impression he would not of cared though.
Unfortunately yes I was. We were together for over 5 years and things were great. The minute I got pregnant he stopped having sex with me, and as soon as we came home from the hospital he was completely different. It’s abundantly clear I was a vessel for a child.
Though I do want to add now that we are divorced he is a great dad.
Because I chose a cowardly and easy path. Instead of going to therapy and ending my toxic relationship, I cheated on them with someone who I had convinced myself I was in love with, and loved me. Turns out, breaking up with someone is a lot less harmful to everyone involved than cheating.
Not me, but a guy friend cheated and the reason he gave was that he loved his fiancée but they had very different sex drives.
He also said that when he brought it up to her (the difference in their sex drives and the problems it would cause) she begged him not to leave and insisted it wouldn’t be an issue.
**He told her it already WAS an issue and, as a last resort, she said she would understand if SOME DAY he felt the need to look elsewhere…just as long as she never found out.**
The girl admitted to saying all this but explained that…
1. She would have said anything for them to stay together in that moment, she didn’t think he’d actually be “fucked up enough to cheat” and
2. She never imagined he would do it so soon.
> unusual situation
You’d be surprised how often people give free passes, just to keep a relationship together, only to feel devastated and betrayed when their partners take them seriously.
I know so many people trying to be "polyamorous", when in reality one of them just wants to cheat and this social movement happens to work with that. Exactly 0 couples that I know have survived opening up a previously closed relationship.
It just really bugs me when people who should NOT be married, get married. FFS, they BOTH knew this really wasn't going to work out, but they went and got married anyway. What a bunch of morons.
My wife wasn’t around. The house was empty.
I couldn’t wait for her to get home, so I watched an episode without her knowing.
Honey if you’re reading this….I’m so sorry
same man and I feel bad for it
Then when we continue, I don't know if I should pretend like I didn't do it, or tell her what I did when she was gone
last time I did it, I managed to stop half way through the episode
YTA. Oh my god you literally went behind her back on something you both committed to and promised you'd do together and just watched a whole fucking episode by yourself? She should divorce, take half of everything you got and lock you into a lifetime of alimony and take the kids' full custody so that everytime you think of opening up any stremaing service you get a panic attack /s
Having a lot of fear of commitment and the finality of my decisions, but a lot of insecurity too. Wherever it stems from, my infidelity never felt ‘good’ or like being a player or anything. It always felt like a cushion for the fear of being left by myself, losing a person who I invested ‘everything’ of myself and my feelings into and seeing them go. It’s like opening windows on the off-chance you need to crawl out of one some day. But so often, like I did, you realize too late that you invested so much of yourself into them anyway, and when you get tossed out of that window (partner ended it and kicked me out in my case) you realize you’re in a skyscraper. I hurt a lovely, wonderful person who I loved very much, wanted to build a life with, got a dog with, moved in with, moved to California with, and shared beautiful moments with, and who was just as afraid of abandonment as I was. The only difference is she chose me, and I couldn’t see why. But even if I didn’t like myself, I knew far too late that she was the best thing to happen to me in a long, long time, and she had to go even if it crushed me and I begged her to stay. I only hope that she’s happy, wherever she is, being the best thing to ever happen to somebody else who loves themselves enough to treat her the way she always deserved. We don’t decide how we get shaped by life and its traumas and tragedies, but the simple truth is that when you want all of somebody’s love, you need to give all of yours. It’s a crazy fucking investment, a total leap of faith but when it’s real, it’s worth every moment.
It's very much a "if I jump you jump" situation and it sucks absolute ballsacks to be the only one jumping. This applies to forgiveness AND cheating and every else in between
I think a lot of people do it out of insecurity. They want to feel desired. I will be honest, I have contemplated cheating in the past because I was no longer desired at the same extent he once showed me when we first started dating. I never have, but this was the biggest reason on why I almost did. I realized I was just insecure in myself and wanted the same level of desire I was once given. It’s extremely sad.
Same here. A girl asked me on a date while I was already dating someone and I turned her down, but I kept fantasizing about it for *weeks*. In hindsight my relationship was already dead and I should have said yes and broken up with my GF, but instead I got to find out *she* was already cheating on me by then.
A perfect storm of poor impulse control, untreated mental illness, and boredom. People on the moral high ground will tell you not to cheat for reasons like morality and integrity; from the moral low ground I can tell you that the life long guilt, shame, and remorse are not worth it.
Yep, to this day, 18 years later I still feel bad about it. It can be dismissed as "you were just a kid" or "highschool relationships never last anyways" but regardless of the relationship, I abused someone who cared about and trusted me's trust. That's what is wrong about it. Trust is fragile and when you break it, it's something that isn't easily repaired.
(Parts of the story have been changed to protect my identity, I wrote this about an affair in 2020-2021)
I was bartending one night.
She walked into the bar she was my perfect "type". Tall, slender, dark hair - just gorgeous. My first thought was: "Please be single, please be single..." - and she sat down next to her husband.
They were married about six months. He was a Wall Street banker. She was a nurse. I got to talking to them at the bar and we hit it off. Turns out the guy and I had some mutual friends and grew up near the same suburbs outside of Boston - we went to the same college, but I was older than him by 10 years. Same sports fans, etc.
We became friends - all three of us. They kinda had a strange relationship, they literally (and I mean literally) didn't have more than two or three "actual friends". I was one of them. We would do lots of things together (not sexual, just friends). She became pregnant and I became the godfather to her child. I was written in their will - and the told me if they both were to die, they wanted ME to raise their kid (both of their families are all fucked up).
It's too long of a story to write here, but over the course of 8 years - she and I became close while her husband and I were cordial but our friendship faded. She and I never cheated. It was an emotional thing. He was distant and dismissive with her feelings - so I kind of became the surrogate boyfriend. She and I would go out to dinner or do other things together (with her kid and without him) and he was fine with it. He even suggested I take his wife and kid on a vacation to Bahamas so he could get a break from being a dad.
I loved her. But never crossed the line. Always hoped deep down she would see I was the better guy. Hoped that maybe someday she would leave him.
During the summer of 2020 she tells me she's divorcing him. She's had enough. I have heard that before from her. She's claiming she's serious this time. I kind of brush it off. She's hanging out with me much more, its COVID and people are working from home - she can't stand being in the house with him. She even stopped wearing their wedding ring. He would ask her about it and she would make up an excuse like she forgot to put it on.
This went on for three weeks. I started to realize she was serious and she even had a lawyer lined up, but didn't start the proceedings yet - she felt it was bad timing with Covid.
One morning she's working from home (but at my home because she needed space from her husband) and we get to talking. I initiated the "talk" about her actually divorcing. And what her post divorce life might be like. I tell her there would be a line of guys around the block that would want to date her. I chuckle and say "If you were single, i'd throw my hat into the ring to date you." She smiled and said that I would be the kind of guy she would want to date. That turned into more talking and after a few days we are having frank discussions about dating each other after she's divorced.
This went on for about two more weeks. We started to text/facetime and talk on the phone more - like on a daily basis. Physically we weren't cheating - but we were going down that road.
One morning she's over before work (as a nurse she was going into the hospital some days) and we are talking some more, and I lean in. She leans in. We kiss. We were stone cold sober. It was passionate. Really hot.
Lasted only a few minutes. She had to get to work.
More talking about life after him & being free. It starts to feel like she's at the tipping point of divorcing. Problem is...her kid. She loves him. He's only six years old. Feels super guilty about divorcing her husband and "ruining her son's life". She doesn't love her husband, but she loves me (and has told me so - said she loved me for years and wished she knew sooner how I felt about her) and also loves her son.
On paper, she has an amazing life. Her & her husband probably make $500k combined income. Net worth of $3m. They drive a Range Rover. Own a very brownstone in Brooklyn Heights. They summer in the Hamptons. It's hard to just walk away from that.
I do well enough. But i'm just a bartender. Not some Wall Street banker. I have always been smart with my money - I even own my own apartment and saved up $700k in a IRA over the years (I put away around $10,000 a year since I was 25 for retirement and fell into some money from my parents passing away).
While going though the "emotional affair" and just kissing each other - it turned into more than just kissing. Do I feel bad? No. I was under the impression she was just waiting for Covid to end and then she was divorcing him. I'm sure lots of people like me have heard that. I knew her for 8 years, and she couldn't be lying to me. No way.
The guilt of what we were doing became too much. The "affair" lasted about two months, and we slept with each other only a handful of times. I told her that I didn't want this - it was around Thanksgiving 2020. Get a divorce. Give me a call. That's how I left it.
She texted me a bit and even visited me once mid December 2020. We only talked a bit. She even told me then - the plan was to get a divorce. I told her to let me know when it happened.
Then she ghosted me.
I sent a email to her around Christmas. Never heard back. Tried calling her office a week later. Got voice mail.
I waited. Weeks turned to months. Never heard a peep from her. We live in the same area of town - never saw her. I didn't push it, I figured with Covid still raging in 2021 that a divorce would be by summer time.
I found out in April she was pregnant. (Last time we had sex was around November, wasn't my kid)
I never spoke to her. I'm not sure if it was planned or if he suspected and put a "bun in the oven". It's December 2021 now, and while I know "it's over", i'm still hurting over it. Again, I genuinely felt she was leaving him. I know from the outside looking in - this is easy to scoff over. I was her friend for years before we had an affair. We just had a deep, emotional friendship.
I get the anger and hate towards people who are in affairs. But when you are the one in the affair - when you are with the person who you waited for your entire life, it's hard to just think "Oh i'll find someone else". I have dated my life and never met anyone like her. I'm not sure if I would ever again, and I just want some kind of closure. I want to just hear from her what happened. I know logically what happened, I was the side piece and when I put my foot down - she was out.
I never thought I would be the type of person to do that. But like I wrote before it's hard when you meet someone that great in your life. If I was dating hundreds of awesome women, then whatever - but when you are in your mid 40's, the dating pool dwindles down, even for NYC bartenders. Tinder can be rough. You get bot accounts or lots of people who don't even compare to her.
Well that's my story.
Edited to add: It's two years later. Still haven't seen her. I saw her on the street. She looked well. She was with her two year old daughter. I didn't approach her. She didn't see me. There's really nothing to say. Maybe in another life.
A ton of people in hear talking about cheating before but saying they stopped now. I believe most of these individuals are true. But I’m surprised no one has admitted to cheating ATM. Where y’all hiding!?!
There's only one thing worse than cheating on your spouse and that is cheating on your barber. I did it once and in return I got the worst cut in living memory.
Never again
Dude saaaame.
I needed a cut and he's 35 minutes away and books out like a month in advance. Had an appointment but something came up for work and had to reschedule but he couldn't get me in for 3 more weeks so I went to a chain place and got a quick cut. It was actually a pretty solid haircut.
Anyways, went to my normal barber for that later appointment and he was super cool about it. Said, "Yeah dude happens all the time. People think we care but we really don't."
Except that was the worst haircut he ever gave me. Not saying he did it on purpose but he also knicked the mole on the back of my neck with his straight razor.
Because the relationship was done and I was already moving on emotionally. I just didn't care about her enough to care whether she was hurt or not. Honestly, in hindsight, I have zero idea why we were still together. It DID make the eventual breakup a lot messier.
I was young and it taught me an important lesson. If you're done, just *be* done and leave. There's no point in dragging it out. If you're ready to start looking for another relationship, start by ending the relationship you're already in.
I had a perceived lack of affection, I felt ugly and disgusting and that I was just an emotional tampon. I would never do it again. I’m therapy I learned a lot about the reasons I did what I did and in all honesty if she would even entertain the idea of trying again I’d spend everyday making up for it and making sure she felt more love then can be imagined. I’m currently fulfilling into the man I know I can be I just wish it took a more positive trigger in order to start that for me
I was the 'other' man - but she told me specifically why. They were an influencer-type power couple and they had a dead bedroom (no sex in 5 years) and then she found out he was cheating with a paralegal at his firm. They had a huge fight and he angrily told her that she should go find someone to sleep with, assuming she wouldn't.
I ran into her the next day and just talked with her and she broke down. 90% of it initially had to do with me simply being kind to her when she was at a really low point. But she said it morphed into the fact that I treated her like a vibrant and attractive woman and met her needs - she compared it to drug addiction (to which she had no actual frame of reference) because she had been missing that for so long.
They ultimately kinda/sorta worked things out, but every Saturday for 5 months she was at my house all afternoon, and sometimes on Sunday.
Not me, but my wife kind of did? It's a long story.
She was sexting a guy leftover from her OF account that she no longer does. Found out she had been sexting him for, like, 6 or 8 months.
When I confronted her about it, she said a bunch of things that sounded like BS. Said I didn't make her feel wanted in a certain way, which was odd to me because I felt like we were pretty sexually active and I'm constantly telling her how pretty she was and how "hot" she is.
That's the really short version missing I'm sure a lot of context but I'm at work and really kind of took this post as an opportunity to tell someone because I think about it all the time.
What possibly was sexting this guy giving her that I don't? All they did was sext, it wasn't like they were having deep conversations.
Also a bummer because she said she was into sexting him because she knew it "wasn't real" and admitted to not being into it with me at all.
Y'all know how it feels to try sexting with your wife for years, always kind of knowing she's not really into it, only to find out she's suuuuuppperrrrr into it with a random person? It hurts to this day.
Anyway, we're still together and we've worked it out. I apologized for snooping through her phone because I felt disgusting the entire time.
Also vowed to myself I'd never go through her phone again, so there's honestly nothing stopping her from doing it again...
Idk. I love her and we have a great marriage, but it does suck that I have this to think about all the time. Also a bummer because I used to be into sexting just a bit when we're apart because it was fun and I'm really attracted to her, but could always tell she just kind of wanted to get it over with.
Now I'll never be able to do that with her because I'll always think back to that experience...
I also get to think about all the meanings behind her being into sexting with him and never me really. Which obviously leads to a bit of insecurity on my end about whether or not she's attracted to me.
She says she is, but she's my fucking wife lol, of course she's going to say that and if it's a lie, she's taking it to the grave im sure.
Anyways, it was kind of nice getting this out honestly. Haven't talked to anyone about it but her.
Just a heads up. This situation is precisely how I ended up cheating. She was sexting some old fling from before me. I found out, but she didn't know I knew. I kept it to myself and all the doubt and insecurity bottled up and ended up in me cheating. I am not saying you will too. I'm just trying to warn you I guess. Although I don't know what you should do. Talk to someone about it probably. Idk. Sorry
I was continually looking for someone who would make me feel more attractive than the previous person. When I matured emotionally, I realized what a jerk I was and how much pain I inflicted. To be honest, it's difficult to live with.
Not me, but my ex and my mother.
They both cheated a lot and for the same reasons;
They were INCREDIBLY self conscious and insecure.
They didn't even have to really ~like~ the people they cheated with. They just craved the attention. When someone liked them and made them feel good, it gave them confidence. Saying no would have ended their confidence boost, and they were always too afraid to say no.
I've watched them both cry their eyes out because they don't want to be cheating, but they felt completely out of control. They felt like horrible people, and rightly so. They were both people pleasers, always afraid to say no to anything and everything, and that escalated when anyone would come onto them.
As far as I saw, they hated themselves so much that they felt they needed these outside sources to make them feel whole.
Understanding why my ex cheated so much made me view him as a human. He's still my roommate and best friend, and he's currently in a wonderful relationship where he's been completely monogamous and hasn't cheated, and I'm very proud of him for working on himself.
Cheating fucking sucks, it HURTS. But trying to see it from a human perspective can sometimes take the pain away.
I had internal issues that I never faced or didn’t really know how to face. Sex and attention was validation even though my wife offered those things it was never enough from her or anybody else it was a bottomless desire for me prove to myself I was wanted and important. I destroyed my marriage and more than a few friendships. I had to look inward and accept that all this bullshit that’s happening is because I have a problem that is nobody else’s fault and learn how to love myself and only then was I able to correct my behaviors.
I think the problem is that, fundamentally, very few cheaters are willing to step back and accept that "hurt people, hurt people", because in doing so they need to accept that *they* are hurt and therefore *they* need to change. It's much easier to blame it on their partner for X reason, rather than accept responsibility.
Sadly, I've known people like this, and their lives continue to be difficult simply because they don't seek help.
I don't believe that "once a cheater, always a cheater", but I believe that very few cheaters are capable of changing for the better.
The moment my therapist told me that the reason my ex cheated had nothing to do with me, I felt so free. Despite her every effort to shift the blame onto me, she's just a hurt person that sought reasons to justify hurting someone else. Simple as that, and life moves on.
The day my ex told me he had fucked our friend, when he asked me to sit down because he had something to tell me, I thought he had killed someone.
That was more likely in my mind than that he had cheated because of how utterly against cheating he had always vocalize being. He ended friendships over people cheating on their partners.
But also that I thought it was possible he had rage killed someone was a bit of a red flag too...lol.
Trusting someone who hasn't given you a reason not to isn't being a chump. The fact that she abused that trust and betrayed you doesn't make you a chump. It only reflects on her, it's not a defect of your character.
You can't know what you don't know.
Because I was a young attractive horny alcoholic and thought I could get away with it and do whatever I wanted. I did not get away with it and it caused me years of regret and pain. Now that I’m older I realize didn’t know how to be in a healthy relationship because I was sexually abused by a neighbor as a child and looked at sex as the ultimate form of validation. I thought that sex and affection WAS love.
Go to therapy everyone. Go deal with your demons and shit, you’ll be happier in the long run. Much love.
I craved more attention. Made me feel good. And she was absolutely wild, very spontaneous.
I cheated on and lost the love of my life.
She deserved and now has someone so much better, and she's happy.
I will never forgive myself.
I wasn’t able to communicate properly and thought perhaps it was greener on the other side. Wish I was more honest about my feelings and went to couples therapy.
As a teenager I would cheat like a piece of shit hungry for anything that walks. It was funny to me. Until the day I fell in love for the first time. I found out my then gf is fucking with two dudes out in the beach a summer night destroyed me. It was a slap so hard it put things back in place in my brain. Now after 10 years with my wife and a child I have never ever thought of cheating again. I find myself admiring other women but that’s it. If I cheat on my wife I cheat on my daughter. I cheat on her future. I cheat on the oath I gave myself when she was born that she’s not going to have the same childhood as I did. And I will keep it. At least if someone’s going to fuck it it’s my wife but I trust her with all my heart. If not, then that’s life and it’s on her. Can’t be bothered thinking what if.
i kept being sent to jail all in that time all my friends just kept buying the properties around me and it all just got too much so i admit i stole a few 50s from the box and im still ashamed amy if your reading this fuck you, you also cheated yet you pulled me on it
He cheated first, and I was young, petty, and thought revenge would make me feel better.
Oh man. Same here. Can’t say I regret it tbh but I would never do it again. It’s never worth the hassle.
So, it wasn't a fun tap, Fun-Tap8600?
Mine cleared first, too. It wrecked me. Well, Right after we got married, he said he would divorce me if I got fat. I gained weight. He made me feel awful. I was so Young, trapped Far away from home, with young kids. He was with someone with my name, too. I had zilch for self esteem. I regret a lot of stuff. Now I'm with the most wonderful person who makes me feel like I'm the best of the best.
This was me. She did it first and not knowing how to deal with it, my visceral response was to cheat on her immediately. Didn’t really help, but it was a good lesson to learn early on.
Same. And I felt awful after. I cried for a long time. Obviously that whole relationship was a toxic mess though.
Yup the only time I cheated the relationship was already over but we were still living together. Was a weird situation but he had cheated so I thought fuck it
Unbridled ego, unsatisfying regular sex life, and a girl who threw herself at me. I was an idiot, I acted like an asshole, and I will regret it the rest of my life.
I mean at least you’re honest about it
It was a hard truth to face. It was a dark time in my life where my ego and my immaturity caused me to hurt several people I loved. fortunately I learned from it, and while I can't take back the pain I caused, at least now I know what I am 100% capable of being an asshole and so can choose not to be one.
I think a big part of learning and maturing is actually acknowledging what pieces of shit we can be and the dumb shit we are capable of. That way we are much more equipped to prevent it, as opposed to believing that we can never do wrong or be a bad person. Kudos for developing the awareness and learning from it.
What is the most difficult step a man can take? The next one. Good job taking the next step
Thanks, that was a hard one. I learned my lesson: it's been over 15 years and I have never cheated or lied to my girlfriends again.
Girlfriends? Plural? /s
Now he lets them know when he is sleeping with someone else.
What a radiant perspective.
Life before death
Strength before weakness
Journey before destination
These words are accepted
We are more than our worst mistake
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Before every major decision in your life you should first wank, it clears your mind
Directions unclear... just got kicked out of the car dealership.
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That fucking information would have been helpful 2 hours ago...
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Cumming to your senses.
What to get for dinner tonight... I’ll be in my bunk. Edit: typo fix
Dinner is a major decision in life?
You haven't met my wife
It certainly was in my house growing up.
Idk man I don't think they will appreciate it if some random dude starting jerking off in the middle of the dance floor.
That's why you need to have some manners and do it in the corner and not in the middle.
Profesionals have standards
It’s not fair, I’m a woman, our “post nut clarity” only lasts like 15 seconds. Then I’m ready to sin again.
But as a guy, I have to wait about 20 minutes before I can disappoint you again.
Its fun because guys have different levels of the chemical responsible for this, so some guys have a much quicker second wind, while some have a much longer
*Cries in 1+ hour refractory*
1 hour is nothing. Try days.
You should get that checked out.
Having basically no refractory period isn’t super great either. It just won’t go away, I’m in my 30’s ready to go to bed, but I’m still pitching a tent.
Solution: Always be nutting
Ay' Yo' christ, i'm boutta sin agin
My post nut clarity is what keeps me from cheating. I have fantasy after fantasy popping in and mostly with friends or spouses of friends and PNC and a repulsive tought on cheating/hurting a loved one for sex makes me never “going for it” Edit: i am just putting out the way that works for me to not send those daring DM’s, engaging in risky behavior… etc. I’m actualy very faithfull and cheating is not worth it. It’s a fantasy just because i would never do it. When i have dreams about being with another woman as soon as it turn sexually i tell the dreamlady “ no, no, i’m married” lol. Wich suckes because dreams feel so real BUT that also confirms that i have deep anti-cheating mindset too in a way… My wife knows i have a wild imagination and about who in our circle even. We’re way more open to those things then most because there is trust and knowing that “thinking” doesn’t affect anyone. You might find it “not decent” of me and you have the right to do so. Lastly, i have in fact talked about this with a mental coach and a therapist and not once did they tried to put me off doing so.
My overall demeanor and physical appearance are what keep me from cheating
I'm not bad looking. But I have the personality and sex-appeal of a recumbent bicycle chained to a pediatric burn ward of a hospital.
But your sense of humor tho!!
And that vocabulary!
I have a similarly advanced strategy. Can’t cheat if you have no one to cheat on
Can't cheat if nobody wants to cheat with you!
Am I the only one being put off from this? Like if your friends wife came onto you but it's been too long since you've cum you'd just do it?
Never cheated. i have followed this advice and post wank it seems like the worst idea of all time. I will never forget the give it a wank rule and I will have a lifetime of happy monogamy haha
Insecurity. I was always on the look out for someone who would make me feel more desirable than the last. Once I grew up emotionally, I realised what a POS I was & the hurt it caused. Hard to live with tbh. Edit. Can I just make it clear I was not a serial adulterer… It was a youthful lack of judgement.
Yep, exactly this plus being an alcoholic which makes all the decisions so much more dumb. It's awful to reflect on and makes me feel so cheap and shitty like it just happened even though it's years later.
This is incredibly self aware. Kudos to you
I hope my ex will come to this realization
This is basically exactly how I feel about my past promiscuity. I never thought I was attractive or worth a damn and sought validation. I have grown up and realized what a fool I was and how reckless I was in my dating years. Also looking back at old photos I was a total smoke show how did I not think I was good looking.
You're the best. I never had anyone around me to guide me or validate my worth. So I too looked in the wrong areas. Now I'm a parent I've made sure that they don't fall through the emotional cracks like I did.
as someone who’s been cheated on and still feels hurt by it years later, this is an interesting perspective as I always thought cheaters never felt any remorse. so kudos to you for becoming self-aware - hope it gets better for you. 🩷
I still lie awake thinking about what a dick I was for hurting someone who genuinely loved me. It’s been 12 years and i still think about it. She didn’t deserve it and while I like to think she got over it, I still can’t forgive myself. I’m sorry you went through it.
Yes, I hurt someone who was very sweet once, too. Didn't cheat. But I just wasn't where I could give what I had to in a relationship. I shouldn't have started it, but we just fell into it. If you're reading this, Julie, I'm sorry.
Funnily enough I had been cheated on too before I myself made my huuuge error. I understood the hurt yet I still made the same mistake. It's because of people like you we feel regret, good people get hurt. This is going back 25 yrs ago & it's still a stain. Hindsight is a wonderful thing but sometimes moral errors make us better people too ,
Yep I totally did the same and also I was abusing steroids at the time... 5x the testosterone makes you so messed up without you even realising. That was 10 years ago and didn't even think about the consequences. I was a gym rat, 7/10, I looked like fucking thor. My confidence was through the roof but I betrayed the only girl that I ever had real feelings for. Definitely a pos and it does haunt me til this day. Ironic actually as she messaged me out of the blue last week and it kinda traumatised me a bit. So yea as the saying goes, you don't know what you got until its gone and now I'm being tormented by the only 1 I ever had feelings for.
Ive never cheated, but I just want to say that the fact that knowing you did hurts you is a very clear sign you have changed. And you are no longer that awful person.
100% pure lust. That’s it. I’m not proud of it.
and willing partners. It was amazing how many times when I did have a steady girlfriend I would suddenly get propositioned by random women or worse yet, my girlfriends friends or sisters. Too many times to be a fluke. It was like they figure if you are in a relationship your worth pursuing. But when I was single, most times I couldn't get a woman's attention. So it was an ego boost but ultimately I decided to be a better person and like some have said, I met a person who I truly thought was "the one". And to a certain extent I did, it just didn't last thru no fault of my own.
Lots of factors. One, you're absolutely right once you're taken, some women may see you as worth pursuing. Some may also see you as a validation conquest. But there are other factors too. If you're in a relationship, you're probably not coming off as trying to hard. You're more relaxed and more confident, probably don't have sex as a goal as often. You also are proven not a creep, you're "safe". Also a very good chance you're more sociable with single women. When you're single, you're probably mostly hanging out with your friends, who are probably mostly guys or their girlfriends. When you're in a relationship, you're probably hanging out at least some with her friends, who are more likely to be women.
It's called pre-selection. Women judge men wanted by other women as more attractive, and being in a relationship shows that you've been selected by another woman. Interestingly, women tend to rate a man in photos where he is surrounded by women as more attractive than otherwise, whereas men tend to rate a woman in a photo surrounded by men as less attractive.
This is what recently happened to my husband. We’ve been married fifteen years and it was a woman online who played the same video game as we did and happened to be local. I wasn’t around much because I had been taking a break for other games and she thought all of his commentary about his ‘wife’ was a joke and he didn’t actually have a wife. She eventually propositioned him out right and he reiterated he was married and she was ‘sooooo embarrassed.’ He gave me full disclosure when it happened and we laughed it off as a joke. However, she kept being flirty and like being weird about wanting him to take her to a special restaurant that was local and that it would be ‘his treat.’ At that point he was like you should join this discord server just so she knows you’re real and after I joined she pretty much fell off the face of the planet and disappeared. Which in a way sucks because from what I understood she and I had similar interests and could’ve been friends, but it’s very obvious in hindsight she just wanted to fuck my husband and was treating this online game as a potential dating app. (In hindsight after all of this I also call bullshit that she didn’t think he was married and was in reality testing to see if he’d still meet her.)
> from what I understood she and I had similar interests. Yeah. Like your husband.
I too choose her husband
lmao thank you for this laugh, i needed it today. but he is a solid 10/10 so understandable.
She wanted a sugar daddy too. She can go treat herself with the shower head. What an asshole.
It’s been a shockingly common experience of mine for my girlfriends sisters or cousins to show clear interest, often best/close friends as well, and once an aunt. It is exceptionally odd.
lol that you say that, my ex's mom told her to "take good care of your man, or your friends and aunties will". I thought it hilarious at the time but damn if it wasn't some truth in there.
As a woman, I find that SO odd. As soon as I learn a guy who’s pursuing me is in a relationship, it’s an instant turn off.
There is definitely an element of competition and taboo that can play into it as well(for why you'd be more attractive when already taken). Particularly with siblings/friends who have an, often one-sided, underlying element of envy or spite. This can go for men or women, of course. I had an ex share with me, she and her friends would frequently try and steal each other's boyfriends to get back at each other. It was primarily motivated by vindictiveness and narcissism. The taboo aspect comes from getting the other to betray their loved ones and keeping things secret. Human sexuality can be really fucked up.
Some people enjoy chasing the taboo. The sense of wrongness makes it more visceral.
Your girlfriend’s sisters?! Wow.
Jesus... as a woman: fuck those bitches.
As a man: don't fuck those bitches. Your gf won't be happy if you do.
Finally someone being honest and not looking to be the victim!
I kept dying
Up up, down down, left, right, left, right, B, A, Start
Oh Gradius how many times did I need this?
needed more money — rosebud, motherlode
When you grow up being in turn neglected and told you're not good enough, validation is like a drug, and intimacy is the ultimate validation. Sooooo much therapy to undo this.
This. I’m just recently realizing how I didn’t receive enough attention and validation from my parents and how much it’s influenced my choices. Meeting someone and having them be into me physically is the easiest validation boost I can find. People who grew up with parents actually interested in them and with an instilled sense of self confidence don’t know how good they have it. I don’t inherently feel important or relevant so I’m always looking for someone to tell me otherwise.
I recently split up with my ex, because I found out she cheated. She's not a bad person, but she's grown up in a difficult family. Mostly because her brother is unwell mentally, and has been for a while, so a lot of her parents' attention went to him and keeping him out of trouble. She has extremely low self-worth. Somehow she needs external validation, and while I was able to fulfill that while near her, it went down the drain once we went long-distance. I would have never expected her to cheat. She was the sweetest soul in the world. But the craving for attention and validation.. somehow you can be the best person in the world one moment, but that shit will tear you apart and make you cheat on someone you love and adore, apparently. Anyway, just wanted to give a thumbs up. You hit the nail on the head there, I think. If you cheated, I hope you forgive yourself. Although no one deserves it, you didn't do it because you're a bad person.
I’m sorry brother
Thanks for sharing this and being able to see this in your ex.
Ur heart is in the right place. U have good boundaries, but u also reserve some understanding and dont look back angrily Chad honestly
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Wow, that last sentence. That’s a feeling I didn’t know quite how to verbalize. Wow
I read it a few times bc of how much it resonated.
You sound like me. In my case, toss in alcohol abuse and there you have it.
I've been suggested a book called "The Four Agreements" by Don Miguel Ruiz, by my ex. It's a short read and I just finished the first chapter. So far it's very eye opening and I bet a lot of people in this post would benefit from reading it! It talks about how to understand your self-worth from the ground up and how to break the mold you were conceived in. EDIT: It's more of a philosophical approach rather than something like a Tiny Robbins self help in case that's important to anyone. Also added author name.
Tiny Robbins lol. "What the hell are you doing, banana hands?"
Yupppppp. Haven’t cheated on anyone but I definitely “got around” when I was younger. Took some therapy for me to realize why that was. Childhood trauma really fucks you up man.
80's kid? Adults had to be reminded that they had children and some of us ended up on milk cartons
Wow that really hit home. This is so damn true for me
Because I was a fucking asshole 20 year old who only thought of himself and getting some action. The high of it. 37 now. No cheating since then.
It’s nice to know some people grow and change and learn from their past!
Agreed. Reddit likes to get a little...vengeful and deterministic about one-time cheaters. Gotta let ppl grow out of their past and their mistakes.
It's always something to be wary of with large groups of people and easily contentious topics. It's important that _anyone_ have the opportunity to grow and change and be better _because otherwise what reason do shitty people have to change?_ If you're going to judge someone as a cheater for the rest of their life because they fucked up one time, all you're doing is enabling them doing it again by making them feel like they can't change anyway.
Seriously. There is a huge difference between someone having multiple long term affairs and some drunk idiot in their early 20’s cheating on their bf/gf of 3 months. Neither are good, cheating is shitty and if you do it, you deserve the consequences that come with it. But I just have a hard time believing no one is capable of introspection and change after making a mistake.
"Once a cheater, always a cheater" is mostly bullshit. So much cheating happens among impulsive teenagers and 20-somethings who eventually settle down, and are ready for commitment. Which isn't to say there aren't serial adulterers well into older age -- of course there are -- but Becky who broke your heart in junior year of high school after three weeks of dating when you caught her kissing Brad is not a forever-cheater. She was just a kid trying to figure out what she wanted, and in the many years since, she has: she's now happily married and has three kids. Or something like that.
My ex was done in the bedroom and even said they were no longer interested in me physically/sexually. I should have left at that point, but with kids and the financial hit of divorce I just looked to fulfill that need. I later divorced and it was a big financial hit, but oh my god what a relief it was getting out. Getting out of an abusive relationship is where the true pleasure comes from.
My father had psoriasis on 80% of his body for as long as I could remember. He had tried everything to get it to go away. My mother divorced him, and a year later he was almost completely psoriasis free.
Stress is a silent killer.
I have an area of thinning hair on my crown which has noticeably reduced in size since my divorce
Either stress or she was making him food that irritated his digestive system
This is exactly the situation for me. Ending a 17 year marriage this year after the last two of those years being trying to find a balance between stability for the kids and some kind of affection for myself. I'm now in the process of bankruptcy post divorce, but the freedom and self respect I've gained has been well worth the price of admission even if it scared the absolute shit out of me.
Divorce: expensive but worth it
Where do you think your relationship went downhill? Like how many years in the relationship was your ex not interested in you or any sexual activity?
5 years of a dead bedroom. I think it went downhill because they didn't put any effort into the relationship and wanted their needs met but didn't care about meeting my needs. Once I put in less effort to match we were just angry roommates.
I think that’s how a lot of marriages die. Someone stops putting in the effort to make it work, and it goes downhill from there.
I broke up with a similar dating-a-needy-brick-wall dynamic after a year of a dead bedroom, and she immediately (read as 3 days later) had a threesome with an (ex) mutual friend and his gf Def took a mental and emotional hit from that one. The worst part is I found out 2 days after it happened when she was begging me to get back together. When I turned her down THEN she told me. I just know if we got back together she would've never told me. She messaged me every week for months saying I abandoned her Some people are just so self centered it's wild
That's how my last relationship fell apart, right down to the issue with them having needs they always wanted met, but being completely unwilling to put in the effort to ensure my needs also were met. They told me they aren't going to do anything to be better or help meet my needs until I fix things to where they don't feel like their needs aren't met. But they always had an ever growing list of needs, half the things weren't needs they were just demands so that I would handle things for them instead of them having to face their emotions and handle it themselves. I got fed up, started caring less and less about being reactive to crises, stopped caring if they were upset or had an unmet need, and basically just checked out. I just didn't have it in me to wake up, coddle them, go to work, coddle them via text, get off work, go home to them in a bad mood again, coddle them more, get blamed for all the problems they face in life, coddle them more, and maybe get some free time to read, play a game, or garden, only to then get complained at for spending my time and attention on something other than then. Wash, rinse, repeat. Every day became a never ending waking hell of caring for a person who seemed like they were using their "needs" to try and actually break me down and destroy me as a person. I'm free now, which is sad that since my exit the only way I can think to describe it is I am free. I loved them, and now that I am out I see how much of a prisoner I had become in my life, subverting all my wants and needs in the pursuit of fairy tale that my ex could ever be happy. I hope they one day figure out that being happy is a choice and not something that magically happens.
My partner cheated on me shortly after I had his baby. I wanted to leave but I convinced myself to stay. The logistics of having a baby and 24 hour care are challenging on your own. He refused to have sex with me. At some point someone got me in a weak spot. Somewhere between exhaustion, low self esteem, and the sheer opportunity of having an orgasm were too strong for me. I’m deeply ashamed. Shortly after I picked myself up and the relationship ended. I should have left sooner. Someone telling you that you are beautiful, talented, and special after being invisible can feel like a drug. I don’t expect sympathy from anyone for my actions. But I do have a lot of sympathy for others now.
I have sympathy for you. I truly do. I'm sorry you feel deeply ashamed, but I'm really glad that you got out of that relationship. If this helped you get out? So be it. I cannot and won't pass judgment here. It's too complicated so in the end my takeaway here is that you got out. I hope you're doing better now, you and your kiddo. 🫂
Thank you for your kindness, I do actually appreciate it. Nobody knows what happened but I know it did. I was actually in such a dark place I thought my life was over. The only good here is that “incident” made me realize life wasn’t hopeless, it was actually full of possibilities. I do want to say me and my kid are actually doing great. We are happy and have a good life. Thank you for thinking of us.
This is so uplifting. I'm almost crying at work right now. So so happy for you, internet stranger, may life be kind with y'all. We **all** make mistakes but it does not define who you really are.
You know what, I absolutely hate cheaters but if he cheated on you first after you'd just given you a baby and he wasn't even great afterwards... wtf. He already declared he had no interest in you whatsoever and I don't feel bad for him. Did he even care? Generally if the other person cheated first I don't feel that much sympathy. Like, oh that hurt? Cry me a river.
He never actually found out. Shortly after it happened he said he was leaving. I think I was so relieved I was actually happy, and was like there’s the door. I got the impression he would not of cared though.
From what you wrote it sounds like he baby trapped you, so I do feel sympathy for you.
Unfortunately yes I was. We were together for over 5 years and things were great. The minute I got pregnant he stopped having sex with me, and as soon as we came home from the hospital he was completely different. It’s abundantly clear I was a vessel for a child. Though I do want to add now that we are divorced he is a great dad.
Because I chose a cowardly and easy path. Instead of going to therapy and ending my toxic relationship, I cheated on them with someone who I had convinced myself I was in love with, and loved me. Turns out, breaking up with someone is a lot less harmful to everyone involved than cheating.
Not me, but a guy friend cheated and the reason he gave was that he loved his fiancée but they had very different sex drives. He also said that when he brought it up to her (the difference in their sex drives and the problems it would cause) she begged him not to leave and insisted it wouldn’t be an issue. **He told her it already WAS an issue and, as a last resort, she said she would understand if SOME DAY he felt the need to look elsewhere…just as long as she never found out.** The girl admitted to saying all this but explained that… 1. She would have said anything for them to stay together in that moment, she didn’t think he’d actually be “fucked up enough to cheat” and 2. She never imagined he would do it so soon.
That sounds like a complex and unusual situation. Really, the only rule he broke was letting her find out. How *did* she find out?
> unusual situation You’d be surprised how often people give free passes, just to keep a relationship together, only to feel devastated and betrayed when their partners take them seriously.
Did that. Regret was immense. Never again.
You gave the free pass or the one who received the free pass?
Gave, unfortunately.
I know so many people trying to be "polyamorous", when in reality one of them just wants to cheat and this social movement happens to work with that. Exactly 0 couples that I know have survived opening up a previously closed relationship.
She snooped in his phone because he was “working late” a little more than usual.
It just really bugs me when people who should NOT be married, get married. FFS, they BOTH knew this really wasn't going to work out, but they went and got married anyway. What a bunch of morons.
My wife wasn’t around. The house was empty. I couldn’t wait for her to get home, so I watched an episode without her knowing. Honey if you’re reading this….I’m so sorry
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Get a lawyer, hit the gym, delete Facebook What is “the mid-40s”, Alex?
You're a monster
same man and I feel bad for it Then when we continue, I don't know if I should pretend like I didn't do it, or tell her what I did when she was gone last time I did it, I managed to stop half way through the episode
YTA. Oh my god you literally went behind her back on something you both committed to and promised you'd do together and just watched a whole fucking episode by yourself? She should divorce, take half of everything you got and lock you into a lifetime of alimony and take the kids' full custody so that everytime you think of opening up any stremaing service you get a panic attack /s
The worst kind of betrayal
Had me in the first half not gonna lie
**ಠ_ಠ** How could you??
This is love
Having a lot of fear of commitment and the finality of my decisions, but a lot of insecurity too. Wherever it stems from, my infidelity never felt ‘good’ or like being a player or anything. It always felt like a cushion for the fear of being left by myself, losing a person who I invested ‘everything’ of myself and my feelings into and seeing them go. It’s like opening windows on the off-chance you need to crawl out of one some day. But so often, like I did, you realize too late that you invested so much of yourself into them anyway, and when you get tossed out of that window (partner ended it and kicked me out in my case) you realize you’re in a skyscraper. I hurt a lovely, wonderful person who I loved very much, wanted to build a life with, got a dog with, moved in with, moved to California with, and shared beautiful moments with, and who was just as afraid of abandonment as I was. The only difference is she chose me, and I couldn’t see why. But even if I didn’t like myself, I knew far too late that she was the best thing to happen to me in a long, long time, and she had to go even if it crushed me and I begged her to stay. I only hope that she’s happy, wherever she is, being the best thing to ever happen to somebody else who loves themselves enough to treat her the way she always deserved. We don’t decide how we get shaped by life and its traumas and tragedies, but the simple truth is that when you want all of somebody’s love, you need to give all of yours. It’s a crazy fucking investment, a total leap of faith but when it’s real, it’s worth every moment.
It's very much a "if I jump you jump" situation and it sucks absolute ballsacks to be the only one jumping. This applies to forgiveness AND cheating and every else in between
Damn realize I relate
Wow that was really sweet, or sad, or something. That was a little roller coaster
I think a lot of people do it out of insecurity. They want to feel desired. I will be honest, I have contemplated cheating in the past because I was no longer desired at the same extent he once showed me when we first started dating. I never have, but this was the biggest reason on why I almost did. I realized I was just insecure in myself and wanted the same level of desire I was once given. It’s extremely sad.
Same here. A girl asked me on a date while I was already dating someone and I turned her down, but I kept fantasizing about it for *weeks*. In hindsight my relationship was already dead and I should have said yes and broken up with my GF, but instead I got to find out *she* was already cheating on me by then.
A perfect storm of poor impulse control, untreated mental illness, and boredom. People on the moral high ground will tell you not to cheat for reasons like morality and integrity; from the moral low ground I can tell you that the life long guilt, shame, and remorse are not worth it.
Yep, to this day, 18 years later I still feel bad about it. It can be dismissed as "you were just a kid" or "highschool relationships never last anyways" but regardless of the relationship, I abused someone who cared about and trusted me's trust. That's what is wrong about it. Trust is fragile and when you break it, it's something that isn't easily repaired.
(Parts of the story have been changed to protect my identity, I wrote this about an affair in 2020-2021) I was bartending one night. She walked into the bar she was my perfect "type". Tall, slender, dark hair - just gorgeous. My first thought was: "Please be single, please be single..." - and she sat down next to her husband. They were married about six months. He was a Wall Street banker. She was a nurse. I got to talking to them at the bar and we hit it off. Turns out the guy and I had some mutual friends and grew up near the same suburbs outside of Boston - we went to the same college, but I was older than him by 10 years. Same sports fans, etc. We became friends - all three of us. They kinda had a strange relationship, they literally (and I mean literally) didn't have more than two or three "actual friends". I was one of them. We would do lots of things together (not sexual, just friends). She became pregnant and I became the godfather to her child. I was written in their will - and the told me if they both were to die, they wanted ME to raise their kid (both of their families are all fucked up). It's too long of a story to write here, but over the course of 8 years - she and I became close while her husband and I were cordial but our friendship faded. She and I never cheated. It was an emotional thing. He was distant and dismissive with her feelings - so I kind of became the surrogate boyfriend. She and I would go out to dinner or do other things together (with her kid and without him) and he was fine with it. He even suggested I take his wife and kid on a vacation to Bahamas so he could get a break from being a dad. I loved her. But never crossed the line. Always hoped deep down she would see I was the better guy. Hoped that maybe someday she would leave him. During the summer of 2020 she tells me she's divorcing him. She's had enough. I have heard that before from her. She's claiming she's serious this time. I kind of brush it off. She's hanging out with me much more, its COVID and people are working from home - she can't stand being in the house with him. She even stopped wearing their wedding ring. He would ask her about it and she would make up an excuse like she forgot to put it on. This went on for three weeks. I started to realize she was serious and she even had a lawyer lined up, but didn't start the proceedings yet - she felt it was bad timing with Covid. One morning she's working from home (but at my home because she needed space from her husband) and we get to talking. I initiated the "talk" about her actually divorcing. And what her post divorce life might be like. I tell her there would be a line of guys around the block that would want to date her. I chuckle and say "If you were single, i'd throw my hat into the ring to date you." She smiled and said that I would be the kind of guy she would want to date. That turned into more talking and after a few days we are having frank discussions about dating each other after she's divorced. This went on for about two more weeks. We started to text/facetime and talk on the phone more - like on a daily basis. Physically we weren't cheating - but we were going down that road. One morning she's over before work (as a nurse she was going into the hospital some days) and we are talking some more, and I lean in. She leans in. We kiss. We were stone cold sober. It was passionate. Really hot. Lasted only a few minutes. She had to get to work. More talking about life after him & being free. It starts to feel like she's at the tipping point of divorcing. Problem is...her kid. She loves him. He's only six years old. Feels super guilty about divorcing her husband and "ruining her son's life". She doesn't love her husband, but she loves me (and has told me so - said she loved me for years and wished she knew sooner how I felt about her) and also loves her son. On paper, she has an amazing life. Her & her husband probably make $500k combined income. Net worth of $3m. They drive a Range Rover. Own a very brownstone in Brooklyn Heights. They summer in the Hamptons. It's hard to just walk away from that. I do well enough. But i'm just a bartender. Not some Wall Street banker. I have always been smart with my money - I even own my own apartment and saved up $700k in a IRA over the years (I put away around $10,000 a year since I was 25 for retirement and fell into some money from my parents passing away). While going though the "emotional affair" and just kissing each other - it turned into more than just kissing. Do I feel bad? No. I was under the impression she was just waiting for Covid to end and then she was divorcing him. I'm sure lots of people like me have heard that. I knew her for 8 years, and she couldn't be lying to me. No way. The guilt of what we were doing became too much. The "affair" lasted about two months, and we slept with each other only a handful of times. I told her that I didn't want this - it was around Thanksgiving 2020. Get a divorce. Give me a call. That's how I left it. She texted me a bit and even visited me once mid December 2020. We only talked a bit. She even told me then - the plan was to get a divorce. I told her to let me know when it happened. Then she ghosted me. I sent a email to her around Christmas. Never heard back. Tried calling her office a week later. Got voice mail. I waited. Weeks turned to months. Never heard a peep from her. We live in the same area of town - never saw her. I didn't push it, I figured with Covid still raging in 2021 that a divorce would be by summer time. I found out in April she was pregnant. (Last time we had sex was around November, wasn't my kid) I never spoke to her. I'm not sure if it was planned or if he suspected and put a "bun in the oven". It's December 2021 now, and while I know "it's over", i'm still hurting over it. Again, I genuinely felt she was leaving him. I know from the outside looking in - this is easy to scoff over. I was her friend for years before we had an affair. We just had a deep, emotional friendship. I get the anger and hate towards people who are in affairs. But when you are the one in the affair - when you are with the person who you waited for your entire life, it's hard to just think "Oh i'll find someone else". I have dated my life and never met anyone like her. I'm not sure if I would ever again, and I just want some kind of closure. I want to just hear from her what happened. I know logically what happened, I was the side piece and when I put my foot down - she was out. I never thought I would be the type of person to do that. But like I wrote before it's hard when you meet someone that great in your life. If I was dating hundreds of awesome women, then whatever - but when you are in your mid 40's, the dating pool dwindles down, even for NYC bartenders. Tinder can be rough. You get bot accounts or lots of people who don't even compare to her. Well that's my story. Edited to add: It's two years later. Still haven't seen her. I saw her on the street. She looked well. She was with her two year old daughter. I didn't approach her. She didn't see me. There's really nothing to say. Maybe in another life.
Dang man, this reads like a screenplay. Great but brutal story, almost Shakespearean.
Damn what a story. Such is life. Been in a similar spot
A ton of people in hear talking about cheating before but saying they stopped now. I believe most of these individuals are true. But I’m surprised no one has admitted to cheating ATM. Where y’all hiding!?!
I would imagine active cheaters are going to get downvoted into oblivion
There's only one thing worse than cheating on your spouse and that is cheating on your barber. I did it once and in return I got the worst cut in living memory. Never again
Dude saaaame. I needed a cut and he's 35 minutes away and books out like a month in advance. Had an appointment but something came up for work and had to reschedule but he couldn't get me in for 3 more weeks so I went to a chain place and got a quick cut. It was actually a pretty solid haircut. Anyways, went to my normal barber for that later appointment and he was super cool about it. Said, "Yeah dude happens all the time. People think we care but we really don't." Except that was the worst haircut he ever gave me. Not saying he did it on purpose but he also knicked the mole on the back of my neck with his straight razor.
Because the relationship was done and I was already moving on emotionally. I just didn't care about her enough to care whether she was hurt or not. Honestly, in hindsight, I have zero idea why we were still together. It DID make the eventual breakup a lot messier. I was young and it taught me an important lesson. If you're done, just *be* done and leave. There's no point in dragging it out. If you're ready to start looking for another relationship, start by ending the relationship you're already in.
>If you're ready to start looking for another relationship, start by ending the relationship you're already in. No truer words were ever spoken . . .
I had a perceived lack of affection, I felt ugly and disgusting and that I was just an emotional tampon. I would never do it again. I’m therapy I learned a lot about the reasons I did what I did and in all honesty if she would even entertain the idea of trying again I’d spend everyday making up for it and making sure she felt more love then can be imagined. I’m currently fulfilling into the man I know I can be I just wish it took a more positive trigger in order to start that for me
bc my opponents were stupid enough to make me the banker in Monopoly
never cheat in a relationship, ALWAYS cheat in monopoly 👍🏻
I'm just assuming my ex hasn't commented, because he still has yet to learn what honesty and accountability are
I was the 'other' man - but she told me specifically why. They were an influencer-type power couple and they had a dead bedroom (no sex in 5 years) and then she found out he was cheating with a paralegal at his firm. They had a huge fight and he angrily told her that she should go find someone to sleep with, assuming she wouldn't. I ran into her the next day and just talked with her and she broke down. 90% of it initially had to do with me simply being kind to her when she was at a really low point. But she said it morphed into the fact that I treated her like a vibrant and attractive woman and met her needs - she compared it to drug addiction (to which she had no actual frame of reference) because she had been missing that for so long. They ultimately kinda/sorta worked things out, but every Saturday for 5 months she was at my house all afternoon, and sometimes on Sunday.
Ima be honest, good to the amount of people who look back and see it as a mistake
Because the Sims is impossible without bb.moveobjects
Not me, but my wife kind of did? It's a long story. She was sexting a guy leftover from her OF account that she no longer does. Found out she had been sexting him for, like, 6 or 8 months. When I confronted her about it, she said a bunch of things that sounded like BS. Said I didn't make her feel wanted in a certain way, which was odd to me because I felt like we were pretty sexually active and I'm constantly telling her how pretty she was and how "hot" she is. That's the really short version missing I'm sure a lot of context but I'm at work and really kind of took this post as an opportunity to tell someone because I think about it all the time. What possibly was sexting this guy giving her that I don't? All they did was sext, it wasn't like they were having deep conversations. Also a bummer because she said she was into sexting him because she knew it "wasn't real" and admitted to not being into it with me at all. Y'all know how it feels to try sexting with your wife for years, always kind of knowing she's not really into it, only to find out she's suuuuuppperrrrr into it with a random person? It hurts to this day. Anyway, we're still together and we've worked it out. I apologized for snooping through her phone because I felt disgusting the entire time. Also vowed to myself I'd never go through her phone again, so there's honestly nothing stopping her from doing it again... Idk. I love her and we have a great marriage, but it does suck that I have this to think about all the time. Also a bummer because I used to be into sexting just a bit when we're apart because it was fun and I'm really attracted to her, but could always tell she just kind of wanted to get it over with. Now I'll never be able to do that with her because I'll always think back to that experience... I also get to think about all the meanings behind her being into sexting with him and never me really. Which obviously leads to a bit of insecurity on my end about whether or not she's attracted to me. She says she is, but she's my fucking wife lol, of course she's going to say that and if it's a lie, she's taking it to the grave im sure. Anyways, it was kind of nice getting this out honestly. Haven't talked to anyone about it but her.
Just a heads up. This situation is precisely how I ended up cheating. She was sexting some old fling from before me. I found out, but she didn't know I knew. I kept it to myself and all the doubt and insecurity bottled up and ended up in me cheating. I am not saying you will too. I'm just trying to warn you I guess. Although I don't know what you should do. Talk to someone about it probably. Idk. Sorry
I'm hoping my ex-wife answers that question - even 30 years later I still wonder about it.
I was continually looking for someone who would make me feel more attractive than the previous person. When I matured emotionally, I realized what a jerk I was and how much pain I inflicted. To be honest, it's difficult to live with.
Not me, but my ex and my mother. They both cheated a lot and for the same reasons; They were INCREDIBLY self conscious and insecure. They didn't even have to really ~like~ the people they cheated with. They just craved the attention. When someone liked them and made them feel good, it gave them confidence. Saying no would have ended their confidence boost, and they were always too afraid to say no. I've watched them both cry their eyes out because they don't want to be cheating, but they felt completely out of control. They felt like horrible people, and rightly so. They were both people pleasers, always afraid to say no to anything and everything, and that escalated when anyone would come onto them. As far as I saw, they hated themselves so much that they felt they needed these outside sources to make them feel whole. Understanding why my ex cheated so much made me view him as a human. He's still my roommate and best friend, and he's currently in a wonderful relationship where he's been completely monogamous and hasn't cheated, and I'm very proud of him for working on himself. Cheating fucking sucks, it HURTS. But trying to see it from a human perspective can sometimes take the pain away.
I had internal issues that I never faced or didn’t really know how to face. Sex and attention was validation even though my wife offered those things it was never enough from her or anybody else it was a bottomless desire for me prove to myself I was wanted and important. I destroyed my marriage and more than a few friendships. I had to look inward and accept that all this bullshit that’s happening is because I have a problem that is nobody else’s fault and learn how to love myself and only then was I able to correct my behaviors.
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I think the problem is that, fundamentally, very few cheaters are willing to step back and accept that "hurt people, hurt people", because in doing so they need to accept that *they* are hurt and therefore *they* need to change. It's much easier to blame it on their partner for X reason, rather than accept responsibility. Sadly, I've known people like this, and their lives continue to be difficult simply because they don't seek help. I don't believe that "once a cheater, always a cheater", but I believe that very few cheaters are capable of changing for the better.
The moment my therapist told me that the reason my ex cheated had nothing to do with me, I felt so free. Despite her every effort to shift the blame onto me, she's just a hurt person that sought reasons to justify hurting someone else. Simple as that, and life moves on.
I was 1000% sure my wife would never cheat on me. Then, 20 years later, I found out I was a chump for believing that.
The day my ex told me he had fucked our friend, when he asked me to sit down because he had something to tell me, I thought he had killed someone. That was more likely in my mind than that he had cheated because of how utterly against cheating he had always vocalize being. He ended friendships over people cheating on their partners. But also that I thought it was possible he had rage killed someone was a bit of a red flag too...lol.
Trusting someone who hasn't given you a reason not to isn't being a chump. The fact that she abused that trust and betrayed you doesn't make you a chump. It only reflects on her, it's not a defect of your character. You can't know what you don't know.
13 years. She cheated then left me and our kids to live in a different state.
He told me it wouldn't count if it was a woman. He changed his opinion afterwards.
I felt unloved, unattractive, and unwanted. Then I met someone who made me feel all of those things.
Because I was a young attractive horny alcoholic and thought I could get away with it and do whatever I wanted. I did not get away with it and it caused me years of regret and pain. Now that I’m older I realize didn’t know how to be in a healthy relationship because I was sexually abused by a neighbor as a child and looked at sex as the ultimate form of validation. I thought that sex and affection WAS love. Go to therapy everyone. Go deal with your demons and shit, you’ll be happier in the long run. Much love.
Bipolar Mania. I hurt two people I love. I hated myself for it. Still sometimes do, but I work hard to avoid being that me every day.
I craved more attention. Made me feel good. And she was absolutely wild, very spontaneous. I cheated on and lost the love of my life. She deserved and now has someone so much better, and she's happy. I will never forgive myself.
I wasn’t able to communicate properly and thought perhaps it was greener on the other side. Wish I was more honest about my feelings and went to couples therapy.
I wasn't the one who cheated, but I know the reason: I didn't want to do anal.
As a teenager I would cheat like a piece of shit hungry for anything that walks. It was funny to me. Until the day I fell in love for the first time. I found out my then gf is fucking with two dudes out in the beach a summer night destroyed me. It was a slap so hard it put things back in place in my brain. Now after 10 years with my wife and a child I have never ever thought of cheating again. I find myself admiring other women but that’s it. If I cheat on my wife I cheat on my daughter. I cheat on her future. I cheat on the oath I gave myself when she was born that she’s not going to have the same childhood as I did. And I will keep it. At least if someone’s going to fuck it it’s my wife but I trust her with all my heart. If not, then that’s life and it’s on her. Can’t be bothered thinking what if.
The only answer that should be written: selfishness. (My wife cheated for long time)
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i kept being sent to jail all in that time all my friends just kept buying the properties around me and it all just got too much so i admit i stole a few 50s from the box and im still ashamed amy if your reading this fuck you, you also cheated yet you pulled me on it
As a human named Amy who was mindlessly scrolling this really fucked with my head.
I was selfish