DEBATE: When You’re Breaking Up With Someone Should You Tell Them You Cheated?
Steve and Liz dated for almost a year before their relationship started to hit the skids. Over the past month, Liz has become increasingly distant and their arguments went from minor tiffs to major yelling matches.
Liz believes that its time for them to break up and go their separate ways. However, she is debating if she should bring up the fact that she cheated on Steve about a month ago. She thinks it could help explain why they have been fighting so much, but is unsure if it’s too much information at this point.
Should Liz tell Steve that she cheated or just keep it to her self?
Don’t miss any of our intriguing insights, distinct date ideas, diverse debates, or poignant podcasts! Sign up for our email newsletter today!
NO NO NO!!! Why in the world would you tell Steve that you are the world's biggest HO-BAG?!?!? (You know you're a sleezy beotch, right Liz? You have to know that.) What purpose would that serve Steve? You have already committed the worst relationship offense. Is there any reason to hurt Steve further?
Why would you want to tell Steve?
Perhaps because you want to alleviate whatever personal guilt you're feeling? That makes you an even bigger jerk. Personally, I think you should have to live with that anvil of guilt - telling him is only going to make you feel better and I see no reason for you to feel better Liz. None.
I'm going to hate myself for wasting good advice on someone like you Liz, but I'm going to do it for the greater good.
Here's the second biggest reason you shoudn't tell Steve -- he's going to tell every one of his friends, every member of his family that you cheated. After almost a year of dating, I'm guessing that you have some friends in common - do you really want them to know what a slut you are? No one and I mean no one (not even your best friends) are going to sympathize with you on this one.
If Steve does tell all these people and he will - it's the BEST form of revenge, you are forever going to be the "slutty friend" in the group. The girl that's easy. That girl doesn't have any morals. You can bet that your girlfriends aren't going to set you up with their guy friends or their boyfriend's friends.
I'm sure you've heard it Liz, but it begs saying again, "Once a cheater, always a cheater." People around you are going to be talking behind your back girl. Let's suppose you go to a common friend's wedding, you can bet there will be a lot of whispering about what you did to Steve. You may have to find yourself an entirely new group of friends. Heck, you may have to move to another city and start all over again.
On second thought Liz, go ahead, PLEASE tell Steve. You're a cheater, so you'll deserve everything that comes after.
In order to explain my perspective on this topic, I feel I should share a personal story from my college years. The people involved (aside from me - duh) will remain nameless to protect the guilty.
My junior year of college I was dating a girl I really liked for about 3 months. We got along well, shared some fun times and I thought it had a future. Well, we went our separate ways for winter break, and as you can probably guess, she came back distant and distracted.
To make a long story short, we broke up and she blamed it on school stressing her out. Being the good guy (aka SUCKER) I was at the time I felt bad for her and we remained friends.
Until of course... I found out the truth.
Turns out (like you didn't see THIS coming) this girl cheated on me over winter break. In fact she fell for another guy that she dated for a long time and I think ended up marrying.
When I found out I felt like such a fool. Here I was, feeling bad for her, trying to be friends and help her with her "school stress" when the whole time she didn't deserve any of that! I wish I would have known from the get-go so that I didn't waste time in a fantasy world thinking she deserved friendship.
So back to Steve & Liz:
Liz - you GOTTA tell Steve. It's the decent thing to do so that he doesn't go on thinking that HE did something wrong. You know you done done him wrong (hows that for good English!) - at least be honest about why you've been distant and moody over the past month. Let him know it's not his fault, that it's your fault and you're taking full responsibility.
Plus let's be real: You know he's going to find out somehow. You guys have been together a year. You have mutual friends. You're gonna get drunk one night and blab to a girlfriend who just HAPPENS friends with the hairdresser that does the hair of his new rebound girl who will quickly share the story of your cheating ways in an effort NOT to just be a rebound girl.
I've seen it all before.
Yes, he will be upset. More so than if you lied and said "We're just growing apart" or whatever other BS you were gonna make up. He may even call you names. I'm guessing he'll probably go with "ho-bag" (that seems to be popular these days).
But he will also respect you for being honest with him and NOT lying when you could have so easily hid your indescretions. If you explain it as a mistake, a sign, a good thing, you might make it out of there on decent terms. Use the line "I don't know what happened... I slipped, fell, landed on his dick." No guy can hear that line and not at least smile. Trust me.
So tell him. For his sake. For your sake. For the rebound girls sake. It's the right thing to do.
p.s. For the record Liz, this advice does not apply if you cheated with his brother, cousin, best friend, roommate or Rabbi. If it's someone close to him, just lie and get the hell out of town before Rabbi Jenkins beats you to it and breaks it to Steve that you two hooked up at little Shaquille's briss.
 Loading ... |
Related posts:
Tough call on this one. I think it really depends on the situation and how much good or harm you would do by confessing your infidelity. I can definitely see both sides, depending on the situation. I would be interested to hear opinions on whether or not readers think you should confess cheating when breaking up, if it happened earlier on in the relationship and wasn’t the cause or related to the break-up. I for one think I would prefer not to know, unless it was a situation where mutual friends already knew. Some tough moral issues…
I like this debate format for relationship and dating posts. Very interesting!
And to answer to the debate, I gave my vote to Adam’s approach. I think honesty is the best policy, although it is all in the way you communicate it.
Again, enjoyed reading the post!