We Asked People Who’ve Been Cheated On How They Found Out

There’s no good way to find out you’ve been cheated on. Maybe if the news was written on a fat stack of cash, but other than that it’s almost guaranteed to be a gruelling and unpleasant experience. 

It’s a slap in the face: whether it comes from the person who did it, or a friend, or a stranger, and whether or not you knew it was coming. Even if the relationship wasn’t very serious, it can still be a gut punch after getting close with someone emotionally or physically. 

Unsurprisingly, cheating isn’t commonly associated with honesty and communication, which means a lot of the time you’re not gonna get the scoop from the person who’s cheated. 

VICE spoke with 4 people who were cheated on by their partners and asked them how they found out – because the shitty truth is that people do cheat, and sometimes the only thing that really helps is knowing that other people have been through it and come out the other side. 

“I was 20 years old and dating a 34 year old from my work who had recently broken up with his previous girlfriend. Throughout the relationship I started to realise he was incredibly insecure and jealous.

One day, I got a call that my dad had been in a serious accident and was in the ICU in a coma. I rushed to the hospital to be with my family, but when I told my partner what happened I got this strange sense that it bothered him that my priorities were somewhere else and not him.

Two days passed and I hadn’t heard from him so I decided to go to his house to see him. There he was, in bed, with his co-worker. He laughed and said, Well, someone had to take care of my needs.

I have never felt such an empty feeling in my life. My dad was on death's door and my boyfriend had cheated on me. There were so many dark days following.

I worked so hard to get past that trauma with immense amounts of therapy for grief, loss, guilt and shame. Sounds cliche, but I feel so proud of myself being where I am today.”

“I was apologising to my partner for flirting with someone else and then they just blurted out, I slept with Frankie last night, who was someone from their work. 

Honestly, I feel like when I said what I did, they saw an opportunity for their thing to not be as bad because I was already saying I'd done something wrong.”

“We were 17, 18-years-old at the time and my boyfriend, Adam, who I’d been with for 3 years, had gone to a party, got blackout drunk and slept with his mate Kyle's girlfriend. Kyle caught them at the party, and he told a mutual friend of ours. 

Kyle and I had never met, and I didn't have Kyle’s number, so I turned on my data to message him on Facebook and suddenly got floods of messages all from Kyle. He explained how he’d caught Adam and how he went through his girlfriend's phone and found out they had actually been flirting for months. 

I’d actually called my boyfriend earlier in the day, before I knew anything was wrong, and he’d just been like, Hi, I love you, like nothing was wrong. 

So at this point I step outside and call him again and he picks up going, Hey baby how was your day, to which I politely lost my shit, like, How could say you loved me knowing what you did? and then hung up.

After that I kind of ignored it for a bit, I’m sad to say. I was 17 and I always said that cheating was the most unacceptable behaviour, but until you're there and the person you love is literally begging you to stay with them it's super hard to not forgive them. It's not like I wasn't furious about it, but every time I tried to break up with Adam, he’d start crying and I’d get sucked in.

The only reason I was actually able to break up with him is because I went away to uni and managed to get separation.

If it ever happened again, hopefully that experience will have given me the strength to leave, because I know I deserve more.” 

“I'd been in a relationship with this guy who was twice my age for like, 3 years.

Towards the end of it all I was getting very strong vibes that he was sleeping with other people. Every time I asked if he was, he made it out like I was just insecure and needed to trust him and look at everything he does for me. Like, Why would he treat me that way? Blah blah blah.

After we broke up I went into psychosis for like, two weeks. I broke into his house when he wasn't home and went through all his journals, his to-do lists, everything. I found women's names and dates, his inner monologue around everything, found out he was seeing sex workers a couple of times a month for the better part of a year, and other strategically kept secrets of his. 

I went from psychotic to empowered in the space of 10 seconds and walked out the door and slammed it shut for the last time. 

When I confronted him about it he told me that I didn’t know what I was talking about and that he never did any of those things. And to this day I don't think he has any idea I was in his house. I never want to be in that position or feel that way again.” 

“I’d been with this guy for about 6 months, and it never felt that serious or like either of us was interested in being together in the long term, but we were still exclusive and monogamous. 

Every now and then stories would come up about how someone had messaged him on Snapchat or a dating app, and he would tell me that as if it wasn’t weird that he was still on Tinder and Hinge, even though we’d been exclusive for a couple of months. Something about how casually he’d talk about it made me feel like it wasn't something I could really react to. 

Gradually, it became more obvious that he actually was messaging other people. When I brought it up with him he said it was all to do with him exploring his sexuality and he didn’t feel comfortable enough to be open about it. For instance, he’d been swapping pics with guys on Grindr, and he claimed that it was this really difficult personal journey of realising he was bisexual and polyamourous - which obviously can be really a painful process - but we were still in an exclusive relationship. 

I didn’t feel like I could criticise or be mad at him because of this “self discovery” barrier he’d put up, so I was painfully accepting of the fact that he was doing all of this while we were together. It makes me so sad for myself that I put his needs so far ahead of my own. 

Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t just with men, and after I eventually broke up with him he had a girlfriend within about a week. 

We don’t speak at all, so I’ll never know for how long he was actually talking to other people, or the girl he ended up dating. 

I really wish I’d told someone about it. I genuinely don’t know why I didn’t, but deep down it was probably because I thought it was embarrassing. But being disrespected like that is so much worse than feeling embarrassed for one conversation. 

I would never let someone I know stay in a relationship where they were being cheated on, just because the cheating wasn’t as concrete or obvious as finding their partner in someone else's bed. We’ve got to look out for each other and make sure the people around us know that they deserve the best, not just ‘not the worst’.”

Basically, there’s no nice way to find out someone you're dating has broken your trust and you can’t stop someone from doing a shitty thing that they’ve already done – but you can make sure it doesn’t get any worse. 

It’s normal to feel angry and hurt, but forget revenge (breaking into their house isn’t recommended) and focus on keeping yourself safe and supported in the aftermath. 

Check out the Love Better resources below if you’re in need of support. 

Own the Feels is brought to you by #LoveBetter, a campaign funded by the Ministry for Social Development.

LoveBetter Youthline support channels:

Email: lovebetter@youthline.co.nz

Or rangatahi can text lovebetter to 234

https://check.areyouok.org.nz/

Rachel Barker is a writer / producer at VICE NZ in Aotearoa.