Affair Partners Are Sharing Why They Helped People Cheat, And I Am Judging Some Of These People HARD

“Her boyfriend video-called her while we were back in the hotel, and I hid in the shower while she turned her camera around the room.”

I'm a Senior Staff Writer based in New York City, where I've been covering classic BuzzFeed-style content since 2020.

"I left almost immediately after that. Then she came to visit shortly after; we hung out together in our larger mutual friend group. I was going to tell her, but she launched into a story about her multiple miscarriages with him. I felt like it would be shittier for her to find out her husband was cheating far from home, in the middle of a friend group she didn't know, that I would later find out almost the entirety of knew about and covered for his cheating. I pretty quickly distanced myself from everyone after that."

"I assumed she was cheating, so I just walked away. That's when it hit me. The next day, she called and explained. She was married — the guy was her husband. She said they stayed together for their kid, didn't have sex anymore, and had issues. I should've blocked her then, but she said she still wanted to see me, and I agreed. So we kept seeing each other in secret. It was exciting at first, but eventually I pushed for the truth. She admitted she was fully married and still loved her husband. When I made her choose, she chose him. That's when I realized I was just the escape for her — the fun part, not the real life. I knew there were red flags from the start; I just ignored them because I was having too much fun. And in the end, it wasn't worth it."

"I was, like, 23; I think she was 31. It was just one night, but I feel bad looking back."

"He wanted to see my apartment at one point. He would just stare out my window and tell me he longed for the peace I had, for the lifestyle I lived — simple, quiet, happy. Sometimes we hooked up; other times he just talked and talked. I would go to answer, and he would start talking again. He apologized and said he just had so much to say, now that someone was finally listening. Or he would just give me a hug and not let go for a bit. Well, he did leave her after months, and we've been married for some years now. Recently, he told me he's the happiest he's ever been."

"Coincidentally, her friends had something come up and needed to take off — meeting someone else or some such excuse. She 'felt bad' that she'd invited me out only to ditch me, so she told them to go ahead and she'd meet up with them later. (Tingling intensifies.) So we had some drinks and chatted. We were friends, and that's a thing friends do. After an hour or two, I was ready to hang it up. We'd both had several, and it was getting late. Alas, she 'couldn't get a hold' of her friends. Adding to her misfortune, they were her ride downtown! This is before Uber/Lyft, and the taxi situation sucked, so she asked if I'd give her a ride home. (Spidey senses on fire.) It wasn't terribly far out of my way, and I couldn't leave my friend's girlfriend alone at a bar downtown at midnight, so despite my mild impairment, I obliged. (I know — I was young and dumb. I'm sorry.) 

We pulled up out front, and I gave the, 'Welp, there you go! You're welcome!' And she, I shit you not, responded with, 'I'm not sure you should be driving anymore with how much you've had to drink. Just come in for a few. We'll watch a show, then you can head out.' (Spidey punching me in the face.) I objected for a bit, but finally relented. We went inside, and there was (shockingly) nobody home. She did turn on the TV, then headed into her room 'to change.' I sat on the couch, knowing full well what I was doing while trying to convince myself I wasn't. After a few minutes, she yelled, 'What are you doing?!' to which I responded, 'Sitting on the couch — I thought we were watching something!' That was clearly not the right answer, because she yelled, 'Get in here! It's not like I'm gonna molest you!' (Spidey, help!) I walked in to find that she'd only gotten halfway through the 'changing' process and had to lie down. I sat. She put her hand on me. It's game over. (Sorry, Spidey.)"

"Her one rule was that I could not penetrate her myself — that, I suppose, was her way of justifying the infidelity. So I used toys on her, and she used her hands and mouth on me. It should also be noted that it was the one time I needed to piss so bad that I opened her window and began pissing outside, only to realize I was pissing directly into the window screen. TL;DR: I was drunk."

"She once said, in defense of herself, 'But I didn't blow him. I really wanted to blow him.' When I asked why she went to their wedding, she just said it felt wrong to refuse. Mind you, she skipped my wedding because she didn't want to request time off work. We're no longer friends, but I still think about that a lot. She was, in so many ways, a saint — truly a good person who went out of her way to help others. She volunteered constantly and tried to see the best in people. But then she was a willing affair partner and never bothered to tell the woman. People are complicated, but she taught me we're all selfish: If we need or want something and the opportunity presents itself, we'll take it. I have no doubt in my mind she'd be an affair partner again."

"Eventually, she started acting as if we actually were a couple and wanted me to casually ignore the fact that she was living with the guy (despite spending three or more nights per week at my place). After we had an argument on the phone one day, I sort of looked up and was like, 'What am I doing? I can do better than this.' I met my wife two weeks later. It's a damn miracle I got out of the situation without a kid or STI."

"He was a super disgusting person, and I let him treat me like dog shit because I thought it was better than no one, and my 'friends' were finally nicer to me. Oh, how I wish I could go back and have a complete do-over. I know I only have myself to blame, but I think if I didn't have such male-centered and shallow role models, my life choices would have been so much better."

"We dated from 17 until 21. You can guess how that relationship went. He was physically, sexually, mentally, and verbally abusive. He lied to me and cheated on me constantly.

He ended up giving me HPV, and I got precancerous cells from that and had to get my cervix burned this summer to stop it from getting worse. I still have to worry about getting cancer from this, and I’m terrified for my future fertility.

It’s never, EVER worth it to be that desperate for love. I was just happy someone paid attention to me and cared more about how I felt than how the other girls felt.

The lesson was definitely learned because I never did anything like that ever again, and I try to talk about my story if I can, because I think a lot of young people feel the same way I did at the time."

"The second time, it was with someone my own age. I'd known her since kindergarten. We had grown up together and were friendly but never really close — we hung out in different crowds, and she was unattainable for most guys in our cohort. But I'd always dreamed she'd want to be with me someday. Then that day came. I knew she was married, but she was clearly unhappy and needed someone to listen and empathize — and also to have the living daylights fucked out of her, apparently. So I figured that should be me. It lasted about a year. She had a kid suspiciously close to nine months after we were last together, but she swears it wasn't mine. The jury is still out. I never see her anymore."

"The poor guy had to know something was up. If I believed in karma, I suppose I'll have it waiting for me. I do think it makes me a bad person, in the sense that the world might be a little better place if third parties had more reverence for the sanctity of other relationships, but I just felt like she was going to cheat one way or another. But maybe I'm just rationalizing my guilt away. It was a fun night and a fun story to tell."

Submissions have been edited for length/clarity.