"If You Had Some Self-Confidence, None Of This Would Have Happened," And 23 Other Disgusting Cheating Excuses
If you haven't heard by now, there's been a wholeeeee lot of cheating going on in Hollywood lately. From Adam Levine to Nia Long's fiancé Ime Udoka, people everywhere are proving they never deserved to be in loving relationships in the first place.
Often when someone gets caught cheating, they give some tired, tired excuses. Like, I honestly can't believe these people have the audacity to say such things!!!
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Recently, Reddit user u/tall_boizz asked: "What's the dumbest explanation you've heard from someone who cheated?" and the results are...well, pretty darn bad. So, without further ado, here are the worst excuses people have made for cheating on their significant others:
Warning: Some posts contain subjects of depression. Please proceed with caution.
1."I've personally heard several excuses from the same guy. He texted some girls asking for their friend's number by saying he 'eats a mean box,' and told me: 'Oh, come on, it was just a joke!' He solicited affairs on Reddit because 'you were intolerable because of postpartum depression' (even though he'd been on dating apps before I was pregnant). I caught him on Tinder because he 'just wanted to see what kind of girls were in the area.' He also claimed he had a sex addiction, but his therapist 'says I don't because I’ve never actually had sex with anyone else.' His best excuse? 'I never cheated. I never touched anyone' (even his mother repeated this line to me) — he also had the audacity to say: 'Look at you. Who wouldn't cheat on you?'"
2."We were in college, and her parents were coming into town to buy her a belated-birthday dinner. I had an accounting midterm the next morning, and I really needed to study, so I didn't go (for the record, I had already taken her to her favorite restaurant for her birthday). She woke me up at 2 a.m., running into my room where I was an RA and screamed: 'Since you missed dinner with my parents, I had sex with the guy upstairs!' (the guy she had been lusting over for a year). She then asked to spend the night because he kicked her out when he was done — needless to say, our relationship did not survive. Was it the intentional hurting, the grudge-fucking, or the 'you didn't do what I wanted, so I get to do whatever I want, and you get to take responsibility for not only my actions, but the pain you feel' that did us in? The abuser's combo-pack."
3."My ex tried to pull off ['If you had confidence in yourself, none of this would have happened'] with me when she broke up with me. Then, she tried to get back together with me later when she realized she had made a mistake. I told her that I had more self-confidence than that, and it was so satisfying to see that I hurt her with that (especially considering how she smeared my name to everyone she knew when we split)."
4."A guy I knew blamed his prolific cheating on his girlfriend not bonding properly with a child he had from a previous relationship (which had ended because he cheated). She did actually try to be nice to the kid — she was just somewhat ambivalent about kids and didn't want to come across like she was trying to be his 'new mum.' At one point, he almost left her, but as soon as they went on a break, he had three different girls on the go (none of whom knew about the other). He only started to feel a little guilty about what he was doing after one of them started to fall in love with him. He then dumped them in succession, rekindled his relationship with his partner, had a kid, and got married. Of course, the cheating never stopped, and eventually, they got divorced. Cheaters might try to rationalize what they are doing, often in a way that diverts accountability, but they ultimately cheat because they're simply scummy people."
5."I thought it was odd how he never wanted me to come over to his place. He was constantly mentioning he lived with roommates, and that he could never have me over. It turned out those 'roommates' were his wife and her parents. When I was like, 'What the hell?' he said, 'Well, I am married, but we only got married so she could get her green card!' My dumb ass believed him, so I stayed with him for another five months..."
6."'It was just a joke — my homeboys mess around like this all the time.' He sent a girl's Instagram post to his group chat and said: 'She's been liking my stuff lately — what do y'all think???' and his friends said to 'risk it.' They suggested to not let certain people know, or they'd try to talk to me. 💀 I don't know if others would consider this cheating, but I was pregnant, and his intentions were clearly not great."
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7."I got involuntarily sent to a psych hospital after months of suffering through my severe depression and anxiety without medication because we couldn't afford my medication (my wife had alcohol and drug problems). I was gone for 12 days, and she spoke to me twice during that time. When I came home, she told me she'd fallen in love with someone else 'because you weren't there for me when I needed you.' She refused to dump the other person and demanded we have an open relationship. Her shocked Pikachu face when I found out about another partner and left her was golden."
8."'Well, I've been really upset with you and our marriage, and I just needed to talk to someone about all of it.' Funny, I didn't realize that seeking marriage counseling involved sticking your dick in someone else! I was totally blindsided by the affair (which started less than a year after we got married). There was never any indication from him that he was unhappy in our marriage ¯\_(ツ)_/¯."
9."We had been dating for seven years, and his mother died. He told me there wasn’t a funeral — his brother then showed me pictures from the funeral, and there was a different girl all hugged up on my guy. He said: 'It's not cheating because you can't prove that we're having sex.' Like, what?"
"Wait until he finds out that cheating isn't just about having sex with someone else."
10."'When you said you wanted to be exclusive, I thought you meant exclusive here. You never even asked if I had a boyfriend.' I had been 'dating' this girl for three months in college when she admitted that she had been in a long-distance relationship with her boyfriend from high school the entire time. She had slept with him each time she visited her parents, which was at least once a month."
11."'She has depression, and I wanted to make her feel better.' He then got upset with me, and stated that it was horrible of me to be upset because 'I don't understand mental illness.' Meanwhile, I was going to therapy to be treated with severe anxiety and depression."
12."My girlfriend had a threesome with her female friend and her ex-boyfriend. She said: 'I would have invited you, but I knew you would just get mad — you don't like my ex-boyfriend anyway, and would have said I was cheating on you. It's not cheating if it's three people!'"
13."I was once friends with this girl in college, and she was dating this guy who I was also friends with. They seemed to get along really well. We all met up with a couple more friends on Friday evenings to grab dinner and hang out, and I never detected any problems between them. Months go by, and she came to me one day between classes and wanted to talk to me about 'issues' she and her boyfriend were having. She said she slept with another 'friend' of hers, and her boyfriend got mad. All I said was: 'Yeah, he has good reason to be upset — you cheated on him.' I asked her why she cheated, and she said her boyfriend was 'too nice' and she wanted to try dating a 'bad boy type' because she thought he'd be more fun in bed.
"Her boyfriend was kind and did all of these really nice things for her, and I reminded her about that. She said she liked what he did for her and stuff, but she wanted to experiment, and she wasn't sure why he was so upset over 'a one-time thing.'
"Needless to say, our friendship didn't last much longer after that, and neither did her relationship with her boyfriend. I haven't spoken to her in years, but I'm still in contact with her boyfriend — he has a wonderful wife and family now, so he eventually found the happiness he deserved."
14."My ex cheated on me OFTEN with his ex, and when I confronted him, he said incredibly mean but also untrue things about me comparing us! He even said it was because they had kids together (we also had a daughter). Like...how is that even an excuse?!"
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15."He said he was going to deploy in a few days, and he might not come back. My boyfriend was in the field training for the same deployment that wasn't for three weeks, and he flushed down a 2-year relationship."
16."My ex started hanging out at a strip club because 'he was trying to help the women out of their "troubled lives."' He was just doing what Jesus would do and met them where they were...🙄."
17."'You're never home.' I was working two jobs because she was taking her sweet time 'trying' to get a job of her own. She never actually finished saying the whole line — she caught herself right before she said 'home,' so I filled in the blank. She knew it was a stupid excuse, but she didn't have anything else. I told her she should just say it instead of nothing at all because she could never communicate ANYTHING with me. I'm glad to be free of her."
18."'She's just a friend, but you obviously don't love me anymore — I've loved you more than you ever did me.' After he dumped me, he went to a birthday party with her a week later — then, he moved in with her a couple of months later. He lied to me about it for eight months. We had been together for five years and owned a house, among other things."
19."'You didn't make me feel like a priority' after I had taken leave from work to help them finish a script (which I did, editing and proofing the entire thing, and the book won them a money award). They went on to smash pissers with someone at a party I WAS AT. A real catch, that one."
20."This is my friend's cheating story. Her boyfriend was a well-known liar, and not a lot of people believed him — only his friends. This dude cheated on her with a guy, and the explanation was 'I wanted to know what it feels like before I fully commit to you' (what he meant by 'fully commit' was marriage). They're still together, but the boyfriend still somehow manages to get away with cheating — he even tried to hook up with me."
21."I dated a serial cheater, just nonstop dipping his chip in ALL the dips. He 'loved' me, but he 'didn't want to make me feel bad by breaking up with me.' My guy: How the fuck do you think this makes me feel???? But it's okay because he wasn't trying to hurt my feelings..."
22."'I wanted to try something new.' He cheated on me with his ex..."
"Maybe he was explaining why he was with you in the first place, and you were the new thing?"
"It was 20-odd years into our relationship, so it was no longer new."
"Holy shit — to throw away something that long for a freaking ex. ... I am so sorry. I went through something similar, but it was 'only' seven years, and it was with a co-worker of his rather than an ex. Cheaters are low-life scumbags."
23."When I found the condom wrapper but no condom, he said: 'I just wanted to see what it felt like, so I put it on my finger but took it with me when I left.' I'd be angrier if he thought that excuse would work than the cheating itself."
24.And finally: "My ex-girlfriend told me about a guy she had dated who was at a hot tub party. Some girl in a bikini sat next to him and started flirting. She sat on his lap, and they did the deed. Apparently it was 'her fault' for wearing next to nothing and flirting with him. Now, here's one that happened to me: Another ex-girlfriend of mine was screwing around with someone. When I found out, she stared at me with feigned surprise and said: 'I'm not cheating — I've just decided to be polyamorous, so it's okay.' She also reminded me that I was monogamous, and she expected me to be faithful to her. I walked away and never looked back."
