Every relationship is built on love and trust, but what happens when that trust is broken? Another person’s infidelity can leave long-lasting scars that sometimes never heal. What people fail to realize is how these poor choices affect the other person caught up in the moment. In these stories, women share what it was like being a secret lover.
All stories have been edited for clarity.
A Family Affair
“One Easter I got a call from my boyfriend but when I answered, it wasn’t him. On the other end, I was surprised to hear the voice of some woman screaming and wanting to know who I was. At first, I thought the woman just had the wrong number, but that’s when she told me SHE was my partner’s girlfriend.
The woman didn’t seem to know much about him, so I wrote her off as a nutjob and hung up in her face. After this, I went over to my boyfriend’s house to tell him that some psycho had his phone.
Well, when I knocked on the door, my boyfriend was the one who answered, but something was off. First off, his whole family was there. It was the first time I ever met any of them.
It caught me off-guard, but I was delighted and introduced myself. No one returned the smile. My boyfriend had a look of terror on his face as he stared at me without saying a word. There was a woman glaring at me with crossed arms and another with a look that could kill. After a quick assessment of the room, I learned that one of the women there was not a relative of his but rather the woman who had called me saying she was his girlfriend.
That’s when my boyfriend said, ‘I have no idea who you are. You need to leave and stop trying to get between me and my girl.”
“What!?” I said completely stunned.
“My son is sitting right over there, man. Just leave!” My boyfriend said again, his voice trembling.
Shocked and not knowing how to react to my boyfriend and friend of five years saying he’d never met me, I started rattling off things I knew about him in order to prove to these people that I was, in fact, his girlfriend.
One of the women, who I later found out was his sister, shoved me off their porch and came out to write down my license plate number. She threatened to call the police because I was stalking her brother.
Devastated, I collapsed into tears on the sidewalk. The sister’s husband talked to me a little. It was the only way I was able to speak my truth. He was the only one who realized I was telling the truth. He then got me calmed down enough to drive home and talked his wife out of calling the police.
A few weeks later, my ‘boyfriend’ started desperately trying to contact me to apologize. He was calling me dozens of times a day and left multiple voicemails. He also drove past my house at random times of the day.
His stalking got so bad that I did end up having to call the police on him. That was what stopped the harassment.
It took a long time to get over that day.”
Double-Life
“In 2015 I met a guy on Tinder. We instantly felt chemistry and ended up diving into a deep emotional relationship with him. We would talk about things from our past and I fell for him because we had both been through a lot.
At that time, I was coming out of a bad relationship, so I wasn’t ready for something all that serious. However, the way we connected left no doubt in my mind that it had the potential of becoming something more.
Eventually, we fell out of touch. But in 2018 I sent him a message. We got together almost instantly and became inseparable. He claimed he had uncomfortable family drama he didn’t want me to be around, so I thought nothing when I never met his parents.
My partner purchased a home that was in the middle of being built, so we spent most of our time at my apartment until it was finished. In 2019, we started trying to conceive because we knew the house would soon be ready for our growing family.
Over two years later, I became pregnant with our son. In that short amount of time, his feelings changed. My partner decided to sell the house being built and was not stepping up in the way I had hoped and anticipated.
Lo and behold, I did some digging around on social media and found out the truth.
He was married. My world shattered.
I don’t know why anyone would spend so much time, effort, and money trying to conceive while being in an already committed relationship. When I confronted my partner, he claimed to be separated from his wife. He then told me he felt pressured into marriage and that his relationship fell apart many years ago. He told me he didn’t love her and that he wanted to be with me.
At the time, I wished I could just close the ugly chapter of my life I found myself in, but with our son’s due date that was closing in fast, I just didn’t know what to do. I felt like the man I once knew had died. I did end up telling his wife. She ended up kicking him out of the house.
I’m still living with the effects of his choices. It truly sucks.”
Caught
“I met my fling at work. Things were professional at first, but we started hanging out beyond the four walls of our place of work and ended up really hitting it off.
We had many dates and slept together a few times. My partner stayed at my place quite often, but I didn’t think anything of it because I lived closer to the office so it made sense at the time.
We dated for about nine months before I found out the secret he had been keeping from me.
One day I went by his place and I saw him outside in the driveway. Being so in love with this man, my heart leaped with joy every time I saw him. The butterflies in my stomach turned to cold stones when I saw he was with a woman.
I parked down the street, just before I was within his line of sight. I watched them for a little bit and felt my heart sink when I saw him kiss the other woman.
I drove away and texted him.
‘We needed to talk. I saw you with another woman. What is going on?’
Moments later he spilled the beans. My so-called lover said the other woman I saw him with was his fiance.
‘I really want to marry her. But I enjoyed our time together.’
I ended it right away. I was SO UPSET with him and I felt so terrible about it.
I would totally change it and not have been with him, but I had no way of knowing he was taken!”
Do You Know This Guy?
“I went out with a guy who said he was single. We hooked up one weekend and on the following Tuesday a woman messaged me on Instagram. She was not happy.
The woman was asking how I knew him and other specific questions. After her intense line of questioning, I found out from her that she had been his girlfriend for years.
I didn’t even have time to react before she asked for proof, so I told her about the prawn magnet on his fridge and other identifiable items around his house.
At some point, the woman stopped responding to my messages. Moments later, my phone started ringing. When I answered, it was the guy. He went ballistic when his girlfriend told him I was the one who confirmed her suspicions.
He then threatened me and told me he was racing home because his girlfriend was losing her mind and destroying all of his possessions.
Mortified, I blocked both of them.
Months later, out of curiosity, I unblocked his girlfriend to see what happened to her. As it appeared they had broken up for good. She dodged a bullet.”