Lying, cheating, and deceiving are human traits. They’re bad, of course, but that’s human nature for you. Cheating in a romantic relationship is probably the worst, as it’s a betrayal of the most intimate kind.

It’s hard to determine whether cheating is common. Many people don’t want to admit they’ve cheated – for others, it’s hard to describe what exactly is cheating: does texting count? Is flirting cheating? Not everybody draws the line at extramarital sex – for some, emotional infidelity is just as bad. However, researchers have attempted to do surveys on the topic. According to Professor Nicholas Wolfinger, 20-25% of married men cheat, and 10-15% of married women cheat.

But what this netizen was interested in wasn’t how common cheating is. They wanted to know what reasons people had given their partners for having an affair. They asked: “What excuse did your partner give you after cheating on you?” And people came with some incredible, hard-to-believe stories.

#1

“I forgot to take my depression/anxiety medication for the last week..I think I was hallucinating..”.

slappy_mcslapenstein: I’ve actually seen that happen. I worked in behavioral health. A woman came in during a manic episode and was hallucinating. She thought every man was her husband. We found her in the shower with another patient. She was mortified when she became balanced again and realized what she had done.

Image credits: supermandrew_8

#2

“You just had a baby by emergency c section 5 weeks prior. I was lonely.” Threw the whole man away and got a real one. So much happier now. Glad he did it otherwise I might have stayed.

Image credits: Kindly_Good1457

#3

“She’s so much like you, it didn’t feel like cheating.”

“It’s your fault you found out, I did nothing wrong, I tried to keep you from knowing so you wouldn’t be hurt.”

“You weren’t in town, what was I supposed to do?”.

Image credits: IDontEvenCareBear

#4

I was working 3rd shift to provide for our family. She said that it was my fault for leaving her alone at night knowing how horny she gets. I moved out so fast it made her head spin.

Image credits: CascadeJ1980

#5

I have a scar on my tummy from a C-section and he said he wanted to see a real woman’s body. Gotta say that effected me for a long time.

Image credits: Plus_Data_1099

#6

“I NEED to have some form of polyamory, and I didn’t think you’d be open for that”

after I said REPEATEDLY that I would be open to that, just to communicate. Turns out he just wants to f**k anyone they think is hot while his partners only sleep with him. F*****g bastard of a human.

Image credits: EnbyFucktoy

#7

“My psychiatrist told me to.” Yeah, sorry but no doctor is going to recommend that you cheat on your partner of 7 years. 12 years later and it still kills me inside.

Image credits: tootaflute

#8

“It’s a girl. I’m not into girls but I was curious.” Nah, still counts. 

SweetPotatoMermaid: I know, right?! I went through the same thing with an ex-girlfriend.

It took about a week to untangle myself from that mess. She managed to cheat again during that week, but with a guy this time, and assumed we’d just hit a rough patch and could work it out.

I had been adamant and very clear since I found out about the first cheating that this was the end and that I wanted nothing to do with her.

Like nah, girl, I value myself more than your nonsense. I cut all ties and contact. She’s tried to reach out through various methods over the years and I’ve never replied to her.

Image credits: azraelce

#9

“We had already kissed, I would’ve looked stupid if I stopped there!”.

Image credits: Dicksperado

#10

“I figured you were already sleeping with someone else”. I wasn’t.

RudeTheories: This literally just happened to me today in a way. My fiancée and I broke up last year and I thought it was mainly us drifting apart. Found out today she was cheating and when I asked her about it she confessed it was because she thought I was cheating on her anyway.

Bullet dodged I guess.

Image credits: man_of_the_mountain

#11

“I thought I could do better”. We’d been together over 25 years.

crazygirlinthehall: My husband said the same thing. Together for 27 years.

Image credits: Unbelievable-27

#12

They came home one day with a huge hickey on their neck.

I asked,”So where did you get that?!”

They said, “I fell down and hit my neck on a curb.”

I can laugh about it now. ?.

Image credits: wade1975

#13

“You weren’t acting like a wife” – i was the sole financial provider, stressed out, mid-pandemic, son was just diagnosed with Autism and I lost my father to Cancer.

#14

“I thought he was you.”

I’m a tall white guy, she cheated on me with a much shorter black guy. Lol.

Image credits: stackjr

#15

“She was gonna k*ll herself” when he explained that he didn’t cheat he actually saved a life ❤️❤️❤️ with his penis.

#16

I know I haven’t done anything wrong God knows my Intentions, whatever I did was to myself and not you bla bla, I was very young, all men do this etc.

Image credits: oxymorongal

#17

“He has the same name as you”.

Image credits: XHIBAD

#18

She had room in her heart for two soulmates and wanted me to let it continue. We were married for 6 years. Still are, but Ive started divorce proceedings and she flew off home with him. Whatever, theyre both unemployed and shes been leeching off me for 10 years. I gave her everything she ever wanted; a house, a support network, my time and devotion, and she decided “fixing” this dying man was worth giving everything up.

Image credits: Trapped_Mechanic

#19

She was supposedly “super christian” and told me she didnt think god would want us to be together. Immediately goes on camping trip after with 2 dudes and she ended up dating both consecutively. Cheated on me with one, then cheated on him with the other, then got cheated on by him when they got engaged.

Image credits: kakashi176176176

#20

“You’re too good for me”.

thepumpkinking92: My wife is definitely way too good for me… which is why I do my best to not f**k up and make it last as long as possible before she realizes it and leaves me for someone better.

And if any of you tell her, I will hunt you down and catch you like a fish!

Image credits: Chemical_Savings_360

#21

He said, ‘I thought you knew?’ What a bulls**t excuse.

Looking back, he probably was high. He turned it into this whole thing about how he thought I was so smart that I just must have KNOWN he was cheating, and since I wasn’t angry since I had to have known, I must have been okay with it. The mental gymnastics of it all.

#22

It was a long, messy story. The short version is that my ex was suffering from depression (which I didn’t really understand or recognize at the time), and she decided that I was part of the cause, so she started having an affair.

When the guy’s wife found out about the affair, she call our house to confront my ex and to let me know about it. (The guy had started the affair with my ex because his wife was pregnant with their child. Lovely guy, right?)

Anyhow, that affair ended, but my ex still wasn’t happy. In less than 6 months, she found another guy who was single and lived a bit further away. In early December, she told me she wasn’t going to be home for New Year’s Eve because she wanted to spend it with her new boyfriend.

By that time, I had already decided that it was over, so I just said, “OK. Now I can send the letter to the landlord cancelling the rent of our apartment, because I’m moving away.” We divorced about 3 months later, and I moved from Germany to Switzerland. (It sounds more dramatic than it was – I only moved about 8 km / 5 miles from the old place, but on the other side of the border).

When I talked to my ex, she claimed that she had the 2nd affair because I wasn’t jealous enough and didn’t fight hard enough to keep her after the first one. We had been living in a dead bedroom situation for nearly 7 years by that time, and I was just f*****g tired of the whole thing. I never cheated on her, and she treated ME like I was the reason she had to go f*****g other guys.

Image credits: Count2Zero

#23

Not partner but when I caught my father he just blamed it on being bipolar turned out he never even had it.

Image credits: A_Fox_On_Sugar

#24

“I wanted to see if my feelings for you were real”, so I brought home your roommate’s friend.

Image credits: neverthelessidissent

#25

“I wanted to have the whole high school experience. His relationships only last a few months so we can get back together then.”

“I wanted something else.”

“I was having a good time in Vegas and I didn’t want the night to stop. But also I don’t love you any more, but we live together so I didn’t know how to break up with you.” – after going to a friends birthday party in Vegas and then being very cagey and vague about the trip when she got back and I asked how it was.

Three separate relationships.

Image credits: throwaway3145267

#26

Being poly she loves everyone so she thinks it was a free pass despite being in a closed traid.

Image credits: Azual223

#27

“You had a GF before marriage, while I had saved myself for you” (which she didn’t, actually).

Image credits: explorer_24x7

#28

“We were on a break.”

We were not. She just said she wants to go to her hometown because she missed her family and childhood friends and having a little me time would be fun. I don’t know in what world that even indicates a break.

Zeikos: That’s like saying you’re on a diet between lunch and dinner, lol.

Image credits: Superb_Bench9902

#29

“I didn’t mean to”

B***h wym, you tripped and your d**k landed into her vagina?

Another good one (different person when I was much younger) was “we just made chicken nuggets!” That was it. That was the excuse. After I saw him texting her about their sex. Right in front of me.

Image credits: reddit_username014

#30

Because I wanted a kid now and you haven’t gave me one, WTF.

Image credits: Chrissyjustshowus

#31

“I was so lonely and I just felt so disconnected from you.” Okay, she had an affair while I was in the hospital with staph infection in my spine. Honestly, the absurdity is kind o funny in hindsight.

#32

I used to bartend. He said I basically cheated everyday and I deserved it.

#33

“I trauma bonded with him” – ok bud.

#34

My ex gf said she was manipulated into having sex with the other guy. She went over to his house and she felt sorry for misunderstanding the relationship between them two. So she said to me: “ I felt sorry for him. So for making it up to him I had sex with him one time and one time only.”

I stood up and left. I never saw her again..

#35

Me: We’ve been dating for nearly a year, why haven’t I met your friend Richard you always talk about?

Her: Because he’s a guy and I know how guys don’t like girls having guy friends.

Me: I’ve never had an issue with that, and as you know I have female friends, who you’ve met.

Her: I’m protecting you from your own anxiety!

– I get suspicious and look through her phone and find sexting, them meeting up etc and absolutely no mention of me ever, I confront her –

Her: if you wouldn’t have looked through my phone you wouldn’t have been hurt, that’s your fault.

– I end the relationship, she hopes Richard leaves his wife for her, he doesn’t, she gets back in touch with me-

Her: What you did was wrong, two people have to agree to end a relationship you can’t just end it.

-i blocked her-.

#36

“I didn’t think that you would care.” Was the first one.

“I felt trapped by him, and I didn’t know what to do.” Was the second one.

“Anybody would have have done what I did. You know how good he looks. Besides, I deserved to finally have sex with a hot guy.” I will admit, that one stung a bit.

#37

“I don’t have to justify myself to you.”

#38

“I wanted to see if I could perform for someone else…”

Image credits: Nukkyandcricket

#39

“You work so much, and we work together, so I never got alone time away from you”

Funny, because she could have spent her nights when I worked alone… but instead she spent it with another girl. She would drop me off at work, go to the other girls house/meet up with her, and then leave to pick me up from work at the end of my shift. Oh, did I mention this girl worked with us too?

#40

“You were so quiet and would rarely talk to me (I was an introvert in highschool) so I thought we wouldn’t last so I started dating her in secret so when we break up I wouldn’t be alone” ?.

Image credits: Rolling_Bowl_7392

#41

“I thought you’d be into it”

We were long distance because of Covid, before leaving I asked her if she wanted an open relationship while we were apart and she said no, she didn’t want or need that kind of freedom, ok, I let it go. A few months later we fought badly and didn’t speak for a few days, after a bit she confessed and had the courage to give me that answer.

#42

Didn’t give an excuse. After sleeping with her ex, she just said, “i had to scratch that itch.” She was pretty damn cruel.

Horrendous at the time, but it turned out “that itch” was chlamydia.

Luckily, i wasn’t touching her long before that point.

Every cloud and all that.

#43

“I didn’t mean for it to happen” Woman you slept with three dudes at the same time. She pulled a Bob Ross and had a happy accident. “It wasn’t like that” Were you just trying to keep him warm inside of you? Dude must’ve been on the brink of death. ” I just didn’t feel the love anymore” You could have I don’t know left me then did it but that’s too easy. The excuses are always my favorite part.

#44

His words: because A. I gained weight while pregnant and, B. He was bored because he felt he knew all there was to know about me. Cue his 7 mistresses/misters over two years during the early AIDS crisis, so I (a virgin before marrying him) had to have an AIDS test.

#45

“That they had been drinking and made a dumb mistake.”

#46

“You weren’t supposed to be home till tomorrow” was as close as I got to an excuse :(.

#47

“I thought you’d do the same” which is crazy she thinks that low of me, and we were just married for a few months.

#48

“It’s just a bad habit I have :(“.

#49

“I was horny and you weren’t there.”

We spent time every day together but at that moment, I was at my part-time job working.

#50

“I’m sorry, it was a moment of weakness. I’ll never do it again.” She in fact, did it again.

#51

Him: “I didn’t think you would mind.”

Me: “You could have rolled over and asked.”

My boyfriend and I had been together for about 6 months and things were going well in the relationship from my perspective. One evening, the two of us plus two of my friends all went out for drinks and ended up back at my bf’s place. My two friends fell asleep in the living room, he and I went to his room.

I woke up to my bf and one of my “friends” fooling around next to me in the bed. They acted surprised and couldn’t understand why I was upset when I stopped them. Before that event, he and I had never discussed activity outside of our relationship, but I naively assumed that meant it wasn’t happening. The relationship between the friend and I ended immediately, while things between the bf and I broke off not long after.

Lesson was to always be clear about expectations, in this case – monogamous vs open relationship. Saves a lot of trouble later on.

Image credits: AggravatedSwan087

#52

That it was my fault for being safe, boring and stable and not providing drama. That she has to seek excitement out elsewhere so this is really all my fault.

#53

‘I’m human. I make mistakes. I was drunk.’

Yeah. Screw you.

#54

“i was depressed” ?

He and my sister (who is 15 years older than me) had an affair in our home for 18 months. I hold them equally accountable and screamed at them equally before cutting all contact and ties to them.

I told her very crazy jealous boyfriend that she f****d my ex, and I told all of our friends and family that they mutually decided to carry our their affair. When the “please stop telling people what we did” calls came, I told them “no because I’m depressed” lol.

#55

“She made me feel loved because we talked and she made me a sandwich for lunch while babysitting our kids”. I was on a trip for a week out of the country. He slept with her in our home with the kids there(they claim asleep, one kid wakes up at the smallest noise(I can’t go pee without him waking up to ask me questions), the other was an infant who was 7 months old, who again woke up to most noises), so no way y’all f****d quietly enough in a bathroom and doorway to our bedroom without our kids seeing it). This same woman tossed said infant in the air and made him hit is head, husband stayed home “fearing a concussion”, didn’t send the baby sitter home or take our infant son to a doctor. Nope, f****d the known s**t.(she was his former coworker who was engaged to another coworker, confirmed to have slept with multiple guys by her now ex fiancé she moved in with after ditching my now ex husband, last I knew she was bringing new dudes into the ex fiancés place to f**k em again, she’s done this with the last 2 places ex fiancé has owned)

F****r had the nerve to divorce me right after and leave me and our kids homeless after. I’m happy he only sees our kids once every 2 weeks and I’m free from him. Also happy the s**t he cheated with dropped him before the divorce was even brought into opening meetings.

Hope you’re happy, you didn’t want another person raising your kids, no daycare, no other friends, especially men In your newborns life. Now another man raises that little boy and he calls him daddy too. Suck on it you sack of s**t. Btw, how’d that love you had for her go? Her “love” for you? Guess all those I love you’s between y’all were as fake as you. Love bombing narcissist scumbag ??‍♀️

Edit: actually, kiddo was around 1 at that point. Still an infant regardless. I had to count months. he would’ve just turned 1. Still very much something to have checked, bumps to the head can be very bad for an infant due to how soft their skull still is and the fact it’s not fully formed. He hit near his soft spots, thus my major concern.

#56

” I’m just not sure about us, you know there are so many other people” F*cking wh*re that man is!

#57

I don’t know if “I only did it to hurt you” counts.

#58

“You were just an experiment.” she came to realize she was gay and left me for the person she cheated on me with.

#59

I just don’t want to pay child support, so doing that keeps her happy.

#60

That they offered good money.

#61

That he was a virgin before we got together and I wasn’t, and that he really would like to experience being with a virgin. Except he had had sex with a man before. And except the girl he was with was obviously surfing through double digits.

#62

“I just wanted to have something for myself.”

She didn’t work and was doing a TAFE course that had zero probable work from it, she just wanted to do it because she’d enjoy it. I however worked long hours, paid for the wedding and the entire houshold, including her. I wanted her to just get something, anything. Because I found that if she just had 8 hours of work a week my stress levels would drop hugely.

Almost ten years now, I’m happy it happened. The next person was given such large demands on his finances from her that he engaged in a gold heist.

#63

From my wife of 10 years, not long after Christmas.
Day one “I feel like we are disconnected and we need to spend more time together. I feel bad because I have been texting someone at the gym for two weeks, nothing sexual but we need to work on us, I’ll stop talking to him.”
Day two: “it has been sexual, ok we will do counselling, I’ll stop talking to him” two hours later “I don’t want to stop talking to him”
Day three: “it’s actually been more Iike 2 months, we are over, I’m leaving and I don’t want to do counselling”

Guy was a member at her gym where she is a PT, nearly 20 years younger than me, lived at home with his mother still.

We have two kids. After he actually turned out to be an a*****e (surprising), she wanted to do counselling, the after a month or so she picked up with another member of her gym.

She has totally changed, doesn’t spend time with the kids anymore, is always too busy to actually engage with them, promises them activities and always disappoints them. Her personality/behaviour have shifted from being one of the kindest and most dedicated mothers I have seen, caring and loving towards me and dedicated to family, to never being home, ignoring the kids and just being cruel and deceptive. She hasn’t moved out even though she keeps saying she will, because I do all the house work and look after the kids and she gets to do what ever she wants.

#64

“You cheated first!”

I did not cheat. It was just him projecting what he was doing onto me.

#65

She said, ‘We were just hanging out, I don’t even like him.’

But she was with him at a hookah lounge at 2:00 AM after saying she was too tired to come over to my house. Within the same week of us breaking up, they went ‘Facebook Official,’ and the comments were all like, ‘It’s about time you two got together!’ and s**t like that. At least they didn’t even last half a year, lol. I found out from a friend of mine who’d hang out with the other guy that they’d go on small road trips when I was at work ‘with a group,’ and they would Snapchat each other a lot. It definitely hurt a lot finding out slowly as time went on how deep it went. The funny thing is, that friend and I stopped hanging out a couple of months after that. I guess he wanted to stay friends with the other guy and continued to hang out with the new couple. So I peaced out, and he never reached out. I’m over it now, the friendship and the relationship and the cheating.

#66

“I wasn’t thinking. Why did you go through my phone?!”.

#67

“I didn’t actually use the app, I just downloaded it to see what it looks like!” Him after I saw a dating app on his phone. Unfortunately I believed him at the time and stayed with him another six months ??‍♀️.

#68

My ex’s sh*tty excuse was “well I figured you were gonna leave me anyway” ?.

#69

“It doesn’t count as cheating and I’m not a real cheater, because we were not living together at the time”. He’s an ex now.

#70

“I didn’t cheat, we never spoke about being exclusive, and I missed that, also I was really drunk and I didn’t thought about the consequences” Also her two months later “it could happen.

#71

“Our relationship was struggling and I didn’t know how to cope”.

#72

“I’m sorry, it’s just workplace tension” So many people hate this b***h, now I know why.

#73

Many things. That I didn’t truly love him, I was just accostumed to him and that if I truly loved him I would be a better women. That I didn’t cook, f**k or looked to work harder. (All lies) That I was indifferent with him and he didn’t feel wanted. The one he kept on repeating and mostly holding his ground with was that I had made more damage to him with my open disgust (he said that he felt that i was physically disgusted by him, more lies and now paranoia) than he had with his cheating. I did ended up feeling disgusted by him because of how he cheated on me for 5 years without me even knowing and how he had been touched and used by someone else doing God know what and then he came and dirtied me with this someone else sh*t I didn’t even f**ng know.

#74

“Look, life isn’t fair, I didn’t want this but you just aren’t enough for me.” After MIXING UP MY NAME WITH HIS EX – who he was sleeping with. He’s now asking mutual friends (including my now boyfriend) if I’ll speak to him so that he can have closure. He’s reached out to me once and I deliberately signed my e-mail back to him with my name using the first letter of his ex’s name, since he apparently can’t distinguish between letters.

#75

The excuse they gave themselves was that I didn’t pay attention to the innumerable and self-contradictory requests about all sorts of stuff. When I gave examples of trying to do my best to comply I inevitably chose ones that she also had a direct opposite request about.

E.g. “you’re too serious” would also without apparent irony would be later followed by “you make a joke about everything”.

Impressive groundwork in a way.

#76

“I fell out of love for you 6 months ago.” We dated for 5 1/2 years.

#77

“We were never a couple in the first place.”.

#78

So many but the best were: “I can’t stop seeing her bc she knows my boss and I don’t want her to make work awkward for me.” “I think you should move out and we can just date each other. You can come over and then go home at the end of the night.” “I never had sex with her I just slept over at her house.” Bahaha best decision I have made was to divorce this as*wipe.

#79

I cant remember the exact thing but basically it was about how he had a high sex drive and i didn’t so he couldn’t control himself and just kept cheating.

Funny thing is after we broke up, he has stopped cheating completely as far as i know.

#80

It was my fault. Somehow it was always my fault.

I know it was just what he would try to use as an excuse, and I didn’t fall for it.

Ultimately, I didn’t care after a while, and that’s when I manifested he gets one of his other women pregnant so I could leave him, and he would leave me alone.

Just FYI: manifestation works, lol.