Unfortunately, some of us know what it's like to be cheated on and know the outcomes, but what about the other perspective? These stories come from self-proclaimed homewreckers, both unwitting and intentional. Anger burns just as bright as love.
Well, At Least She’s Honest
“Had an affair with a married man. Yes, I knew he was married. Yes, I knew his wife. Yes, I thought she didn’t understand him and we were true love. Yes, he ended up cheating on me with a married woman who ended up leaving her 2nd husband for my ex. They are still together. It was the worst thing I ever did and I hope when I die his ex-wife joyfully dances on my grave; I deserve it.”
Out Of A Breakup Came A Friendship
“This is how I met my best friend! I started seeing the guy she had been dating on and off for two years. Of course, he told me they were completely over but that wasn’t true. She found out about me and was ticked off at him and when I found out that he had been pleading her to take him back, I broke up with him. I decided to reach out to her to make sure she realized I really wasn’t trying to get in between them and that he had completely lied to me about the status of their relationship. She was super nice and told me she wanted to meet up to talk more so we did and ended up putting together the time lines of everything. I took her on the trip I was supposed to go with him on a few weeks later and we just got back from another trip a few days ago! She’s moving out of state in a month and I’m really bummed because we have become so close but I know it’s what she wants to do so I support it! She’ll always be the Louise to my Thelma though.”
Fell In Love With My Best Friend
“Fell in love with my best friend at 17. He was in a multi-year long relationship with an amazing woman, but I didn’t really know her. He told me everything I wanted to hear and was the first man I’d met to express that kind of interest in me. I was young, dumb, and insecure.
So I fell for it (and all the nonsense he spewed about the reasons his girlfriend wouldn’t be mad, he was protecting her mental health by staying with her even though they were totally done, she was unstable, etc.) and we were in a full-blown romantic and intimate affair for a few months. He ended up kind of ghosting me after that, gaslighting me about the seriousness of our relationship, and continuing to date his girlfriend until she left him for another guy (good riddance).
I struggled with trust and self-loathing for a long time after that. Ended up dedicating my life to researching and treating infidelity/relational challenges. I now work as a couples therapist and am very passionate about what I do!
I want to someday publish research on the psychological rationalization and aftermath that extradyadic partners (homewreckers) experience. For how common it is, there is virtually no research about that third person, what gets them to participate, and the impact. I am also in a loving relationship with a great guy.”
Then Everything Started Escalating…
“I don’t know if I was the only homewrecker or if there were more, because I know that he is cheating on his new girlfriend but here’s the story: I was on and off a relationship and this happened during the months that I was single. I met this guy at the gym, where my ex-boyfriend also worked, this new guy was also a trainer. When I met him I knew he had a girlfriend and a child, but he was handsome and I was heartbroken because of my other relationship. So we started talking at the gym, then I added him on Facebook, we met at a bar once and that night we kissed.
Then everything just started escalating, we would kiss at the gym, we would see each other at night but so far no fooling around. Then the unfortunate day I arrived. I went to a bar with some friends and I knew he was going to be there, so I told him that we should meet. I got really messed up, ended up going with him and I don’t even remember if we had slept together or not, I just have some flashbacks of being in his car with him. I only remember seeing him and then everything is completely erased from my memory.
So I may or may not have slept with him, I felt so bad because I didn’t remember anything and I even lost my phone. After that night I felt like I reached the lowest point in my life, I felt so lonely because of my previous relationship and I wanted attention from a man that I knew wasn’t available. I really don’t care that much about his relationship, because the one that had to be loyal to someone was him, not me, but I didn’t want to keep looking for attention in those places. So after that, I erased him from Facebook and didn’t talk to him again. His girlfriend and him eventually broke up, I don’t know if she knew about me. He now has a different girlfriend and is also cheating on her. He tried to get in touch with me a couple times but now I am in a happy relationship so just ignored him.”
She Was Only A Teenager
“Ughhh….here it goes. Slept with a married man for years. He lied and told me they were divorcing as soon as the kids got out of high school and they were only together for the kids. She ended up showing up at my work and confronted me….of course, I told the truth and holy cow did my life suck after that. I fell for the lies hook, line, and sinker.
Turns out he was a nympho. Had been with many, many women and I guess I was the only one dumb enough to tell her the truth. I was known as the homewrecker and 20 years later it still gets thrown in my face. Funny how the one that had vows with her and children got zero punishment, yet I got bashed and shunned for falling for his nonsense.
I was only a teenager (19) then. It literally destroyed my life and self-esteem. He was a professional manipulator that took advantage of a young naive girl and wrecked her young world. God, I hate that man.”
She Never Could Get Over The Fact
“I was into a coworker in college, and we started hanging out after work smoking and cruising even though we both knew he had a girlfriend. It was platonic, until it wasn’t.
He eventually left his girl but by then I had realized if he would do that to his long-term girlfriend why wouldn’t he do it to me at some point? Even a year later when we reconnected after both dating other people, I still couldn’t get over that thought. Never did officially date him, which is too bad because I did really like him.”
Something Inside Her Just Clicked With Him
“I fell in love with a guy who had been dating his girlfriend for four years. When I met him for the first time at the fast food place where we worked, something inside me clicked into place. ‘This one,’ it said. I shrugged off the feeling and ignored him for three months. Then we started hanging out when a mutual friend demanded both of us spend time with her. That’s when I fell for him.
He was kind, generous, thoughtful, patient, soft-spoken… and in a long-term long-distance relationship! SHE went to a different college three hours away and couldn’t make time for him, apparently. He had a lot of time to spare and asked me to spend it w him. I tried to convince myself to not see him, to not text him, not spend time with him alone, but it didn’t work. I missed him too much. And he seemed to miss me too?? What???
We spent the school semester and the summer hanging out, being “just friends,” and being the cutest couple that never was a couple. We spent hours talking, he introduced me to all his friends and family, and any time he wasn’t with HER, he was with me.
He broke up w her out of the blue one Sunday that summer. I kissed him on Wednesday. And he got back together with her on Friday, with an ‘I’m sorry’ to soothe me… In the end, I can only blame myself. He had never said he like-liked me. He never tried to make things intimate between us. He hadn’t promised me anything except that our friendship would never end. In the end, I hurt myself and he lived his life.
The result? I got super dramatic and swore I wouldn’t love anyone else. Now I’m afraid that’s probably true because in the seven years that have passed since then, it’s hard for me to even have a crush on someone. I’m trying to recover from my self-sabotage but honestly, I don’t know if I can do it.”
Turns Out That Wasn’t Him!
“Hooked up with a long time co-worker in college. He texted me the next day asking weird questions about what we did. I replied how he was acting suspicious and gave a few details. Turns out it was his crazy controlling on/off girlfriend after she stole his phone and locked herself in his car to text me. I didn’t feel any kind of way about it because I had no idea that they were in a Ross/Rachel break period instead of really broken up. They eventually really broke up.”
Watch Out For Lying Dudes
“I was unknowingly a homewrecker. I happened to meet an old acquaintance from high school about 10 years after high school. Friend of a friend type of thing.
We chatted at the party we met at, exchanged numbers, and went out for a little while. He had a son and the relationship with the mother had ended about 6 months before we happened to see each other at that party.
One day, at work, I get a call and it’s a lady asking me questions about a dude I’m seeing. I told her everything, especially the part about being told they had broken up months prior. I had nothing to hide and nothing to lie about. I told her everything, as I would prefer it if someone did that for me.
She called me for months, it got to the point that I had to tell her to leave me alone.
A year later I help my SIL by walking her dog a couple of times a day while she’s out of town. Here comes a lady running down the street yelling my name. The interrogation begins, why am I walking SILs dog, etc. I tell her the deal, very polite.
Turns out she was GREAT friends with SIL, it was like I could never escape this lady.
Even more years later and the timeline memories are messed up, she begins telling SIL I was cheating on her brother (my husband) with her man. The whole horrible situation happened at least an entire year before I met my now-husband. Doesn’t matter, they are convinced.
All contact has been cut, moved states, just ridiculous.
Watch out for lying dudes! It was like an STD but it was a woman.”
Five Years And Two Kids Later…
“I was considered the homewrecker by everyone else anyway.
I got depressed. My boyfriend at the time was physically, emotionally, and physically abusive and I was at the tail end of getting the heck out when the rumors started, and it got more dangerous than ever. I’ve never felt as betrayed as I did by the friend that started them. I lost all my friends and 40 pounds that summer. And my mom was being diagnosed with cancer at this same time. It was a really hard time for me.
The funny thing is that I actually wasn’t interested in her boyfriend at all- until she started spreading this rumor in our small town and got everyone to ice us out.
Having no one else to talk to about what we were going through ended up with us confiding in each other after all, and eventually dating. Now we’ve been married for five years and have two kids. So it worked out. But forget her anyway. She knew about my boyfriend and still put me in danger like that to assuage her own guilt.”
She Couldn’t Tell The Truth
“I was hooking up with a guy for a while before I found out he had a serious long term girlfriend. Our ‘relationship’ had mostly burned out by then so I don’t think I hooked up with him after that.
She found out though and got ahold of me. I lied and told her we were just friends. She seemed like a super nice person and I felt like a piece of trash. I just didn’t want to add more drama to my life and I knew I was done with him by that point. Of course, he was a serial cheater and I think she ended up dumping him after she got wind of another mistress.”
“I Was The Homewrecker”
“I was the homewrecker.
We both joined a community group for a hobby we had. We got to know each other over a few years and eventually, we had a mutual attraction to each other. I was single and he was married and I knew that. We ended up having an affair for a year and half. I never pressured him to leave her because I didn’t want to force him to be with me. He eventually decided it was time and told his wife everything and decided to move out.
We have now been together for 14 years and we are both incredibly happy. I have an amazing relationship with each of his kids. The ex-wife and I actually get along really well too!
Although our situation worked out, I never ever ever want to be involved in an affair again. The stress, the guilt, the lying, and the worrying was way too much. Even after he ended the marriage, I still had thoughts of ‘what if he changes his mind’ or ‘he cheated on her, maybe he will cheat on me’. It took a very long time for me to be secure in our relationship.”
That Age Gap Though
“I was 18 and sleeping with another woman in her 30s. Turns out she was married to a man. She begged me to run away with her because it had made her realize she was a lesbian. I dumped her on the spot.
It destroyed her marriage though (her husband was my cousin’s boss).
I try to avoid older people now. It made me feel awful. It was just fun but she was the first woman I was ever intimate with.”
He Pulled The Wool Over Her Eyes
“Dated a guy for a bit, I had my first time with him. Only hung out on weekdays, because he had his daughter on weekends, no big deal. He worked construction and had winters off, and kind of ghosted after spring started.
Nine months later I get a call from an unknown number, a woman asking me if I ever slept with him. I said yes, but not since the spring. She hung up. Two hours later she called back and I learned everything.
She was his long-term girlfriend, lived out of town but spent weekends with him (he really did have a kid, though). He even told her about me in a sense, saying things like, ‘Anon and her boyfriend came over and we watched movies,’ or ‘I think Anon is coming on to me but I told her I’m not interested.’ In the spring, she moved back in with him.
Luckily she completely believed me. She’d had suspicious back then, but when she found texts on his old phone it solidified it. I felt so betrayed, but she was super cool. She stayed with him.”
Then Along Came Tony…
“My best friend was married to a guy named Tony. One day, my friends had forgotten my birthday and I was feeling down. Tony was there and he gave me flowers because he remembered. Feelings I didn’t know I had were there and… one thing led to another. We made out for a while and then left. My bestie found out because apparently, another girl we knew saw us. We ended up fighting before we were broken up. She then became my ex-best friend and I was ridiculed. I was bullied and called a floozy for two weeks before my BFF found a new boyfriend. Man Middle school was rough.”
Falling For The Lies
“I fell for the lies- they are breaking up soon, she’s waiting for the kid to graduate high school, they haven’t been intimate in years, she’s already seeing someone else…he even brought me to their house to see her boxes to prove she was leaving (ends up they were for their jointly purchased vacation house)- I was realizing slowly that it wasn’t all adding up when he ‘accidentally’ left his phone unlocked while she was home.
She called me livid- I refused to talk to her but told her I’d text as long as she wanted. She kept trying to goad me- saying I had to have known, they got it on all the time, they just bought a vacation house- I told her it really didn’t matter- I didn’t know they were “together” and as far as I was concerned he was all hers. She contacted me again a week later saying he told her I was just some crazy chick who wouldn’t leave him alone- I told her a few details to show I wasn’t lying but again it didn’t really matter, I was done with him. She contacted me AGAIN a month after that saying she’s dug through more of his emails and I wasn’t the only one- I told her it didn’t matter to me, I hadn’t had anything to do with him since the first time she called…that seemed to break her. I think she wanted to just blame it all on me, but clearly he’s been doing this awhile.
Ran into him months later, he asked how I’d been, I asked how SHE was- he said she’d left him not long after that last call. I said she was a smart girl.
I still feel terribly guilty- I should have seen right through all that mess. I have/had trust issues with relationships since then.”
Somebody Called The Police
“We were in high school at the time, working in a local restaurant. She had a thing with one of the cooks (who was in his 30’s), who had a serious, long term girlfriend that he claimed he was planning on leaving. It went on for a while and only a few of us knew. Then in the middle of the night, he parks in front of my friend’s house and calls her, wasted. She goes out and sits in his car with him for a few hours until he sobers up. Around 5 AM, she notices that this same car is going up and down the street and tells him he better go. She sneaks back in and watches him drive off, followed by the circling car.
Half an hour goes by and her parents get a call – it’s the police. Apparently, it was a cop neighbor who thought it was suspicious that a strange car was parked on his street. He followed the cook to the main road then pulled him over. When he questioned what he was doing parked on the street, the cook told the cop he was visiting his girlfriend. The cop apparently didn’t see my friend leave his car and called her parents to ask if she was dating this guy from her work. My friend, who’s from a very strict, very religious family had to deny it, and in a panic the cook speeds off, triggering a police chase that ends with him crashing his car. He lived but was arrested and fired, and my friend’s parents forced her to quit since they thought she was being stalked.
In the end, his GF figured it out (wasn’t the first time) and broke up with him. He had a previous strike and lost his license, then filed a complaint against the cop for not minding his own business (he was also out of his jurisdiction). My friend was not punished but gave up dating for a couple years. None of us eat there anymore.”
A Relationship She Won’t Forget
“My story is a bit of a mess, so many red flags I could make a quilt! When I was 16 I had a 30 yr old boyfriend. He started hanging out with his female housemate who was closer to his age. We split up and all of a sudden they were together. Three years later I move into a flat and discover he is living across the road with her. He tells me they are on again off again and that they are struggling, she had gotten pregnant and miscarried from stress because he didn’t want kids. At one point she goes away and he tells me that they are split so we end up sleeping together again. She comes back and he says they are only sharing the house, not a bed. One night she rocks up at my door and says he has just proposed to her using my name. I end up trying to kill myself due to feeling like I was only ever going to be a toy for men. I moved away and started working on myself.
Years later I run into him and it turns out they went on to have two kids together and then she left him because she didn’t want to be a mum. I ended up sleeping with him one more time and feeling disgusted with myself. We did manage to have something that resembled friendship for a while because I was friends with his sister. He died 3 years ago from cancer and sometimes he still comes to mind in a messed up way.
I had a lot to deal with mentally in regards to how I dealt with intimacy and that situation definitely did not help things.”
This Woman Was Out Of Hand
“He was my coworker. I knew he had a girlfriend (who was living with him and his family) and I knew he had a child with another woman, which he told me upfront when we started becoming friends. At first, I knew I had to stay away, but I couldn’t. He enjoyed my company and told me I was the first girl he’s ever met that shared almost all his interests.
I didn’t know his household was abusive. His mother, sister, and girlfriend were all verbally abusive to him, while his father didn’t care. Sometimes his sister or girlfriend would hit him. His child’s mother was also in the same category. He was basically the scapegoat for their anger and became pretty desensitized to it, so having me around was his only relief. After a messy breakup, he and I got together and it’s been three years. He moved out of that house and we live together now. He smiles a lot, laughs, and tells me every day that he loves me while we watch anime and play video games together. While he maintains contact with his child’s mother, he has cut his family off and is 100x happier.
As for being the other woman or so, I fully accept my responsibility in the fall of his previous relationship, but I don’t regret it. She was a horrible manipulator and a liar even threatened to violate and kill him once too. She sent me vile, bigoted messages for the first few months. I still don’t wish any ill will on her, however. I truly hope she finds someone who can help her out.”