Infidelity is a broad term that can cover everything from one-night stands and sexting to flirting or even a secret lunch with a colleague. At its core, it’s any sexual or emotional activity that falls outside the agreed-upon boundaries of a relationship.
To explore the lengths people go to in order to fulfill their desires, Reddit user WCh3L3 posted a question on the platform: “What’s the wildest cheating story you’ve witnessed or experienced?” It’s a thought-provoking question, especially since many of us may not recognize the signs of an affair, even if we suspect something’s off with our partner.
Below, you’ll find some of the most memorable responses from the thousands of stories shared in the discussion. Plus, we’ve included insights from Dr. Janneke Schokkenbroek and Dr. Talal H. Alsaleem, interspersed with the submissions.
#1
Years ago, I knew a guy who worked as a private investigator. He was often approached by spouses who suspected their partners of cheating.
He had a foolproof strategy. He’d suggest that his client sign up for a course, whether it was a hobby or an educational class. The trick was that the class would take place on the same day and time each week for several weeks.
While his client was in class, he’d follow the suspicious spouse. And every single time, he caught them in the act.
#2
My ex-wife faked being admitted to a mental health facility for long-term treatment, but in reality, she was staying with her new man and cheating on me.
To gain a deeper understanding of infidelity, we reached out to Dr. Janneke M. Schokkenbroek, a postdoctoral researcher at Delft University of Technology and Inholland University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands.
“When it comes to cheating, there are a lot of misconceptions,” Schokkenbroek explained. “The first one is that cheating is always about sex. That’s not true!”
“Emotional cheating is just as real, and for many, it’s even more painful,” she continued. “This happens when someone forms a deep emotional connection with someone else, sharing personal thoughts, dreams, and vulnerabilities. It’s not always physical, but it can still feel like a betrayal because it undermines the emotional intimacy that’s supposed to be exclusive to the relationship.”
“What makes emotional cheating so tricky is how easy it is to dismiss. It often starts as ‘just a friendship,’ but over time, boundaries begin to blur. If secrecy creeps in, or if your partner starts prioritizing someone else emotionally, it might be time for a tough conversation.”
#3
I know a guy whose wife was cheating on him with his cousin, who was also married. He found out and decided to invite everyone over for dinner. Midway through the meal, he looked his wife dead in the eyes and said, “I know you two are f*****g,” right in front of both the affair partner and his wife. Needless to say, all hell broke loose, everyone got divorced, and the affair partners never ended up together.
#4
I used to go to this comic shop where the owner knew all the local gossip. He was a really nice guy, always remembered his regulars, and would check in on people if he hadn’t seen them in a while. A lot of people grew up with his shop, so he had some great stories.
One day, he shared a story from a few years back about a regular who had disappeared for a few months. When the guy came back, the shop owner asked him, “Hey, man, haven’t seen you in a while?” like, “Where have you been?” The regular replied, “Oh, I’ve been getting divorced. Had to move. It was a whole thing.”
Naturally, the shop owner asked, “Why are you divorcing your wife?” The regular said he’d caught his wife cheating.
Turns out, he’d picked up a second part-time job as a pizza delivery driver, secretly working to fund a dream vacation for her. All the money he earned from that job was meant to surprise her. He’d been doing this for about six months, and she had no idea.
Well, as fate would have it, he was the pizza delivery man at the very motel where she was cheating on him. The guy who answered the door was her affair partner, with her standing right next to him.
Apparently, he didn’t even go back to the pizza place. He quit on the spot, packed up his stuff, and left town.
Another common myth, according to Schokkenbroek, is that cheating always means you’re unhappy in your relationship.
“Sure, dissatisfaction can lead to infidelity, but it’s not always that simple,” she explained. “Sometimes, people in happy relationships cheat too, maybe because they crave novelty, excitement, or validation.”
“The idea that ‘if someone cheats, they don’t love their partner’ isn’t always true. You can genuinely love your partner and still be attracted to someone else, often for reasons completely unrelated to your relationship, like a spark of excitement or sexual attraction.”
“Of course, this doesn’t make it okay,” Schokkenbroek added. “Cheating is still a betrayal of trust. It crosses both spoken and unspoken boundaries and can deeply harm the relationship. Whether it stems from unhappiness or not, infidelity is a wake-up call that something, either in the relationship or within the person cheating, needs attention.”
#5
A guy cheated on me because “my libido was too high.”
Yes, you read that right.
“You wanted sex so much that I needed a break by having more sex to escape all the sex we were having.”
#6
I’ve shared this before, but it’s worth repeating.
We were deployed overseas, and my buddy got the dreaded “Dear John” letter from his fiancé. To make matters worse, she included a photo of another man’s ahem in her mouth to really twist the knife.
In retaliation, he had that photo made into Christmas cards and sent them to her whole family. Six weeks passed, and then the letters and phone calls started coming in to the command. My buddy went before the command, explained the whole situation, and showed them the letter and the photo.
They were furious, but there was no punishment for him.
One more stereotype that Schokkenbroek wishes would disappear is the idea that “the other woman” is the villain or the homewrecker.
“Not only does this phrase unfairly label the secondary partner as the villain, but it also shifts the focus away from the cheater’s responsibility,” she explained. “Plus, calling them ‘the other woman’ is outdated and gendered, secondary partners can be men, non-binary people, anyone.”
“In reality, these situations are rarely black and white. Sometimes the secondary partner doesn’t even know they’re the ‘other,’ or they genuinely fall for the cheater and find themselves in a painful and complicated situation, which often causes a lot of heartbreak for them too. Instead of vilifying them, let’s use neutral terms like ‘secondary partner’ that better reflect the complexities involved.”
#7
A friend of a friend found out her husband was cheating in the most unexpected way. She rushed to the hospital to see him after he was brought in by ambulance following a serious car accident, only to be denied entry to his room because “his wife was already in the room with him.”
Turns out, he was leading two simultaneous lives with two women, neither of whom knew about the other.
#8
My friend’s mom had been in a long-term relationship with a guy for years, and they were even engaged to be married.
The guy was a senior director at a company and traveled abroad for work every week.
Eventually, he had a heart attack, and when my friend’s mom arrived at the hospital, she was shocked to find his wife and two kids already there.
It turned out he had been living a double life the entire time. When he went “abroad” for business, he was actually returning to his real family.
#9
I used to work as a florist, and one day a guy came in and ordered flowers for two different women, his girlfriend and his wife. He put both orders on the same credit card, one he shared with his wife.
The whole shop was curious, so we all volunteered to deliver the flowers just to see what these women looked like. Later that day, the wife called, asking who the second order was sent to. Since her name was on the card, we felt no obligation to keep it a secret, so we told her.
Florists are generally good at keeping secrets, but in this case, she paid for the flowers, so we felt it was fair to share. I’ve also disclosed anonymous sources if a woman receives flowers from someone who hasn’t signed the card, I don’t want to get caught up in a potential stalking situation.
A 2022 survey revealed that one-third (33%) of Americans admit to having cheated, whether physically, emotionally, or both.
However, only 57% of cheaters were caught, meaning 43% successfully kept their infidelity a secret.
In most cases (71%), those who cheated didn’t want their partners to find out about it.
#10
In a small town, a husband kept telling people that he had an open marriage. Eventually, someone decided to ask his wife about it, only to find out she was completely unaware of this supposed new arrangement.
#11
I had a coworker who cheated on her live-in boyfriend. She’d tell him she was going for a run, put on her shorts without underwear, and then hook up with her side piece in the apartment parking lot. Afterward, she’d come back sweaty 30 minutes later, say she needed a shower, and it all made sense to her boyfriend, who never questioned it. She was an awful person.
#12
I don’t cheat, but my mom has a history of dating married men, and it’s been incredibly damaging to watch.
She’s been involved with:
1. Her first boss, who was also the mayor of the town she grew up in.
2. My father, who was married to his first cousin and already had a daughter. When my mom got pregnant with my older sister, they eloped, and he became a bigamist, eventually divorcing his first wife. My older half-sister hated me until she passed away in 2020.
3. Her divorce lawyer when she divorced my dad 10 years later.
4. Our family therapist, who we saw to help us cope with the divorce. We suddenly stopped seeing him, and I later ran into him at my uncle’s restaurant. When I said hi, he turned pale and ran off, leaving me wondering if I had somehow caused us to stop seeing him.
5. Her CEO boss after the divorce. She used to dye his eyebrows, give him foot massages, and act like we didn’t notice what was going on. I went no contact with her in 2003 after she hung up on me during a personal crisis to be with him.
6. The mailman, during a break from the CEO. His wife came to confront my mom, and after that, I started ordering “As Seen on TV” stuff C.O.D. to make him uncomfortable, so he would pay for it himself to avoid coming to the door.
The reason I’m sharing this is that I can’t stand when people say, “He didn’t make those vows to me,” as if it’s okay to act that way just because the vows weren’t made to them. It’s not okay, and it causes a lot of harm.
I’ve never cheated on any of my boyfriends.
#13
In a small town, a group of men lied to their wives about going on hunting trips. In reality, they were meeting up with each other at a motel and having affairs.
#14
I just got back from deployment and took my (now ex) wife on an anniversary trip to Vegas. We went to some Cirque shows, played a bit of pai gow, and had a fancy dinner, basically, I spared no expense for the experience.
After she passed out drunk, her phone kept buzzing with about 20 messages from an unknown number. Curious, I looked through them. They were full of romantic and explicit texts and photos. She had been messaging this guy all night, even while we were at dinner, telling him she wished he was there instead of me. She’d been talking to him throughout my entire deployment.
I started digging deeper and found several other message threads. It turned out she had been involved in nine different affairs with both men and women. She was even part of a throuple that she’d ruined by repeatedly hooking up with the husband behind the wife’s back, which led to their divorce.
#15
My dad cheated on my mom with a coworker. She suspected something was off but didn’t know for sure until one night he didn’t come home. I was around 10 or 11, and I remember walking into the kitchen the next morning and asking my mom where he was. She just said, “He didn’t come home last night.”
She called him at work, and he told her he’d slept at a friend’s place because he drank too much. My mom then called the friend’s wife, and she confirmed that my dad wasn’t there. That was all my mom needed to know. It shattered our family. She packed his things and left them by the door.
Afterward, my mom fell into a dark place. She became addicted to prescription pills and even tried to take her life. I found her and called 911, which saved her. But instead of staying, she left us behind. She left me and my sister with my dad, who wasn’t really equipped to take care of two teenagers.
Soon after, he met a woman who had just lost her husband. They got engaged, and suddenly I was living with her and six new step-siblings. Things only got worse from there. I enlisted in the military to escape it all. The whole situation messed up me and my sister pretty badly.
