“Oh, but I didn’t want to hurt you!”
Ah, the classic. As if intention magically erases impact. If they truly didn’t want to hurt you, they’d have kept their trousers zipped and their promises intact. Cheating isn’t an accident; it’s a deliberate choice made at the expense of someone else’s trust and emotional well-being. You can’t trip and fall into someone else’s genitals.
“It’s better you didn’t know. I was trying to protect you.”
This fallacy assumes that ignorance is bliss. In reality, secrecy nothing but cruel. The truth has a way of surfacing eventually, and when it does, the betrayal cuts even deeper. If they cared about your feelings, they would have respected your boundaries instead of trampling on them under the guise of “protection”.
“Oh, but this is a grey area, you can’t be so black and white.”
Cheaters love a moral smokescreen. They often try to blur moral lines, suggesting that infidelity exists in some ambiguous space where boundaries don’t matter. Yet, if they believed in such “grey areas,” why not be upfront about their actions? Funny how the ‘grey area’ only appears after they’ve been caught. It’s not philosophy, it’s just a refusal to take responsibility.
“It just happened.”
This is one of the most insulting contortions offered by cheaters. Cheating doesn’t “just happen”, like a thunderstorm or hurricane that no one has control over. It involves a series of conscious decisions: Lying, planning, and ultimately betraying trust. This excuse downplays their accountability and insults your intelligence.
“I wasn’t getting what I needed from you.”
Here comes the ridiculous blame game. This excuse shifts blame onto the victim, implying that their partner’s shortcomings justified their betrayal. While relationships can have challenges, cheating is just a cowardly avoidance. Everyone faces difficulties in relationships. Break up, or improve the relationship, these are the only two ethical choices. Choosing to unilaterally break monogamy and consent is the act only scum could do.
“I was drunk.”
Using alcohol as an excuse for cheating is another contortion aimed at dodging responsibility. While alcohol may impair judgment, it doesn’t erase accountability. Cheating under the influence is still cheating. You would never get away with a crime by claiming intoxication, so cheating is definitely not one of them. The only exception is when your partner is intoxicated and unable to consent – which would make it sexual assault. In that case, the only way to exonerate your partner is to call the police. If they are unwilling to do so, well, you might want to question why.
“I didn’t think you’d find out.”
This one’s almost impressive in its honesty, if it weren’t so appalling. They’re admitting they were fine with betraying you as long as they got away with it. Would they be happy to abuse your children if no one would ever know? Besides, it’s really a mix of arrogance and underestimating you to commit perfidy on the assumption that you would be too ingenuous to realise.
False Apologies
False apologies are those where they attempt to assuage their guilt without fully confronting the gravity of what they have done.
- “I’m sorry for everything” – as long as it doesn’t highlight the specific act of cheating, this serves as a hand-wavy, “oh everything bad!” sort of concept. It could be “sorry we broke up”, “sorry you feel like this”. Ugh. An evasion of responsibility dressed as an innocuous apology.
- “I’m sorry you feel this way” – Nah, this isn’t even trying to apologise. It’s a sorry as in “my condolences”, not “I did wrong”. They are pinning the blame for your turmoil on you, even though they were the root cause.
- “I’m sorry you had to find out” – what does this even mean?? That they believed you would be better off being in the dark? They’re not only blaming you for how you feel, but also the accomplishment of revealing their covert betrayal. This is perhaps the most disgusting false apology of all.
The only acceptable apology is something to the tune of: “I cheated and betrayed your trust because I was selfish, and I’m sorry for hurting you.”
A Final Reflection
Cheaters twist themselves into knots trying to justify the unjustifiable. But no matter how cleverly crafted these excuses may be, they cannot erase the pain caused by infidelity or absolve them of responsibility.
For those who have been betrayed: remember that these excuses are not reflections of your worth. They are reflections of the cheater’s inability to uphold respect and integrity in a relationship. You deserve honesty, loyalty, and love that doesn’t come with conditions or manipulations.
And to the cheaters: every excuse just digs the hole deeper. True growth comes from owning your actions and understanding their consequences.
Infidelity is never justified: Not by excuses, not by circumstances, and certainly not by contortions.
Leave a Reply