Breakups

18 people share stories of breaking up a relationship by cheating.

To be clear, the term &quot;homewrecker&quot; is kind of a misnomer. Usually when partners break up because of cheating or an affair, this is a symptom of a problem within the relationship. But people love to point fingers at the third party for destroying the relationship, because it&#39;s easier to blame the &quot;homewrecker&quot; than to acknowledge that many relationships are not meant to last. But they are not completely devoid of responsibility&mdash;dating or hooking up with someone who&#39;s in a relationship with someone else is still a sh*tty thing to do.On Reddit, people who have been the third party in an affair or cheating scandal are sharing their side of the story. Here are 18 accounts from people who &quot;wrecked&quot; homes. Spoiler: it didn&#39;t always work out well for them.1.) From ghostinyourpants: He asked me out before he started dating her, and I said no, for a bunch of reasons that had nothing to do with my feelings for him. They were together for almost 2 years, and during that time, we kept in touch. It was innocent enough, talking over Facebook once in a while, joking around, and I would tell him funny stories about bad dates I was going on. One night we were both drunk texting, and things got super super flirty. I realized that we were no longer talking as just friends.   The next day, I messaged him, and told him this wasn&#39;t fair to his girlfriend, and that we had to stop talking online. We stopped. Six months later, he shoots me a message, saying that him and his girlfriend had broken up, and asked me to hang out to catch up. I hadn&#39;t been sure if it was a date or not, until he smootched me. We were inseparable from that day on. Unfortunately, he had failed to tell me that he had literally broken up with his girlfriend THE DAY BEFORE he called me.   And I got a reputation for breaking them up, which I kind of did, even though he never technically cheated. We&#39;re still together 10 years later, though, and sadly she still resents me for &quot;stealing&quot; him, and I know that she (and her friends) still think he cheated on her with me. I don&#39;t blame her though, I&#39;d have been heartbroken if I was her, and I still feel bad for how it played out. 2.) From TheLightningCount1: Lost my virginity to a married woman. Got gonhorrea. Not worth. 3.) From hi_im_desperate: Obligatory not me story but... basically, a few years ago my aunt goes to Las Vegas with a bunch of her friends. No one thinks much of it, until she starts introducing us to her boyfriend who I&rsquo;ll call D. We&rsquo;re all happy for them and within a year they&rsquo;re engaged and married. Pretty wild, but admittedly normal for my aunt. This is her 3rd marriage. So D is actually Canadian (we&rsquo;re American) and has a 5 year old daughter back home. He only really sees her a few times a year, and mostly his ex girlfriend has custody.   I thought there was nothing wrong with this whole story until my mom told me that the big wedding my aunt had with us was all fake! My aunt and D got married in Vegas before we even met him. Turns out D was about to get married to his girlfriend in Canada and was at his bachelor party in Vegas, got drunk, and married my aunt. And he decided to leave his daughter and ex fianc&eacute; in Canada for my aunt. Wooo a wild ride! 4.) From BeautifulAndHappy: My sister is dead gorgeous and is a twice homewrecker. She really doesn&#39;t care. She sees it as &quot;If they were willing to cheat with me, they would have done it with someone else eventually if I wasn&#39;t around. I saved the wife time.&quot; She also slept with a long-term ex after he got married just to know that she can (wife never found out about that one). She has superiority issues. 5.) From TinyTinasRabidOtter: I didn&rsquo;t know he was married until she contacted me. I got lucky as hell. She found out what he was up to, she knew I didn&rsquo;t know, and simply asked me to meet with her to confront him and understood I was blindsided and understandably hurt and guilty all in one. So we met him together at a coffee shop. It was awkward as all get out. I cut him out of my life and after she and I had a talk we also broke contact. I still feel bad. 6.) From luckyleighton: I will give you my story. One of my friends was miserable in marriage. He married his high school sweetheart; 1 child, 15 years marriage. One day he meets someone 20+ years younger than him at work and starts a side hustle. He tells his wife he is taking trips with ME and lunches with ME to distract. One day I get a call with a hysterical jilted wife asking me how long I knew of their sorted affair (with very colorful conversation). I told her I had no idea truthfully. They go to counseling; but he never wanted to stay married. So he began to groom his finances and other things to prepare to leave over the next year. He leaves her, and a year later he is married to the younger lady. A year after that and they have a baby. So I guess he is happy. He is 50 with a 28 year old wife and a new baby on family no 2. I stopped talking to him because I did not appreciate being the cover of a side hustle unknowingly. 7.) From acenarteco: Definitely regret it, but mostly because I wasn&rsquo;t behaving well for myself or by my own standards. So I started dating this guy I worked with, and ended up moving in with him. I&rsquo;d just graduated college and really wanted out of my parents&rsquo; house. It was hard for me to adjust to living back at home, I couldn&rsquo;t find a decent job for months (still didn&rsquo;t I was working at a restaurant). Anyway, I lived with this guy for a few months, and he goes back home to Visit his family. Except he didn&rsquo;t. He went home to get MARRIED. And then he came back, and we went right back to living together. I heard rumors sure, and when I confronted him about it he gave me all sorts of excuses until he finally confirmed it. And then it was more excuses to keep me around&mdash;it was arranged, he didn&rsquo;t love her, blah blah blah.   But eventually, she tells him she wants to come live with him. So she does. I&rsquo;m kicked to the curb. Bounced around for a bit. She hates it here, wants to go back home. So me, being the dumbass that I am, get asked to move back in. Now, at this point, when I look back at it, I try to be a little kinder to myself. I did, and ended up in a really low part of my life. He strung me along, saying he wanted to be with me, and told me he would break it off. He didn&rsquo;t. He exhibited a lot of abusive/controlling behavior during this time. Mostly emotional abuse, and once got physical. Then, after almost 3 years of living together, he straight up ghosted me. Left the country. When he was supposed to return, he just didn&rsquo;t. I also was a bit of an alcoholic at that time (1.5 years sober now!), and didnt handle it well. Drinking, hating life, stuck in a shitty apartment in a shitty city not really knowing what to do. I went back to therapy, talked it out, and started working on the self-esteem problems/undoing a lot of the abusive behavior he was displaying. I didn&rsquo;t do a great job. I went back to hooking up with another shitty ex. Started talking more to an old hookup from school.   That old hookup from school came to visit me, we reconnected, and I moved four hours away from that fucked up situation to move in with him. I&rsquo;m very lucky that I ended up with someone who was not only honest, hardworking, sweet and respectful, but willing to love me through all that fuckedupness lol. We got married two months ago! Edit: I should probably clarify we lived together for 9 years before we got married. The last guy, I mean. My husband. 8.) From tootytoos: Was sittin&#39; at work on my lunch break one day, get a message from friend&#39;s husband. He&#39;s drunk and high and wants me to come over to mess around. (This was the second time ever speaking to the man, mind you) So I remind him that I&#39;m his wife&#39;s friend, have never met him face-to-face, and give him the chance to tell his wife what just happened. Then I had to make a choice. Do I tell her or not? Cause some people dont wanna know. Or they blame you instead of blaming their S/O.   Send her a message and tell her that I have something to tell her about her husband, but I need to know if she wants to know or not. She says &quot;Send me everything&quot; That night after work, she confronts him. He deleted the conversation but I had sent her screenshots. They got divorced over it (and other things too, she told me) and they have dual custody of their 8 year old son. As for whether it was worth it or not...I feel like she and I are closer friends now but I can&#39;t really say. No one seemed to come out on top with this one. 9.) From cyannic: One of my bffs was one. She met him at the coffee shop she worked at, and he was a regular. She knew he was married because once in a while he would go there with his wife and kid. Well, one week his wife was away to see her parents with the kid, and they started the affair. It lasted 6 years. She would tell me that he loved her way more than his wife, and that he kept promising that he would leave the wife. 5 years into it she gets pregnant. And so does the wife.   He starts pressuring my friend to get an abortion. She says no, that the baby is the product of their love. She has the baby, and so does the wife. One year later my friend is at work, and she had the baby with her, who looks just like his dad. The guy and wife go in. The baby screams &quot;daddy&quot;. The wife gets confused, until she really sees the baby and is a dead copy of her husband and her baby. She goes ballistic. My friend told me she did it on purpose, since he wouldn&#39;t leave his wife, so she was forcing the wife to leave him, so he would be with her.   Well, the wife got a divorce, a huge settlement, and the guy resented my friend so much for what she did, he gave up his parental rights of the kid and moved across the country. Edit: since everyone is asking about the legality of giving up parental rights. I&#39;m no law expert. I don&#39;t know if he actually signed a paper giving up, or if they just reached an agreement where he gave her full custody. It&#39;s what she told me (so it&#39;s what I wrote) and since I&#39;ve heard about it before, I never really questioned it. It&#39;s entirely possible that he just gave her full custody. 10.) From Crzy_Grl: Huge regret. If anything good came of it, it was that I learned not to be so judgmental. I married at 19, and divorced at 23, my ex was the one cheating. I used to say any woman who would do that is a slut. After the divorce, I was a bit lost and a little wild. I hesitantly began a relationship with a guy I considered a friend and trusted. He told me he would leave his wife for me, and I believed him. I knew her, and while I liked her, she did cheat on him multiple times, so it wasn&#39;t hard for me to believe he was leaving. Pretty soon, I tired of the sneaking around, and began to pressure him. Turns out I wasn&#39;t supposed to really believe he&#39;d leave her.   That was the end of that short-lived stupid mistake of mine. Later, he spilled the beans to a friend of his, who told someone else, and the wife found out. Started driving by and wanting to fight me, screaming names as she drove by the house. I told her I didn&#39;t want to fight her and that I regretted what happened. Said she could kick my ass if she wanted to, but I wasn&#39;t going to defend myself, I was already kicking myself for being so stupid. That was pretty much the end of it, it was many years ago now, and it still makes me feel bad. Probably my top regret ever, and definitely out of character for me. 11.) From yowiezowie: I got called one by the pissed off wife of the guy I dated for a few months. The problem was that was the first time I had a clue he was married, and if I&#39;d known before then I would have broken it off immediately. Thinking back, I should have found it weird that he never invited me over to his place, but eh. But yeah, he was the homewrecker. He had a home and decided to fuck it up by dating me. 12.) From fabulin: my fiance&#39;s mum was a homewrecker lol. she fell in love with a married man who had 2 kids and would sneak round his house when his wife was at work, his wife actually caught them in the act and tried to stab them. he moved in with his mistress and had 2 kids with her including my fiance. ngl, i&#39;m happy that my mother in law is a homewrecker 13.) From halfpintlc: A friend of mine met a guy at a party (while he was there with his girlfriend of 6 years). They were talking a lot throughout the night and he gave her his number. He continued to text her all the time and they would talk non stop (super flirty messages) it then turned into hanging out, first just with friends (while his GF was not there) then just the two of them. He would always tell her to not say anything to their mutual friends because his gf is &quot;very jealous and possessive&quot; and would get mad.   We all told her to stop doing this but she continued insisting there was nothing wrong and they were just friends hanging out. He ended up proposing to his GF while still secretly hanging out with my friend. She never mentioned anything happening but I&#39;m pretty sure it did and she wanted to avoid us judging her so she never went into detail. He eventually stopped contacting her all together without an explanation (my guess is his GF saw the texts or something) but I know for a fact if he didn&#39;t stop she would&#39;ve continued hanging out with him and eventually starting a full blown affair. The thing I&#39;ve found in common with a lot of people who do stuff like this is that they believe they&#39;re &quot;better&quot; or &quot;hotter&quot; or just boost their confidence thinking this person likes them more than their S/O. It&#39;s sad. 14.) From laygo3: I slept with a married woman like twice after talking like 2wks. Turns out she was pregnant &amp; told me I needed to go to the doctor with her to get an official pregnancy test. I was 21-22, still fairly naive in the pregnancy knowledge department. The test was like a week after we slept together, but she was like 8-9wks pregnant. It finally clicked &amp; I stepped away pretty quick. That didn&#39;t stop her from naming her baby after me. That kid has probably graduated college by now. 15.) From Pretigee: Yes. I did not know he was married. 30 years married... he was military, I worked on base as a civilian. I moved in with him and everything. Turned out his wife lived in another state and never visited. There was nothing that made me think he was married. No hushed phone calls or anything. After we broke up he told her about me hoping it would make me take him back. She divorced him. And against my better judgment 6 months later we got back together. It was the worst year of my life. I quickly moved out and moved on. 16.) From TotallyNotAnAgent1: I was labelled the &quot;homewrecker&quot; even though nothing actually happened between me and this girl. We had a bit of &quot;flirty banter&quot; at work over the course of a few weeks during the summer. I kept coming in in the mornings to post-it notes left on my desk with flirty messages, and I would return the favour of course ;) I was unaware that she was engaged and had a child, and we carried this flirty banter on until one day she came over mine and we sat down and watched a movie together (literally nothing happened, and her SO clocked onto her not being home at her usual time and started spamming her with calls). I walked her down to her car, and managed to lock myself out of my house (that&#39;s another story which I have told in this subreddit -   Go into work the next day and everything is normal, walk out of work and there he is, the girl&#39;s SO, standing at the back of his van searching for tools. She messages me and tells me not to leave the building, to which I oblige. After this we split things off and don&#39;t talk anymore. From what I know they are still together and she has another child on the way. 17.) From DaddyTrumpsFurryAcct: I didn&#39;t know she was married until she got dropped off at my front door after being thrown out by her husband. Dating after 30 is weird. I had to add &quot;are you married&quot; to the list of small talk questions to ask. In the case of the other married woman I wasn&#39;t a &quot;homewrecker.&quot; She said they were separated. He wanted to get back together and she didn&#39;t want to, but was happy to accept his money to pay for her apartment. I think online dating apps make it easier for cheaters. ninja edit: I broke up with them both immediately when I found out. 18.) From no12nobody: My wife and I both are. I&#39;ll try and condense. Met when she was 14 and I was 16. Friends first. Then dated off and on through high school. To be fair I always wanted her, but she wasn&#39;t ready at a young age. Never led me on or anything. We remained friends and dated other people. She went to college out of town. First year or so I&#39;d see her on trips home or when I&#39;d drive to her. We kinda drifted apart. Her senior year of college I hadnt seen her for over a year. She started dating some dude. I started dating some girl.   She graduated and moved out of state. Girlfriend and I were pretty serious. I was going to propose. I called her basically begging her to stop me. She wouldnt. We both married our partners at the time. Me a couple years before her. Couple years later (havent spoken in like 4 years) she moves back here. Gets in touch. Both of our marriages are pretty shit...because we soul mates and regret what we did...we both got divorces. Together 10 years now. 

To be clear, the term &quot;homewrecker&quot; is kind of a misnomer. Usually when partners break up because of cheating or an affair, this is a symptom of a problem within the relationship. But people love to point fingers at the third...