How did you find out that they cheated on you?

[Gabitule]

(This thread is not intended to cause any distress so if you’ve been cheated on and this is a very painful memory, you should perhaps avoid this thread)

For everyone else who are perhaps a bit more detached from the pain of the betrayal, I’m curious to know how you found out that you were being cheated on, if you suspected it, how long it had been going on, etc.
I’ll start:

1. I found out my first boyfriend cheated because he told me about it once we broke up (for different reasons). He told me how, whilst I was working night shifts, he used to sleep with my best friend whom I had invited to live with us when she split up with her own bf. Cheers bestie! 😀
2. In my next serious relationship, I was unpacking my bf’s travel bag who had just returned from a trip abroad. Inside the bag I initially found a drawing of a man sitting on an armchair naked, with his penis erect. The name on top of the drawing (with an arrow leading to the naked man) was my bf’s name. When I confronted him my bf said that he had made the drawing. So he drew himself naked, hard, and made sure to name the drawing. Hmmm. I wasn’t convinced. I then found a hotel room reservation on his name and the name of a woman…I guess she was the real artist 😀.
3. the next one wasn’t very clever 😀. I came home from 10 days abroad visiting my family to find condoms in his wash bag. As we were not using condoms, and I knew for a fact that he didn’t have any in his wash bag before I went away, I obviously asked him about them. He kept responding ‘’I took the condoms out of my wash bag when we stopped using them’’. And I kept saying ‘’yes, I understand that, but why did you put them back in while I was away?’’. And he kept giving me the same answer about why he had taken then out of his wash bag 😂😂. He wasn’t even smart enough to come up with some silly excuse like ‘’oh, I was tidying up my ‘’man drawer’’ and didn’t know where to put them’’.
4. the next one hurt the most. It ripped my heart out. We were on a romantic weekend away and I noticed he was extremely preoccupied with his phone. I genuinely didn’t suspect anything but at night his phone was charging next to my side. I couldn’t sleep and a little voice kept asking me to check his phone (I knew his password, this was before Face ID). I looked at his messages for only a few seconds and saw some nasty recent messages from his ex, shaming him, calling him names. I immediately closed the phone without reading anything else. I couldn’t figure out why his ex, whom he had split up 1.5 years previously, was so angry with him. Perhaps she was crazy, just like he said 🤣🤣. To cut the long story short, over the next few days tiny little hints (like things he had previously said or bought which felt unusual) fell in place and I realised something was going on with his ex. I found her on LinkedIn and I contacted her….Turns out that they were having an affair, he took her with him during a weekend abroad for work the weekend before our romantic weekend away. I was too curious so I asked her to tell me more details of their affair. Perhaps I shouldn’t have done that as what I found out killed me. She showed me messages that he’d sent to her - for example I’d wake up early to iron his shirt and make his coffee and the moment he left my house he’d text her to invite her for breakfast to a posh place, a place he never took me to. Or he would buy me a book for Xmas but offer to buy her a designer bag. Once, he gave me a more substantial present, only for me to find out from his ex that he had actually brought the present for her but she rejected it. Lots of similar things. The extremely weird thing is that he didn’t want to be with her either, he just wanted her to want him. She was also very hurt. Sick man but I can’t ever forgive him, I hope he rots in hell.

Oh, how am I going to find out if my bfs are cheating from now on as everyone is using face id to lock up their phones 🤣.

I can’t think of others now but I’m sure there are more that I didn’t catch out. Unfortunately my relationships have a tendency of being cut short by external factors 😉. And, not that it matters in the slightest, but I am genuinely attractive, playful, tall, still a size 8… It amuses me that men would want to cheat on me

I found a hotel receipt on the bedroom floor, I phoned the hotel and they e mailed me his booking information. It was a beautiful small boutique hotel. I wrote to them afterwards and thanked them for helping me.

They said it happens all the time.

I had a "sense" about someone we both knew. I knew OH was not himself for a couple of weeks.
We had "find device" on each others phones, and when he was fishing I checked to see whether he was on his way home....
He's a terrible liar, his affair lasted 4 weeks after we'd been together 29 years.
As soon as he got home it all came tumbling out.
We stayed together, and have to say we're doing fine now.

1st boyfriend, went on holiday with a group of friends to Vegas. When he got back he was distant and preoccupied. He was on his phone one evening and I happened to see a message from a name I didn't know. Apparently they met on the plane as she was guest of one of the friend group and got together. They are married now with kids.

2nd time was my husband. He was coach at one of my kids extra curricular activities. Started up a fling with one of the other single parents ( incidentally she had already had a few liaisons with other coaches / parents). I was working in a super busy full time job and studying for my master's at the time so distracted, anyway noticed him being cagey with his phone, suddenly on silent all the time and locked. No messages popping up etc. He told me that he wanted some time apart, immediately asked if he had met someone else, he said no. We lived together still and for about 2 months I asked semi-regularly if he had met someone, he maintained no, he just wanted to have some time apart and then wanted to fix the relationship after the summer (I wasn't keen on this plan). Anyway, long story short she ended up pregnant so he had to tell me!

I still have trouble trusting. My husband had convinced all our friends and our families that he hadn't met anyone, even told our marriage counsellor that he wasn't having an affair. Told everyone I was deluded and paranoid and everyone believed him. I thought I was losing my mind! They had been together 6 months when he finally admitted it.

I kept finding items of make up in his car that definitely didn't belong to me. I questioned it and he kept telling me they must've been there from the previous owner. I didn't believe him but continued with the relationship. Then I found a receipt in the car from one of these places you take old DVDs etc too and the customer name was printed on it. I searched for her on social media and they'd been with each other pretty much from a few months after I met him.

I definitely left him after that revelation!

• my best friend saw him coming out of somewhere with the girl. He denied it; so while he slept - I went into his phone and found the girls name on Facebook and messaged her. She met up with me for drinks and told me it all

• I went to his house; there was 2 take away drinks when he told me he'd be alone all night waiting for me; the girl he had been with messaged me telling me she'd been with him and described the place he was staying in; including the 2 drinks

• he told me he had been to x place and was coming back; and to meet him at his place - I got there first and he was coming from the opposite direction, so clearly hadn't been where he said he had. Had my suspicions anyway, so went to the girls house who I thought it was and she confirmed he had been there, she had no idea about me.

• someone had uploaded photos of us to Facebook at a party together and tagged him; the other woman's mum then messaged me saying that I was with her daughters boyfriend and did I know etc; turned into a whole big thing as he had told her he was single

• he was occupied with his phone and being secretive; he then fell asleep so I took it, opened it up and there was the message thread of him telling the other girl we wasn't together and that he couldn't wait to have sex in the car again with her

His flights and reservations under the “recent files” folder of the family computer- which was synced with his phone.
I ‘knew’ but hadn’t evidence, and was just lining up my ducks anyway, I was looking for something else.
I also phoned up a hotel to get a copy of the bill. That made for interesting reading.

That’s such a bad run of luck 😫

Mine was one of those slow moving type of realisations, she was his ‘best friend’ and they used to send photos back and forth all the time on Snapchat, every one I ever saw of her was a selfie of some kind, all hours of the night and day, she rang him any time she needed basically anything, she used to buy him presents that were that little bit too excessive, that kind of thing. Anyway all came to a head on a night out when I’d gone out for a smoke with one of his friends and we literally watched them walk out together and, well, get into it against the wall outside. You could’ve heard a pin drop, I felt so sorry for his mate, he didn’t know what to say or where to look!

The OW messaged him on Skype when he was out doing some client entertainment thing one Sunday. Her picture, and her messages, appeared on our family PC when my then 11 year old daughter was using it to do her homework. She called me into the room to ask what was going on and it all became clear.

Omg your poor daughter :(. I hope she didn’t realise what was going on

Is this message for me?? I am extremely confused! Are you upset because I said that ‘’it amuses me that men would cheat on me’’? I don’t understand, if this is about me saying that I am attractive and slim, I’ve already said that ‘’it doesn’t matter in the slightest’’, meaning that my ‘atributes’’ are excuses that sometimes men use to justify cheating, but they are just that, excuses, not real reasons. I was being sarcastic. I obviously don’t have the best communication skills and English is not my first language but if you’re offended by my post then just move on, ignore the thread. Or ask me what I actually meant. But please don’t call me a dick, don’t hide under the cover of anonymity to insult me! What are you saying, that I deserve to be cheated on because I am a dick (you see how easily one could twist things if they were so inclined??) I know you don’t give a shit but I’m actually sitting there crying with frustration because I spend ages every time I post a message on mumsnet, trying to not say the wrong thing and offend anyone and then I have people like you just throwing nasty words around for no reason whatsoever.

I was about 17 and had my first serious boyfriend
I went into his wardrobe and found shit stained undies at the bottom
He'd been shagging her and she'd had an upset tummy and fir some reason,he'd kept the undies

Second time,I'd just had his baby and I just knew
Turned out he'd been shagging my best mate-the mate who helped me breastfeed,the mate who helped me get in the shower,the mate who had supported me through a hellish pregnancy,the mate who'd looked after my dc while I was in hospital
They'd gone out and came home pissed
Then beat me up,tried to snatch my baby,told my other kids I didn't love them and did they want a better life with her?
(The police didn't do a thing after the beatings)
They lasted 5 weeks after this-not before unleashing a smear campaign that people still believe 17 years later

Both have come snivelling back and both have been told to fuck off

We had a nanny cam in the house. I was on a business trip in Europe and logged into the camera as something in my head told me too..: he was on the phone to his friends talking about all the sex he had been having with this OW! I kept cool until I returned to the country and then questioned him and watched him try to lie his way out of it

She messaged me anonymous on Facebook saying ask H who X is. It has been going on and off for two years. Started just after my daughter had almost died and woken from a coma.

I have a thread on here, I wish I liked myself enough to throw him out.

@OohKittens your thread was devastating to read.
I hope you find the strength to throw him out. An absolutely vile man.

I found an unopened box of "extra safe" condoms, a few weeks later they were open and 1 or 2 were missing. I confronted him and he said he had a posh wank! This was around the same time he said he had been at work all day, yet his ironed shirt was hanging up in the wardrobe, his lunch was left in the fridge and he was home earlier than usual and cleaning his car, he also hadn't text me all day when he usually would. I dumped him soon after and he never admitted it, but it was pretty obvious.

I'm not hiding under the cloak of anonymity. Your comment at it amusing you that men cheat on you made me think this is not a thread where you will take the pain of being cheated on seriously.

I don't say you deserved to be cheated on and even though I did think you were being a dick I still don't think you deserved it. I didn't say anything remotely close to that so don't try and pretend I did.

if you're crying over my post then I suggest you get some support as nothing I said warranted that response.

I feel you're not taking cheating and the pain it brings seriously.

@2025willbemytime I started my thread by saying that ‘’This thread is not intended to cause any distress so if you’ve been cheated on and this is a very painful memory, you should perhaps avoid this thread’’.

Please do that. I appreciate that you may feel really hurt if you were cheated on, AS WE ALL WERE, but don’t take it out on me and don’t presume to know how I feel just from a few words.

He told me each time apart from the last time. The first time he wanted to split up. I asked if he had someone, he said no. I had nowhere to go and asked to try again. He agreed then told me about a weekend away with work. He'd taken condoms, so it was planned. I stayed.

The second time was 18 months later and our 5th anniversary. I was so happy and saying we'd put it behind us. He told me he'd had a six week affair at work with a different woman before he'd had the weekend away. I thought because I'd forgiven him for the one he'd already told me about, I'd have to forgive him for this one because it happened before. (Spoiler: I didn't have to).

We carried on for another year but I was miserable and then he asked for a divorce. Two months later he was living with my best friend. They'd obviously been together for a few months because she refused to even look at me.

That was a long time ago. Last I heard they were married and had a kid. It felt unfair that he'd behaved so badly and ended up in a happy relationship when it took me years and years to find my own happiness.

But the best revenge is to live well and let them get on with it. Maybe he's still a cheat and she turns a blind eye.

I'm surprised they agreed to do that.

Caught him using a second secret phone. I knew he was acting strangely put it down to new job stress. Upon making him open it a whole affair with an ex was obvious plus dating apps . Long gone now .

1. I don't know if he was cheating.

2. Ex husband had "mentionitis". He had to be assessed by a psychologist as part of our divorce (extremely violent plus psychosis) and the guy who assessed him let me know I should have STI tests.

3. I dumped him because he had a part of his social life that I was excluded from completely. About 8 days after I left him, he moved in with another woman from his hobby!

4. He moved his ex wife back in. The shock of that was the worst I have felt in my life. I went to his house and saw her through the window, unpacking her suitcase. No warning.

5. I'm not sure if he was actually cheating while we were together but he was certainly building up to it. His son mentioned my then partner's ex by name and my ex looked very startled and silently walked out of the room. He then dumped me and they were back together a few weeks later.

6. Didn't cheat.

7. We were together for 4 months. First he said he wanted an open relationship and I said no. Turned out he was married anyway.

Luckily friends have been honest when they seen him with another woman (1) then my friend who slept with him told me because she felt guilty (2). Next 3 were caught messaging or sexting other women who they were shamelessly "liking" all over sm. One even emailed me to let me k ow what he was saying as she felt bad for me.

I actually don't believe the modern man can be monogamous any more - I think technology has sealed most of their fates of being 40+ and literal lonely wankers because they can't keep it in their pants.

I’ve only been in love twice in my 53 years of life

My first love of four years (we were engaged for two years) ghosted me. I sent him a birthday card (we were in a LDR) and the card was returned to me. Found out later he had gotten married. Broke my heart.

and the second time I just had a feeling. There were little things that kept happening that finally made me snoop on him. He had moved away and we were in a LDR after two years together. So one day, after thinking about all the things that happened that he had explained away or I brushed off, I decided to search his usual profile name and it came up under multiple dating sites. He had recent activity on all of them. Then I looked at the cell phone bill and saw a number he’d been calling and texting during times he said he couldn’t talk to me because he was working. I called the number and she confirmed that they met online.

being cheated on is very traumatic.