Betrayals always hurt the most when you catch them in real-time. These heartbroken lovers recount the moment they caught their lovers breaking their hearts. Ouch! Talk about heartburn. Content has been edited for clarity.
Fool’s Play
“I caught my ex cheating on me. Twice. Both times, in terrible ways. I did leave him the first time. But after months of begging and pleading, I allowed him back into my life. Stupid me. I blamed myself.
The first time I caught him cheating we had been together almost six years, the second time almost seven. It happened almost exactly one year after the first!
After getting back together again for just a few months, I found out I was pregnant. I was upset because something deep inside was telling me this was bad — this wasn’t who I should be with much less having a child with. We were still working on our issues together.
I told him as much and proceeded to ‘break up’ with him.
I said, ‘I know this isn’t what he wants, nor something that he is ready for, and that is okay. I’m ready, willing, and able to do this alone and he could be as involved (or not) as he liked.’
He said no, although he never wanted to have children he would do this with me. He also said he wouldn’t be an absent father.
I began planning since my lease would be up in about 4 months and while we didn’t live together he spent every night at my place and had a lot of his things there. We had a conversation about moving in together and moving to a different town closer to my family to have help and support. He was zero help. Another red flag, I should have known.
Down the road, we ended up living together and everything we both own, I bought and was paid for. Another red flag right there.
We went on vacation then came home and suddenly I felt like I was with someone different.
I tried to talk about it and his response was, ‘I’m not acting differently. I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
He was off at work almost an hour away so I was spending time with my sister and something just did not feel right. I had the sudden urge to go to his job and I couldn’t explain why.
At that moment his mom texted me asking how he was doing since she hadn’t heard from him, which was weird because he was supposedly visiting family the day before. That made me follow my gut, my sister came with me because she was worried I was pregnant and the stress would be too much.
We sat outside his job for a few minutes when he left with a girl and simultaneously texted me telling me how busy it is and he’ll be stuck late.
I played along, and we followed him while he followed her. He had the audacity to drive my car!
We let him arrive before I got out and went to the door.
I said, ‘Do whatever it is that you want to do but not in my car and with the things I worked hard to provide for you.’ I took his cell phone (really my cell phone which I had just upgraded for him a month ago) and the car keys and drove home.
I didn’t hear from him for a week. When I did he attempted to sway me with lies and this time I was not falling for it. I was 8 months pregnant and he was still with her. He texted me telling me he loved me and would be in the baby’s life but I know he won’t.
I know who and how he was. He was very manipulative and will tell everyone what they needed to hear to make him a good guy.
For example, he texted me nothing in the world would stop him from being there when the baby is born– he had no clue that I knew he went on vacation with her while I was in labor. He had no intentions of being there and meeting the baby but he never admitted it to me. Besides, I didn’t want someone like that there. I was happy with him staying away.
He had bad-mouthed me to make himself the victim. As I said, I was happy with him staying away, not because of the failed relationship but because as a father he was not a good role model in the slightest. He had done nothing to benefit his own life in preparation for being a father. And he had done nothing for my son, other than begging me for an abortion.
I didn’t want someone like that in my son’s life and he’s what keeps me going. My son. He was what I lived for and I obviously only wanted the absolute best for him! I was single and pregnant. And soon I would be single with a newborn.
This was immensely hard to do alone — emotionally hard.”
Trust Your Gut
“I came home early to surprise him. He and my best friend were both in their birthday suits in our house. The door was locked, bolted, and chained. When I finally got in, she was running au natural out of our back door.
He said nothing was going on.
I said, ‘Call her, have her come back, and let’s sit down and talk about it.’
She returned. We sat at the dining room table. He did all the talking. She never looked up or made a sound. To be honest, if he had just let her say anything, it would have eased the shock a little. I had my gut feelings about them but would have never believed it if I hadn’t seen them on my own.
So, after the initial shock, I moved out. Got a divorce. I met my now-husband who advised me I should thank them. If they hadn’t done what they did, I wouldn’t have him.”
Missed Red Flags
“I had gone to the lake house in Arkansas with my twin sister, nieces, twin grandnieces, and my son. I returned to our city home early. Laurie answered my door in my robe.
She said, ‘What are you doing in the city? You are supposed to be at the lake.’
I had no idea what I could have said or would have done differently. My family was unloading the bags and I didn’t want to cause a scene. I had suspected this affair was going on for years.
My things were moved to the lake house or the city house. My ex would leave the room to take calls. There were signs but I was consistently told ‘You’re crazy’ by him when I would question my watch or jewelry being in a different place or a dress missing.
I kept clothes and personal items at both houses. One of my bathing suits was left hanging over a banister. I would never do that. I was obsessive with cleanliness. But each and every time I questioned these oddities, my ex accused me of being crazy. Because I had my family with me and I was embarrassed and shocked, I went to a hotel for the weekend and filed for divorce the following Monday.”
Home Invasion
“I came home from a trip a few days early to surprise him with some gifts I got him. They didn’t hear me come in, but I could definitely hear them upstairs. I thought he was just watching adult entertainment, but when I went up I saw them in our bed.
I pulled out my phone and recorded as much as possible while furiously shaking. Then, I went downstairs and left the gifts with a note attached, and signed it. I went to a friend’s house and told him what happened and showed him the video.
About an hour and a half, after I got to his friends, my husband started blowing my phone up. He left messages saying it wasn’t what I thought. So I sent him the video I took.
I’m not big on revenge. However, he had another girl in my home and worse, in my bed. I didn’t answer a single call or text. I asked our friend, whose house I was over if I could stay a few days to calm down and figure out what I wanted to do. Our friend, in an effort to cheer me up, offered to cook and make some drinks. We ate and we drank…a lot. I ended up sleeping with our friend every day for three days and recorded us (without his face). Then I sent them to my husband.
Every day.
When I returned home, we had a very long talk. We both agreed to never do it again, and work on moving forward. That was three years ago, and he has been on his best behavior ever since. I know it wasn’t the best option of getting back at him, I admit it was wrong.”
Did It Have To Be There?
“I was working nights at the time when one day I was running late and forgot my lunch. When my break came around, I ran home to grab it. I drove a 1963 Impala SS, and it was loud, so I turned it off and coasted half my block home.
They must’ve been trying to hit every room in the house because their discarded clothes started in the living room and trailed to our bedroom. The prick and the miserable wench were in our three-year-old son’s room.
Our son was with his grandma for the week.
Thinking quickly, I gathered their clothes as quickly and quietly as I could and grabbed a double arm full of hers from our closet, and tossed them into the front seat of his mustang. I only had a small bottle of rubbing medicine in my first aid kit in my car.
But it was enough.
His car keys were in his pants pocket, so I lit the clothes, locked the doors, and drove back to work. It was thirty years ago and the statute of limitations has expired so I can freely talk about it.
Sure it was a bad, impetuous idea that could have gone horribly wrong. But it didn’t. And she had to look me in the eye and try to lie her way out of explaining her burns, and why her ex-boyfriend was at the same hospital with his burns. Both had minor burns but the fire department insisted they get them looked at. She didn’t even bother to think about all of their missing clothes.
I firmly believed all cheaters deserve what his nice, innocent mustang got.
Special Delivery
“I came home very sick with the flu one day and went up to my bedroom. My husband was in my bed with the mail lady!
I told them both to get out of my house.
He argued he needed sleep because he worked overnights. And he needed clothes and toiletries.
I told him all his clothes would be alongside the garage by Monday. It’s where the garbage was kept. I also told him to take a shirt and some stuff and to take a hike. He could take a shower at her house or work.
I packed up his stuff in garbage bags along with the topper for our wedding cake and some mementos from our honeymoon. I was being passive-aggressive, I agree, but how dare he sleep with her in our bed, in our home.
We had a two-year-old and a six-month-old. He was just wrong. He showed up a month later crying to me that she had broken up with him.
I told him too bad and I didn’t feel bad for him in the least. I got the house(and mortgage) in the divorce. It was ok because I wanted the kids to stay in their home and school and I made more money.
Money was the root of all of our issues. He felt inadequate because I was a senior manager and he was doing maintenance work.
This was no issue for me, just for him.”
Kisses For The Misses
“We had a family dinner for Christmas and she opened a message on her social media from her lover without thinking I would see the message. She didn’t realize I was standing behind her while she was sitting down at the table.
The message said, ‘Merry Christmas. Can’t wait to see you’ with a kissing emoji.
When she inevitably left her phone lying around I opened her social media account and posted a photo of myself. I put it on her story and left it with the same text her lover sent her.
‘Merry Christmas. Can’t wait to see you’ with the kissing emoji.
My wife and her lover discovered I knew. It’s been fun watching her squirm through the family get-together.”
Guess Who
“My father had just died and I had been struggling with dealing with a grieving mother with mental issues as well as work. My wife had been using my old phone temporarily for social media since hers was getting repaired.
One night I heard my old phone in my bedside drawer pinging with messages from her social media inbox. She hadn’t logged out of my old phone when she got hers back. I read the messages between her and some unknown guy. They were flirting and the flirts had gotten more and more openly suggestive.
As I read it, I realized the guy was also married and thought it was harmless fun. He eventually asked my wife to back off because it was getting too much for it to be some friendly fun.
At this point, I used my phone to jump into the middle of the conversation to tell them I could see the lot.
My wife came upstairs while I packed a bag to get away from her before I made a ruckus and woke the kids up. I didn’t want them to see me strangle their mother.
Which is what I wanted to do right then, but I kept my calm.
After a few hours of (quiet) shouting and eventually talking, she persuaded me to stay.
For a few weeks, things were rocky and I still had that doubt in the back of my mind so I hatched a plan to trick her into admitting she was up to something.
I bought a cheap pay-as-you-go phone and sent her a text just saying ‘hi beautiful, had to get a new phone, does your hubby know about us yet xx’.
She came back with, ‘Who is this?’
I answered, ‘Geez, how many lovers do you have?’
This text didn’t arrive with her until I was standing beside her in the kitchen. She grabbed her phone and ran out the door saying she had to pop to the local shop to get something she had forgotten.
As soon as she left I got a text saying, ‘Please stop texting; he was right beside me when your last text came in’.
At this point, my heart fell from my chest. I texted her back to say she had better come upstairs when she gets back.
She very sheepishly came into the room with her face white as a sheet.
I calmly asked her who she thought it was texting.
She gave me the name of someone I’d never heard of before.
I told her if she didn’t admit to everything now she could pack her bags and get out of the house immediately. She’d had a six-month emotional affair with this guy (think flirty texts leading to a few dirty pics) that had eventually ended up with them having a one-off meeting (so she said).
The worst thing was it wasn’t even the guy I’d caught her flirting with, which started my doubts in the first place. He’d been a friend of her brothers twenty years earlier and they used to flirt and joke about how they should get together. It never happened at that point, so in their mind, they had what my wife described as ‘unfinished business’.
We had a blazing row and I, for the first and only time in my life, punched a woman. Not my finest moment. I walked out and found this guy’s social media account and sent him a public message saying I knew what he had done and how I hoped he could look at his wife’s face and feel proud of what they’ve done.
I told him they had ruined mine and my kid’s life.
I ignored all calls from my wife for a while as I decided what to do. I went to collect some clothes when the kids were at school as I knew there would be shouting. The kids thought I would be at work. We shouted and fought and eventually were able to talk. She begged me not to leave even to the point of lying on my car bonnet as I tried to drive off.
Eventually, we decided to give it another try, marriage counseling, the works. I made her life miserable for two years because I couldn’t get over what had happened. I made her go over every detail over and over again.
From the texts, the meeting they had (which she found very embarrassing as I insisted on every minor detail, everything, almost second by second), where it was, any other possible thing that I could use to try and catch her out, to prove she had lied about it only being a one-off.
She stopped going anywhere I didn’t approve of, didn’t go out with friends, and made sure that when I was away with work I could contact her at any time.
I eventually realized I was torturing her for something she had apologized for hundreds of times both in words and actions.
I sat her down and asked if she really wanted to keep going.
She said she did and not just for the sake of the kids but because she did love me. I decided from that day on to try to get over the worst betrayal I could imagine and get on with trying to live a fulfilling life with her.
That was nearly ten years ago. I still on a bad day think about what went on and doubt some of the rehashed stories in my mind. But those days are getting further apart.
At times I think if we had gotten divorced at the time it would have been easier on us both, but we have had to work so hard at the relationship that there’s no way either of us will mess it up by doing something stupid ever again.”
Hit The Road Jack
“We’ve been together for three years, with the last nine months being long distance, due to me receiving cancer treatment in another state. I suspected something the last couple of weeks because she had become very detached and more active socially.
Last night, my birthday coincidentally, I messaged her and she told me she was out at dinner. I thought she was being cold because we had a fight a few days prior when I suggested she was cheating and she vehemently denied it.
I texted her I was in the neighborhood and only wanted to see her for fifteen minutes.
As I pulled up to her apartment, I asked if she was with another guy and she said no. I knocked on the door and after a long while, she answered it in a neglige.
I said I understood if she didn’t want to see me right then but asked to use the bathroom.
And she said no.
I thought this was odd since she knows I’m undergoing cancer treatment and what the side effects are. I again looked at her face, looked down again at her negligee, and finally guessed that she wouldn’t let me in because there was a guy in her room.
I told her that after three years I was entitled to know who he was.
She said it was her friend’s brother.
As she was saying this a Hispanic male who was about five foot four, came out of her room wearing a cheap t-shirt and jeans and bellowed with a deep Spanish accent, ‘Is this guy bothering you?’
I then realized this had gone on long enough and he was more welcome in her apartment than I was.
I told her that if I left, it would be the last time we would ever speak.
I walked downstairs, into my car, and out of her life forever.”
Close Quarters
“I saw a close friend of mine caressing my girlfriend’s leg under the bench. The most shocking part was my girlfriend felt so comfortable with it. This happened during my MBA days.
We were in the classroom and were in the middle of some lecture. My girlfriend was sitting beside me and my close friend was sitting exactly behind her. My pen’s top fell down and I bent down to pick it up. They were so into it that they hadn’t realized I had caught them in the act.
I felt very bad. As if someone was slowly trying to pierce this hot needle inside my heart. It was the kind of pain I had experienced seeing them this comfortable with each other.
The thing about me is I am always in control of my emotions. I didn’t create a scene. I had sat there the entire lecture.
The entire three hours of the lectures I stewed in the realization my best friend and girlfriend had disappointed me. This dawned on me so bad. I was confused about whether to cry or laugh at the kind of situation I had gotten myself into.
Just as soon as the lecture was over, I packed my bag and was leaving home for the day. When she caught hold of me. She had the nerve to ask where I was going without telling her.
I told her what I saw.
I asked her to make up her mind about what she wanted from life and not to fool around with people’s emotions. Before she could utter something else, I left from there.”