14 Scorned Women Describe The Exact Way They Caught Their Partners Cheating
Being cheated on is one of the most painful betrayals in relationships.
Being cheated on is one of the worst feelings in the world. Having been cheated on more than once, I’m intimately familiar with the pit in the stomach and the dry mouth that come on immediately, at the moment you find out. You read the email over and over, trying to make sense of the words or you stare at the person who’s just given you the news, as if you’ve never seen them before.
If you’ve ever had this experience, you know there’s not much that can make you feel better. Whether you were in a long-term relationship or had only been dating a short time, betrayal stings.
Knowing that some people might just be born cheaters could be some consolation, but mostly, you have to wait for time to do its thing and soothe your broken heart.
One of the things that might help a little bit is knowing you’re not alone. Many of us have been cheated on, in big ways and small ways and these 14 women weren't shy about describing the exact moment they found out they were being cheated on. The good news? Most cheaters get caught.
How 14 women caught their partners cheating:
1. He forget to log out of social media
“He left his Facebook open. I know, I know, I should have respected his privacy. But I had some suspicions, so I looked in his inbox. Sure enough, I found all their messages.”
2. His daughter told me
“His 8-year-old daughter let it slip while I was taking care of her one afternoon. Turned out he was cheating on me with his ex-wife – the kid’s mom. I mostly feel sorry for that little girl - she has two parents who cheated.”
3. His wife got mad
“I worked for my university and that job paid for my education. His wife showed up at my work and started calling me bad names. I didn’t even know he was married. By the time she was done, my boss, fellow students, and professors sure knew. Almost lost my job and school funding because of it.”
4. His mistress spotted us in public
"I was five months pregnant and we were standing on the street watching the annual town parade. He stood behind me with his arms lovingly wrapped around me. Suddenly, a bystander walked up and punched him, shouting ‘You are so busted!’ It was the woman he was cheating on me with.”
5. The girl he was cheating with emailed me
“The woman he was sleeping with emailed me on New Year’s Day. She said she’d gotten very drunk the night before and texted him that she was going to tell me what was was going on. At least it explained why he’d been glued to his phone and acting weird with me at our New Year’s Eve party.”
6. Our phones were synced
“He took pictures of the woman he was cheating with – naked – while his phone was synced to the Google Photos app. They popped up on my phone, because we share an account. Idiot.”
7. His mistress was wearing my shirt
“At some kind of church group thing we went to, I saw another girl wearing one of my shirts. It was a men’s Metallica shirt that he sometimes wore. Turns out he wore it to this girl’s house and left it there.”
8. I found the poetry he wrote the other woman
“I found the love poems he had written her under his dresser when I was cleaning his apartment. In the poems, he referenced the girl he was ‘stuck with’ while thinking of her. When he got home from work, I promptly told him that he wasn’t ‘stuck with’ me anymore. The girl he was so in love with married his best friend, so there’s that.”
9. His actual girlfriend surprised him at our workplace
“His girlfriend showed up at the place we both worked at. She had gone backpacking for a few months and showed up to surprise him. Not only had I been cheated on, but I was the other woman.”
10. His friend finally told me
“My boyfriend, the other girl, and I all worked together and were friends. I had a strong feeling he was cheating on me, but no solid proof. I felt like some friends knew something they weren’t telling me and when I asked, one of them finally told me they were, in fact, sleeping together. Everybody at my work knew for at least a few weeks without telling me. They got pregnant with twins three months later and he left shortly after they were born.”
11. His mistress told me at a wedding
“His mistress told me at the wedding of a mutual friend, so that was nice. I held my cool until we left — I wasn’t giving either of them the satisfaction of seeing me look like the crazy person or ruining someone’s big day.”
12. I walked in on it
“Came home early from work and walked in on it. Yep, that’s about as cliché as it gets, but there you go. Funny thing is, I had wanted an open relationship, but he said he couldn’t deal with that. Turns out he was just selfish.”
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13. He had a baby
“Found out via Facebook a few months after I had broken up with him. I was still friends with his siblings and parents and they were tagged in some photos of him holding his clearly full-term newborn son — less than nine months after I broke up with him.”
14. I read a text from his ex
“My ex-fiancée had both an iPhone and a Macbook. If you know anything about iMessage, this means that he can send and receive texts from his laptop. I was using his laptop for homework (with his permission) while he was at work. He got a text message from his ex, who he talked with on a regular basis. I was uncomfortable with her, since she was ‘the one that got away,’ but she was married and he insisted he just thought of her as a good friend and I chose to believe and trust my then-fiancée.
"The text she sent him that day seemed strange, just randomly saying “Just texting to say I love you” or something like that and it just popped up in the corner for me to read. I opened the messages and found hours of sexting messages. Hours. He’d been sexting her that morning even, when I had slept next to him all night and we’d cuddled and kissed goodbye when he went to work. I wasn’t home when he returned.”
Elizabeth Laura Nelson is a writer who focuses on relationships, dating, and love and the Deputy Health Editor for Best Life.