Men who have been cheated on despite putting 100% of effort into the relationship, what was the reason for that?

r/

As the title suggests, why did your woman leave you despite you doing everything right and putting all the effort?

For my case, she found somebody more attractive than me. But it was good riddance!

Comments

  1. AutoModerator Avatar

    Since you shitlords like to delete your posts, here’s an original copy of /u/arofficial10’s post (if available):

    As the title suggests, why did your woman leave you despite you doing everything right and putting all the effort?

    For my case, she found somebody more attractive than men. But it was good riddance!

    I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

  2. VampyreBassist Avatar

    In her story, I became emotionally unavailable. In my story, she stopped taking all of her medications cold turkey which included her antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications, decided she wanted to move away from her mom and dad’s, and went right for the first person who would let her in. I couldn’t because I was still going to school and only made $250 a week.

  3. BluIdevil253 Avatar

    Not sure. I divorced and ghosted immediately.

  4. Toushiru Avatar

    cheating in 90% of cases is not partners fault

  5. the99percent1 Avatar

    She claimed that I didn’t prioritise her and she didn’t feel important.

    Fast forward 2 years later and she is still trying to get back into my good graces. Told her I’ve forgiven, forgotten and moved on. What she had done didn’t impact me anymore. What’s done is done and it’s over. I don’t want her back.

    She’s the mother of my kids but honestly, other than being cordial and treating her nice during handovers, I don’t really want to talk or see her ever again outside the limited updates that I hear from our kids and their story of what their mother was doing when she had them.

    I dont care about her life or what she’s been up to, don’t care that her dad had a stroke last weekend and could be on his last legs, and I don’t care anymore if she’s sad, happy, satisfied, good or bad things in her life. Whatever, more power to her. I strive for indifference and I treat her as a total and complete stranger. No desire for small talk, just want to get the kids into my car, buckle them up and leave asap. Everytime she tries to make small talk with me, I just nod, say a few words then go completely silent.

    I’m not sure what her true reasons were nor do I care anymore these days. I put it down as her wanting to have sex with another dude. That’s all. Humans are humans and sex is sex. She did express how she wanted her freedom and past life back. She can have all the freedom she wants and her past life now, lol.

    My standards are high now, if you can’t communicate your needs properly, I don’t want anything to do with you.

  6. Top_Chemist7078 Avatar

    She had unresolved trauma and “acted out”. And by trauma I mean every type of trauma; sexual, physical, psychological, neglect, financial.

    Anyway, that didn’t last.

  7. fuerve Avatar

    Lack of respect. The lesson seems to be to avoid effort.

  8. Technology-Mission Avatar

    A person that lacks integrity and is the type to cheat is going to act out that pattern no matter who they are with. Its nothing to do with you, its just a broken person that isn’t capable of having commitments.

  9. Ichirou_dauntless Avatar

    Always being available to her, revolving my world around her. Turns out women crave you more if you drip feed them attention rather than giving them your all. To other young men, focus on your career and the ladies always follow a successful man. Doesnt mean to put all your time on your work have some play time as well.

  10. toasty99 Avatar

    She just…lost interest. Suddenly there was a world of more interesting choices out there, and she chose one.

  11. Mister_Way Avatar

    The reason is that she’s a cheater. Why is she a cheater? That’s a more complicated question, but it doesn’t really matter about the specifics. The upshot is that she just was that way, and it wouldn’t have mattered what I did or didn’t do.

  12. Disossabovii Avatar

    She wanted to be in the center of attention and wanted drama.

    And she was an Hoe.

  13. thecountnotthesaint Avatar

    Her gay BFF wasn’t sure if he was gay or not. Turns out he still is, so she lost him and me in one foolish act.

  14. Worldly-Signal-7636 Avatar

    I left her. You can only forgive so many times. She’s not capable of change. Wasn’t just me, cheated in on every previous partner and I’d willing to bet all future. She doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with that behavior. Unless of course I were to do it. I didn’t, looking back I should have. Hopefully she’s with a cheater now. But what do I care. Happy to be rid of her.

  15. xKhira Avatar

    The signs were there. I just blinded myself to them because of love.

  16. Bshellsy Avatar

    It’s pretty much always an orbiting loser who talks tremendous amounts of shit about me. Lasts for a few days to couple months then they’re trying beg and blow their way back.

  17. op3l Avatar

    I’m gonna guess it’s cause she wanted another dick.

  18. djluminol Avatar

    Why do we keep getting questions that seem like they come from the mind of a 15 yo?

  19. useless-loser1821 Avatar

    The end of the 3yr relationship was when he cheated on me during a drunken girls night out on a dare from one of her friends, with a wealthy hotel manager and supposed “family man” who was a regular at the restaurant she worked and apparently just happened to bump into him that night. She was a stunner, 10/10 with a lovely personality to boot, but even after an apology, I couldn’t look past it.

    I found out because my exgf told my best friend’s gf (at that time) about the incident and asked what she should do. Best friend’s gf said to keep it secret. But then she goes and tells my best friend about it anyway. Then my best friend, knowing the bro code, tells me about it. I’m still friends with him after all these years and he’s still the best.

  20. Few-Coat1297 Avatar

    I found out after we had broken up. I think in the end she was going to a post grad somewhere else, was looking for an out and then essentially ghosted me because she didn’t want to “have the chat”. I hope she’s grown up a bit, we were only 20

  21. Sad-Paramedic3825 Avatar

    She likes dick more then she let on

  22. BawBowTeuw Avatar

    True reason was I made the mistake of dating someone that has unresolved trauma. She needed external male validation and often was getting it in a flirty way. I ignored the redflags all along the 7 years of the relationship.

    Her official version and reason was that I was putting too much pressure on her (in addition to work) to get invested in our relationship and daily life.

    My version is a mix of both. We were dating since 7 years and fiance since 3 years. We started a new job at the same company, both of us got very busy.
    I was unemployed for 2 years before that and was assuming 99 % of the chores as she was bringing the money.
    When we started this new job the dynamic didn’t rebalance. She had a few business trip per month and got pretty avoidant and distant. I tried to discuss about it several time (lack of connection and investment) but she pretexted she was super busy at work.
    I was still assuming all the chores (cleaning, laundry, groceries, cooking) , paying all the bills just to make sure that she could relax after work and have energy and room to reconnect with herself and with me. All I wanted was to support her and ease her life. Sexually we were still having fun. I am a pretty affectionate and open minded guy and always told her that having a crush or desire for someone else will eventually happen the longer we stayed together. I was open to discuss it (to understand the reason & what was missing in our couple).

    I also told her that if no solution was found and as long as it was just sexual, inviting the 3rd person for threesomes or just watching them could be a thing. But it would need serious case by case discussion before jumping into that. Despite all this she kept being more distant.

    After three months she was spending crazy amount of time at work and also working from home (at least she was pretending).

    Turns out she was cheating with a married guy from HR and spending most of their days flirting and not working (hence the extra hours to catch up). She had mentioned this guy a few month before as she was wondering if he was flirting with her or not. We had a calm discussion about it and after coming to the conclusion he was a bit shaddy, I told her I trusted her to set some boundaries. And that I could be there if she needed advice. Then no other mention of him for 3 months. Seems like she just needed a confirmation.
    She told me ironically she was starting to wonder how I could not see it (despite declining it when I asked her several times if she had met someone else).

    She promised to stop it. She didn’t. Asked some colleagues to lie to me to cover her affair. I found out. They stopped hiding their affair at work which was pretty humiliating for me. I broke up with her. She explained that she was finally feeling free and happy. That he was light and fun and that was exactly what she needed.
    She added our relationship became a burden (without prior discussion or alert on her side).
    I mentioned all the missed opportunities to do better as a couple (especially on the communication and honesty side) but she just said “What do you expect me to say?”.
    No closure. Nothing. So I just left… Packed my stuff and moved out while she was out for a business trip. No contact or anything from her for weeks. I stopped paying the bills as I had moved to another place. She contacted me a few weeks later pissed off because Internet was not working anymore and that should have told her that I was cancelling all the monthly payment. And that’s basically how our 7 years relationship ended. It’s been 2.5 years and I never had any other interactions with her.

    Dating disfonctionnal people on the long run is a very dangerous bet. You convince yourself that showing them the purest form of love will heal them. But you always end up getting dragged with them and sometimes forget to protect yourself. With all that perspective I now remember numerous occasions where she had been shady but I always wanted to trust her as she seemed very involved (we were planning to get married) and very affectionate with me. The drastic change in her attitude is still a misery to me.

    No need to mention the emotional and psychological damage that it caused to me is still weighting on my social and romantic life. When the women you believe to be the one turns out like this and changed radically her mindset in 3 months, with no accountability or explanation. It makes you question your own value, ability to love and be loved, self esteem, ability to choose a decent partner etc.

    Seeing a psych had helped a lot since. 😉

  23. FatLeeAdama2 Avatar

    She was an attention seeker in more ways than I expected. She was going to cheat on whoever until she sought therapy… and she did.

    I ran into her years later. She apologized. She explained her triggers and needs when she was younger. She hurt people. She was healing.

  24. JarbaloJardine Avatar

    No one in any relationship has ever “done everything right” and if you truly think that about yourself it helps explain why things didn’t work out.

  25. strangelifedad Avatar

    She was lesbian, apparently.

  26. Cleric_John_Preston Avatar

    It’s odd that you blame the betrayed man for the poor behavior of the woman.

    Can women just be bad people, and cheat?

  27. Broccoli--Enthusiast Avatar

    Why are you asking us? Why would we know why she decided to throw it all away like that? You think any self respecting person sticks around to ask questions once they find out they have been cheated on?

  28. Spelardota Avatar

    Ehmm. If I had to guess(as, naturally it was all denial) I went to college(she was a year behind me) and despite going home every weekend, talking every night, etc….wasn’t enough, and one of her friends brothers was single and she wanted all the attention…..

    Or, because I’m a terrible human, lets go with that 🙂

  29. onehalfofham Avatar

    She was a whore. There is no other reason.

  30. InsaneInTheRAMdrain Avatar

    Reason? Why do people need a reason.
    People who cheat lack accountability and self-respect.
    Cheating is an act purely to spite their partner, its a serious character defect and is never on the other person, no matter how much of a cunt they are.

  31. Lechatrelou Avatar

    She thought I was her property.

  32. flashesfromtheredsun Avatar

    She was a hoe, mind of a child in the body of a woman. No accountability, no sense of consequence, no responsibility, no loyalty, no longer term or critical thinking. The signs are always there but we are too naive to see them. Don’t be afraid to walk lads, they certainly aren’t. Don’t try to reason with them either, because they have none. Only impulse and in the moment thinking.

  33. SprinklesMore8471 Avatar

    I had a girlfriend that, after 6 months, was constantly talking about marriage. It was a really good relationship through 3 years. But we were underclassmen in college and I wanted to wait till we finished.

    The problem though, she worked at a salon. And over the years the uninvited gossip of, “oh, you’re too young and pretty to get married, you’ll miss out on so much.” Really got to her.

    She couldn’t bring herself to leave, so she cheated. Her words. Then she had a bit of an identity crisis and started acting super desperate for attention on social media. The 3 years after we broke up, she got engaged and broke it off 3 separate times. It was pretty sad to watch.

  34. ValkyrUK Avatar

    She started talking to her ex behind my back, when she told me I said her not telling me made me uncomfortable about her talking to him at all, she left me for him couple weeks after

  35. Sean82 Avatar

    100% effort doesn’t necessarily meet 100% of someone’s needs or desires. Some people aren’t in a position in their lives to be in a committed, monogamous relationship. Some people aren’t wired for monogamy at all. Some people are in relationships with people who aren’t able to give them the fulfillment they want and need and don’t realize it until they meet someone who does. It’s not fair to the person getting cheated on but C’est la vie.

    Edit to add:

    Consider that there’s no way for someone you love to leave you without it hurting. It is true that there are better ways to leave someone that are more respectful and that can even retain a certain sense of love and affection. But it’s always going to hurt. If someone cheats on you, they’re leaving you. In a capricious manner that is unnecessarily painful, perhaps. But they probably weren’t going to be sticking around much longer either way.

  36. nobuttpics Avatar

    alcohol and loose morals.

    She begged me not to leave and I caved. It was the beginning of the end regardless, giving her another chance just dragged it all out and made the process of breaking up 5x worse. Instead of a clean break it was months of escalating toxicity, broken trust, and pushing boundaries. Live and learn.

  37. ResponsibilityOk2173 Avatar

    You can’t keep a relationship based on effort. You can do all the right things because you believe it’s the right way to play it (I do) but there’s so much more to a relationship than that. Attraction is a big one, and you can tell if it’s there or not. If not, pretending everything is fine is a sure pathway to a messy ending. There’s very little you can do about it, it’s almost entirely about fit between the parties, and very little else. Never stay with someone who isn’t attracted to you or you to them. Move on and keep searching until you find a good fit.

  38. timbit87 Avatar

    I was too safe apparently. I’d never have cheated on her and she knew that and thought it was kind of boring, so she cheated on me. She’s someone else’s problem now. Married a different guy like 4 months after I found out and we broke up, despite having picked out wedding rings because apparently I was the only one. Fuck you Ruiko.

  39. Sad_Bodybuilder_186 Avatar

    She’s just wired in a way that if there’s some difficulty in the relationship she starts looking for things that she “all of a sudden” dislikes about someone and starts monkey branching towards another person. She started talking to an old online male friend (funny, just as i was when she was still with her ex) and when i asked questions about why she didn’t want to tell that friend about her relationship she told me it wasn’t “necessary” and after a few days of discussing she told me i was afraid of contacts with other men, i was controlling for wanting her to tell him and i was insecure/jealous because i made “an issue” out of it. And she got more and more defensive about him as time went on. When she told me how her phone battery died so quick, i quipped “If you use it less it ‘ll last longer” and she immediately said that it wasn’t a nice joke because she knew what i meant with that.

    She broke up with me because “she couldn’t continue like this anymore” yet 2 Days later she had a relationship with, yep…. “that guy”

    I treated her like she wanted to be treated, she told me many times how i was making her the most happy she’d ever been and was amazed at how well i understood her. I never did stuff that would make her uncomfortable, and if i did? We’d talk about it, i’d take it in to account. If there was something bothering her about what i did? I’d take it in to account and try to stop that, you know?

    She told me how her exes treated her, and i didn’t want that to happen with me, so i did my best to keep her satisfied in every way shape or form, yet about 4 Months in the relationship(that lasted 5) she showed her true colors it seemed by monkey branching, talking more to him than to me. She didn’t want to discuss stuff about her job with me because “after 5 Months it’s normal that you don’t have a lot to talk about” yet she would hop on the computer like she did every evening, boot up Discord and Steam and she’d be chatting away with him about her day.

    I honestly don’t mind male/female friendships, but the moment this happens and i start to feel like i’m not the priority in the relationship anymore (like i also told her many times, and i even told her that this was the exact thing her ex did which she never understood) then i’m out. She couldn’t ever take accountability for her actions, always was blame-shifting. Everything she told me her exes did to her she eventually started doing to me. And to be fair, because at the end everything i did was “wrong” i’m quite sure she also spoke about me to her parents (which shouldn’t be a massive surprise considering the age gap.. I was 33 when it ended she 24) but it WAS weird. She at first had no problems with stuff that she knew about, and at the end she started looking for problems.e

  40. hundredpercenthuman Avatar

    What do you mean 100% of the effort? As in you did everything and she did nothing? If so, that’s your answer. You weren’t in a relationship, you were buying her time with effort until she found someone she actually liked.

  41. admlshake Avatar

    Well I wouldn’t say 100%, but I certainly did most of the heavy lifting. She was just a shitty person. Had maybe two or three honest bones in her body. She was ALWAYS the victim. She couldn’t see her own short sighted impulsive decisions are what got her into a lot of the problems she dealt with. The version of her I fell for wasn’t the real version of her. That was the lure. Took me a long time to figure that out.

  42. DonkeyGoesMoo Avatar

    My soon to be ex-wife told me early on in the relationship that she’d cheated before (happened before we met) and the circumstances and seemed to own and regret it. I was smitten and gave it a chance, not realizing she had not worked on what was broken inside her. Turns out it’s a pattern and not a one-off, and if I were betting, the one time she told me about from before wasn’t actually the only time. I should have known better. Learn from me, boys.

    e: also just a disclaimer, we both had our issues, specifically around conflict avoidance and some shit from before we got together that we both should have worked on before we met. I was not perfect by any stretch, neither was she, and nobody can give 100% at all times. However, that doesn’t make what she did justifiable. Rather than talk to me about what was making her unhappy and us work on it in couples therapy (if she was really as unhappy as she tried to say after the fact then she masked it very well, I’m usually good at getting reads on people and I thought we were in a pretty good place at the time), she was monkeybranching.

  43. failed_install Avatar

    There has to be more to this story. Could you ask her to comment here with her side of the issue?

  44. serene_brutality Avatar

    Cheating is about the cheater not the person being cheated on.

    People like to say “women only cheat because they’re missing something in the relationship,” or “if she cheated, you denied her something she needed.” That’s bullshit! If you’re not a good boyfriend/husband a good person will leave you not step out on you. Cheating is about selfishness pure and simple.

    I’ve been cheated on a few times, my fault in all of that was choosing the wrong partners. I’ve been a great boyfriend and cheated on and a meh boyfriend and not and vice versa.

    It hurts every time, and my fault according to them every time too.

  45. tugboat7178 Avatar

    In my case, I lost my job due to position elimination and coincidentally had to be hospitalized for a short while.

    She already had a backup plan, as studies show that most women have. So, she attempted to monkey-branch on me, but before she completed the move I found out she was cheating. It was then that I kicked her out, weeks or months before she was ready to break the news to me.

    Some women just get bored easily. They need constant attention and there’s no way one individual man can provide that much, especially after the new relationship dopamine wears off.

    Many lessons were learned with this one.

  46. CLR1971 Avatar

    She had (and still does) have very low self esteem. Not a damn thing I could have done to prevent it. She has even stated as much.

  47. SalamiMommie Avatar

    Hoes be hoes

    We were young , she cheated on her boyfriend with me and I thought things would be different

  48. TacSemaj Avatar

    She was a narcissist who needed to be a victim. Apparently he has much more money, too.

  49. Miliean Avatar

    The relationship was going south, so I don’t necessary think I was putting in 100%.

    It’s been many years and I can look at things objectively now. I was working really hard on a professional development designation test thing, long nights of studying, long days at work. My being away was not really contributing to the relationship state, things were degrading prior to my work hours issue.

    She decided that she was finished with the relationship, but didn’t want to tell me and disrupt this testing process I was going through. She didn’t want to be the reason that I flunked the test, and since it was only a few months away she thought she could just tough it out.

    An opportunity arose while she was traveling for work and she didn’t turn it down. I noticed changes in her behaviour and discovered the cheating. What she should have done was told me that she was done when she decided that she was done, instead of trying to hold back for my sake. Being cheated on and then divorced was a lot more mentally disruptive than just getting divorced would have been.

    She genuinely believed that what she was doing (in not telling me) was the kind thing to do. She made a mistake in accepting another advances while on a trip. But the core error was not just being honest from the jump. Deciding she was done with the relationship but not informing me that she was done with the relationship caused a lot more hurt in the long run.

  50. Task_Defiant Avatar

    It’s who she was. The relationship was more of a situationship, and she loved sex. She cheated on everyone she dated i was no different.

  51. TheDevilsAdvokaat Avatar

    I was working, she was not. I was away from home from at least 11 hours a day (8 hours + travel) She was bored.

    She still said it was my fault because “You didn’t pay me enough attention”

    She wore her victimhood like a suit of armour.

  52. PunchBeard Avatar

    If you think you’re putting in “100% effort” the odds are either you’re putting in 50% and think it’s more or, and this is far more likely, you’re putting 100% effort into the wrong things. It’s easy to love bomb without actually trying to do it and think you’re doing something wholesome and sincere. When in reality you’re….well, you’re love bombing them.

    If you look at any healthy relationship you’ll see that neither person is putting in any more effort than the other. You’ll also see that the effort they put in is mutually appreciated and wanted.

  53. ElGato6666 Avatar

    In my early 20s I dated a woman who cheated on me toward the end of our relationship. It was pretty clear that we weren’t going to last, but neither of us really had incentive to break it off. I think that her cheating was her way of forcing the issue.

  54. caphammered Avatar

    It’s almost never about you. You can be rich, attractive, caring and still get cheated on. Stay strong brother.

  55. keckin-sketch Avatar

    It’s not my job to rationalize her cheating, and since cheaters are liars by definition, there’s no reason to believe their excuses.

    She wanted something and was willing to hurt me to get it. That’s the only explanation that matters.

  56. KYRawDawg Avatar

    Never really cared enough to ask. When I found out I immediately ended the relationship and off she went. I don’t even think I wished her good luck with the new person.

  57. churito69 Avatar

    The OP’s question is flawed; no one can put 100% effort into a relationship; it’s impossible to claim that they can and to claim it may show an issue in thinking.

    If OP means the man is trying their hardest, that could be true; however, if the woman still needs more than the man can provide, maybe the relationship is doomed to fail.

    This isn’t just for men who have been cheated on; it’s anyone; men also cheat (a higher % it is, 20% M and 13% F), but let’s use a man who has been cheated on for this situation.

    The woman should never cheat on her partner; however, it is easy for it to happen.

    She could feel she was not getting enough, then someone she encountered at work or the gym seemed to make her happy when they spoke.

    She doesn’t immediately cheat; she goes for lunch with this man, nothing sexual, just a friend, to talk about her problems, what her husband doesn’t do. It carries on, more feelings get built up, and in the end, it becomes a sexual relationship.

    This woman, however, still doesn’t want to blow up her marriage; they may have kids, there may be a house to sell, maybe one of them is ill, she even still loves her husband, but he doesn’t and can’t make her happy like the new guy.

    Normally, this is an illusion based on it being part-time, no family, no mortgage or history between them, but it feels in the moment that this new man can provide what she needs (while forgetting this new relationship isn’t real, there is none of the pressure of real life).

    It’s never easy, however, yes, the best way would be for the wife to discuss with her husband that she isn’t and can’t be happy, and then they decide to break up.

    She can be with someone who gives her what she needs, and he can then try to find someone who can be happy with the amount of effort he can provide.

  58. K_N0RRIS Avatar

    She was for the streets

  59. GhettoAssDuck Avatar

    Did 99% of what she wanted but i didnt have that 1% to offer

  60. Amruslin Avatar

    Cheaters cheat not because of the other person, it’s because they are fucking little cheaters. So the reason is always, they are an unfaithful pos, nothing more nothing less.

  61. JJQuantum Avatar

    The reason for cheating, be it a man or a woman, is the cowardice of the cheater.

  62. Tornadic_Thundercock Avatar

    Well, my ex-wife started hanging around a new friend group who were all divorced radically feminist. She started to talk frequently about taking half my stuff and blah, blah. I believe it was the influence of the friend group but can’t say 100% for sure. Watch who she hangs out with!

  63. IrregularBastard Avatar

    Never got a solid answer from any of them.

  64. RipAgile1088 Avatar

    She was a self centered leach that also was diagnosed with BPD.

  65. fltlns Avatar

    She’s a piece of shit. It’s the one and only explanation in every circumstance. Even if you were a shitty husband. (Barring abuse i suppose). The play is to talk about it. Or leave. It’s an action with no excuse other than being a selfish piece of shit

  66. ZongoNuada Avatar

    Mine had been cheating on me since before we were married and had an entire support network to keep me from knowing. Had a kid by another man that I raised. She eventually ran across her first boyfriend again, the one who was in his 20’s when she was a teen. She got with me back then just to have a cover for her relationship with the guy. Well, he was slinging meth and left town for about 15 years to spend some time in jail in NY. When he got back into town, she though God had sent him back into her life.

    Came home one day to find all my stuff ransacked, all the kids stuff gone and someone had stolen all my video games.

    I still don’t have an answer as to why other than she is a huge POS garbage human being.

  67. CreaTeBear Avatar

    I didn’t want to feed her THC and Alcohol addictions. Months later she’s still jobless and a complete loser. Her mom pays her rent lol

  68. ildadof3 Avatar

    Because u were cheatable and lacked her respect. That’s it. That’s the only reason they roll. There’s a few whorey sex addicts, but on the whole, she decided you didn’t do or offer the ‘package’ that required her fidelity. If anyone has a problem with that answer, ur just not being honest with yourself.

  69. CrusherOfBooty Avatar

    She had undiagnosed BPD for the first 8 years. Then, she was officially diagnosed, and I consumed some books on it, and everything made sense.

    My mistake was not leaving the first time her mask came down, and when she cheated. She promised never to do it again 7 years later, even worse than before. She lost 90% of her friends and would sacrifice any friendship for pleasure. When we were finally divorced, not a single bridesmaid or mad of honor was her friend. She lit everything on fire in her path. Friends she had for over 10 years were disgusted by her behavior and left her. Only one that continued to be her friend also had an affair, so …. 🤷

  70. 2donuts4elephants Avatar

    To greatly oversimplify an extremely complex situation, she did it because it was exciting. She would probably say that isn’t the case if you were to ask her. She would say “I don’t know” because that’s what she told me. But after analyzing it for a long time, that’s the conclusion I came to, and I believe I’m correct.

    She was my fiancee, and we had been together 8 years. So we definitely had been long past the honeymoon phase and had been in the comfortable phase for some time. We DID have a really great relationship.

    I am not exaggerating in the slightest when I say that I didn’t think she was capable of doing something like that. How wrong I was. She is the reason I firmly believe now that you can NEVER truly knows someone. I still have lingering trust issues because of her that have since been reinforced several more times by other women. Which is why I am honestly flabbergasted when I hear about men doing awful things in relationships to their girlfriends. Because in my experience, women are the untrustworthy snakes who smile and are sweet to your face while getting ready to bury the knife in your back.

  71. Disgruntled_Oldguy Avatar

    Wasn’t “fun” anymore when I was in law school.   3 yr relationship and wedding plans down the shitter because I was trying to make a better life for us.

  72. Glittering_Virus8397 Avatar

    The reason? We were immature, young and she was a whore

  73. JudgementalChair Avatar

    Her mom taught her it was ok to cheat on your spouse if they piss you off, so she was always pissed off at me

  74. LFDR Avatar

    She don’t love you

  75. Benevolent27 Avatar

    A few times.. I’ll relate one.

    We were young, she was a groomed by a family friend from the age of 14, who had been 34. She showed me the letters. He blamed her family for all of her problems and would tell her he would keep her safe, then used her for sex whenever he felt like it. He had moved away and then returned. She was 17 then, him 37. I had made her show me where he lived when he came back. One day she went missing when her and I had plans. I was very worried, looked everywhere, and finally checked his house with a few friends.. and yep, she was naked walking around. I have no idea how they didn’t hear me banging on the door. First, I called her dad, who had me call the cops. They dragged the guy out and threw him into a squad car. Later, it didn’t even go to court. I was fully prepared to testify how he would hang out with groups of 14 year olds and turned my then g/f against her family to sexually exploit her.

  76. Rex9 Avatar

    20 years together, the bulk of that married. 2 kids. We were the couple that no one thought would ever divorce. I cooked, cleaned, did 90% of the housework. All of the car maintenance and yard work. Got the kids up, dressed, fed, and put in the car for her to drop at daycare. After I would get home, I did everything – cook dinner, clean up, bathe the kids, read to them, put them to bed. All to help her have time to grade papers, write tests, do lesson plans. I did this before kids too.

    Come to find out she’d been having multiple emotional affairs over the Internet, culminating in cheating (the only physical I could confirm) with an old friend from college (who is NOT more attractive than me, so that wasn’t it). She also didn’t want kids, but wouldn’t tell me (even though she told me she did to my face). Only told our friends, who are decent people and stayed out of it.

    Don’t know why. We had a great life. Vacations, visiting family and friends. No one suspected. Even her best friend was in denial until I showed her proof. My guess is the excitement of it. I am by far not a perfect person. I didn’t deserve what she did. More importantly, our children deserved better.

    Some people are just broken in one way or another.

  77. Average_40s_Guy Avatar

    I have fortunately (at least to my knowledge) never been cheated on. However, prior to dating my wife, I had a female friend attempt to seduce me because, from what I gathered through our talks, her boyfriend was not good in bed and she felt she deserved better. I’m not going to argue with her deserving better but at least break up with the dude first before exploring your options. By the way, I turned her down and it essentially ended our friendship.

  78. Exciting_Emu4629 Avatar

    You should ask that kind of questions to the other person. At my knowledge i never was cheated but i was leaved, the girl wich was my girlfriend decided to leave, besides i put 110% effort.

    The lesson i learned is that i shouldn’t put all my energy or effort, of all my life or enjoy activities on a affect-sex relationship. Because there is always a possibility that other person changes her plans and decide that.

    I didnt experienced beign cheated. But i think what other person decides and do, talks more about that person than yourself.

  79. Ok_Impact_9378 Avatar

    Sorry to hear that, brother!

    In my own case, it depends on who you ask. If you ask her, she was always polyamorous and finally (after 3 years of exclusive dating and 5 years of monogamous marriage) worked up the courage to come out as poly (by sexting and trying to meet with someone behind my back), admit her bisexual needs (by trying to get with other guys), and live her truth! She simply asked me to accept her as she was (by agreeing to let her sleep with whoever she wanted, whenever she wanted them, while I waited alone at home for her, and cheered her on publicly at pride parades), and when I wasn’t able to do that, she bravely walked out to start a new life (she dawdled for a couple weeks while getting an apartment and secretly setting up a threesome with a couple she’d met online, and didn’t pack anything till the last minute so I had to help her).

    I don’t really buy any of this explanation. She acted as though the only way she could start a sexual affair with one person while still wanting to stay with someone who was providing for her emotional and financial needs was because she was born special as a polyamorous person, but that’s just something any cheater can do. I also noticed that for all her polyamorous enlightenment she still was very jealous if ever one of her lovers had a lover.

    If you ask me, she was bored because the relationship had lasted long enough to exit the honeymoon phase, but she didn’t really want to put in the effort to fix it, keeping conversation to shallow topics only and not really trying anything new. Not wanting to put in effort was kind of her signature style which I should have picked up on years ago, honestly. At the same time, she’d traded her moral and responsible social group for a bunch of online friends and social media influencers who were into various shades of sexual deviancy. She started comparing her boring married life and her lack of pre-marital sexual experience to the wild sexual escapades of her online friends (who would have edited out all the painful drama for social media, of course) and thought she was missing out. Someone convinced her that this “grass is always greener on the other side of the fence” longing was actually repressed polyamorous nature, and that became the perfect justification for the cheating she was already going to do anyway.

  80. NikRsmn Avatar

    My brother, she wronged you first and foremost. Im not trying to fight for her or whatever. But not holding up your boundaries and expecting her to contribute to the relationship is NOT doing everything right. Its masking for her lack of commitment. She should also be putting 100% in. In most of these stories it sounds like the guys let themselves get taken advantage of the signs are there if you pay attention. The times I’ve been cheated on it was usually short relationships, but anything long term you should let her show she’s also in the team. You can’t carry a whole ass relationship alone.

  81. noruber35393546 Avatar

    “the reason” is always the same, she’s a narcissist who is afraid to be single

  82. TrumpetsGalore4 Avatar

    Never blame your effort for why they made the choice.

    “If they wanted to, they would,” and they did…

  83. unicornofdemocracy Avatar

    That’s really unfortunately. But, honestly, what I learn from a similar experience is that if I am putting in way more effort than she is, its time to end it and leave. Women whine a lot on social media about relationships not being equal for them. Honestly, I think men get into a lot of one sided relationships too, we just don’t post videos on TikTok about it. Neither should be putting up with shit like this.

    She wanted to be the one with more financial power and prestige(?). We were in the same field. She always loved the idea of making more money than I did, working in a “nicer” job, and me staying home/working part time when we have kids. Granted some of it were notable red flags that I ignored…

    Then I made a slight change in career plans thanks to some success in my research and clinical work and suddenly I was going to be making much more money and more opportunities for research & publications than her (it haven’t even happened yet, just that it was a strong possibility). Within a few months, she cheated on me with an enlisted member in the military (she was in the military). I found out her career went downhill after that though and they divorced soon after it became clear he was doing much better than she was. I always get a weird mixture of feelings thinking about it. Like there’s some level of satisfaction and happiness that she’s miserable. But also sadness that she’s struggling.

  84. Psychological_War233 Avatar

    Its simple she craved validation, she was a pathological liar and wanted people to like her, she make up stories about her bad childhood later found were lies…… But at the time I saw a hot blonde cheerleader senior year with some 34 DD’s and dated her and married her shortly after high school and then years later divorced due to her cheating multiple times with a guy twice her age. To this day she still lies about why we divorced!

  85. epicstacks Avatar

    It is precisely that you put in 100% effort that she left you. You over-validated her. Made yourself appear less than.

  86. Legate_Retardicus84 Avatar

    She had BPD so it is anyone’s guess why she did it. Most likely my 15 minutes were up.

  87. Then_Evidence_8580 Avatar

    The primary reason a cheater cheats is always that they want to. Even in a bad relationship, the cheater has the option to leave rather than cheating.

  88. CarlJustCarl Avatar

    Because she can.

    She knows the next guy she’s doinking ain’t gonna give a shit. He was so mean to me, never listened to me, ignored my needs…

  89. koolex Avatar

    The first time we were bad at communicating with each other because we were young and clearly wanted different things. She was going to school a few hours away and she should have broken up with me if she was so unhappy but instead she just found someone else.

    The second time with a different women, she was dishonest our entire relationship but I wasn’t paying attention red flags. We also weren’t very compatible and I tried to break it off but we got back together but then she found someone else.

    So yeah in my experience it’s a mixture of being bad at communicating and staying in a relationship way too long with someone you really aren’t compatible with. If I was better at communicating I think I would have killed those relationships long before they would have cheated.

  90. Anynon1 Avatar

    She had borderline personality disorder and was living in her own reality. Somehow justified cheating on me because she was lonely while abroad

  91. WrongdoerAdvanced503 Avatar

    She claimed to be gay but I came to realize that regardless of sexual orientation she was just a miserable, self loathing individual who had gotten everything out of me she could. Couldn’t be happier that she cheated on me and exposed her true colors.

  92. GoodBoyGaming1 Avatar

    She just wasn’t happy anymore. I’ll be honest my 100% isn’t always enough. I have a lot of trouble with executive dysfunction so I wasn’t caring for her needs the way she should have been cared for. I’m not mad she left but I’m still really hurt by the way she did it.

  93. Alsentar Avatar

    Is there a point to finding a reason for something that is out of my control?