[SPEAKER_00]: What happened when your ex got cheated on by the person they cheated with?
[SPEAKER_00]: Story one.
[SPEAKER_00]: My ex dumped me for his soulmate coworker.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said they just had this magnetic connection and that I wouldn't understand real chemistry.
[SPEAKER_00]: I cried for weeks then focused on rebuilding myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: A year later, I get a message from him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He wants to catch up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Curiosity got the better of me and I agreed to meet.
[SPEAKER_00]: He shows up looking ten years older.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eyes hollow.
[SPEAKER_00]: Turns out, she had cheated on him with her new coworker, someone higher up the chain.
[SPEAKER_00]: When she got promoted, she tossed him aside like trash.
[SPEAKER_00]: He tried to win her back with gifts and begging, but she blocked him everywhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: He looked me in the eye and said, I had everything with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I ruined it for someone who didn't even care.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just nodded, smiled, and walked away.
[SPEAKER_00]: No revenge.
[SPEAKER_00]: No drama.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just sweet cold closure.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story two.
[SPEAKER_00]: My ex-wife had an affair with a younger Jim trainer.
[SPEAKER_00]: She claimed she finally felt alive and moved out to be with him, leaving me with our dog and silence.
[SPEAKER_00]: Within three months, he cheated on her with one of his clients, who awkwardly was also married.
[SPEAKER_00]: She tried to come back, saying we could start fresh just us.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, you had fresh.
[SPEAKER_00]: You just threw it in the laundry bin, she cried, the dog growled, we closed the door.
[SPEAKER_00]: Last I heard she moved cities.
[SPEAKER_00]: I stayed right here, got therapy, started dating again, and life's been peaceful.
[SPEAKER_00]: She still watches all my Instagram stories, though.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story three.
[SPEAKER_00]: My high school sweetheart cheated on me with his best friend.
[SPEAKER_00]: He swore nothing happened until the day he dumped me and posted a picture of them kissing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let them be together.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fast forward a year.
[SPEAKER_00]: My bestie sends me screenshots from the girls TikTok.
[SPEAKER_00]: Turns out she caught him cheating with her own cousin.
[SPEAKER_00]: She filmed a whole breakdown, crying about betrayal.
[SPEAKER_00]: How karma hit harder than she expected.
[SPEAKER_00]: The comments?
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, the comments were ruthless.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't comment, didn't like just watched.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because sometimes, silence is the most satisfying response.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story four.
[SPEAKER_00]: My ex-boyfriend cheated on me with his barista.
[SPEAKER_00]: Literally met her while ordering lattes and lied to me for weeks while working late.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I found out, I didn't scream, I moved out, blocked him, and vanished from his life.
[SPEAKER_00]: About six months later, he emailed me, not to apologize, but to ask if I'd ever talk to the barista's husband.
[SPEAKER_00]: Husband, I had no idea she was married.
[SPEAKER_00]: Turns out she was playing both men, and when he found out he trashed my ex's apartment and keyed his car with the word's liar.
[SPEAKER_00]: I printed the email, framed it, and kept it in my closet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just for rainy days when I need a laugh.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story five, she cheated on me with her funny coworker, said I was too boring and that he understood her darkness.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever that meant.
[SPEAKER_00]: They moved in together a month later and flooded social media with poems and weird photo shoots in abandoned buildings.
[SPEAKER_00]: Three months after that, she DM'd me.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's seeing someone else.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's even darker.
[SPEAKER_00]: I almost choked on my coffee.
[SPEAKER_00]: Apparently, he ghosted her after meeting a Goth model, who made TikToks about taro readings and vampire energy.
[SPEAKER_00]: She begged me for another chance.
[SPEAKER_00]: I told her, I'm boring.
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember?
[SPEAKER_00]: and blocked her again.
[SPEAKER_00]: For the last time, story six, my fiance cheated on me with our wedding planner.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, the woman we hired to help us plan our big day.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had no idea until two weeks before the wedding, when I saw texts on his iPad, explicit ones.
[SPEAKER_00]: timestamped during our tasting sessions.
[SPEAKER_00]: My hands were shaking so badly I could barely breathe.
[SPEAKER_00]: I confronted him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had the nerve to say it just happened that the planner understood the pressure he was under.
[SPEAKER_00]: I canceled the wedding, called everyone, and packed my bags.
[SPEAKER_00]: One year later, a friend sent me a photo of the planner's Instagram.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was posting inspirational quotes about healing after betrayal, turns out he cheated on her with her assistant.
[SPEAKER_00]: The same playbook, same tactics.
[SPEAKER_00]: She lost her business and he moved back in with his mom.
[SPEAKER_00]: Meanwhile, I'm engaged again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Different guy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Different energy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes karma's just a well-designed loop.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story seven.
[SPEAKER_00]: Back in college, I dated a guy named Lucas.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was charming, smart, and very into himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: He started acting distant, started studying late with a girl in his business class.
[SPEAKER_00]: I knew something was up and eventually he admitted it.
[SPEAKER_00]: He left me for her.
[SPEAKER_00]: Cold as ice.
[SPEAKER_00]: Five months later, they threw a party.
[SPEAKER_00]: A mutual friend invited me, unaware of the awkwardness.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't go, but I got the update.
[SPEAKER_00]: She caught Lucas making out with her roommate in the bathroom at the party they hosted together.
[SPEAKER_00]: Full meltdown.
[SPEAKER_00]: Screaming, crying, broken wine bottles.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lucas texted me three days later.
[SPEAKER_00]: I messed up, I didn't even reply.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just sent a thumbs up emoji.
[SPEAKER_00]: Blocked, deleted, moved on.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I run into him once in a while.
[SPEAKER_00]: Still handsome, still alone.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story eight.
[SPEAKER_00]: My ex cheated on me with his therapist.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep, you read that right.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had been in therapy for commitment issues.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she helped him realize he needed a change.
[SPEAKER_00]: Turns out the change was her.
[SPEAKER_00]: She lost her license.
[SPEAKER_00]: He lost me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I only found out because they went public on Facebook.
[SPEAKER_00]: weeks after our breakup.
[SPEAKER_00]: Comments were turned off, but someone screenshot the announcement and sent it to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not even six months later.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hear from a friend that she left him for another client.
[SPEAKER_00]: A younger guy with a motorbike and a poetry blog.
[SPEAKER_00]: My ex spiraled, posted cryptic quotes about trust and trauma.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't engage.
[SPEAKER_00]: But here's the kicker.
[SPEAKER_00]: The board revoked her license permanently, and she left the country.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's now posting YouTube videos on emotional resilience.
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess irony has a sense of humor.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story nine.
[SPEAKER_00]: My ex-boyfriend and I were together for four years.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought we were solid.
[SPEAKER_00]: Until I found a necklace in his glove box with another woman's initials.
[SPEAKER_00]: He told me it was just a coworker.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then admitted he was seeing her for six months.
[SPEAKER_00]: I walked.
[SPEAKER_00]: Three months later, she posted a story.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her mascara running, her voice shaking, she said.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just found out he's been sleeping with his boss.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, she tagged him.
[SPEAKER_00]: The comment section exploded.
[SPEAKER_00]: People from work chimed in.
[SPEAKER_00]: Apparently, he had a thing for authority.
[SPEAKER_00]: He lost both women, got written up at work, and is now single and renting a room from a guy named Mike who collects swords.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got a cat, and peace.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story ten.
[SPEAKER_00]: She left me for our friend group's dungeon master.
[SPEAKER_00]: We all played D&D together, and I guess all that role play chemistry turned into real cheating.
[SPEAKER_00]: I found out after a game night where she accidentally called him babe while handing him a potion card.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was humiliated.
[SPEAKER_00]: Left the group.
[SPEAKER_00]: They became official a week later.
[SPEAKER_00]: I quietly deleted everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: Campaign nodes shared Spotify playlists pictures.
[SPEAKER_00]: A year later, I got a message from her.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just a single line.
[SPEAKER_00]: You were right about him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't even know what she meant until another group member told me the guy had cheated with his ex, who had come back to town for a reunion game.
[SPEAKER_00]: He ended up alone.
[SPEAKER_00]: She tried to come back.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't even entertain the thought.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because once someone breaks a character bond in real life, there's no resurrection role for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story eleven.
[SPEAKER_00]: My ex dumped me right after my miscarriage.
[SPEAKER_00]: Said he couldn't do this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And had reconnected with someone from his past, a girl from high school he claimed was his what-it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was too numb to process it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just went silent and disappeared from his world.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eighteen months later, I ran into that what-if at a dog park.
[SPEAKER_00]: She recognized me and apologized.
[SPEAKER_00]: Told me she had no idea he left me right after I lost our baby.
[SPEAKER_00]: She said he never mentioned it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then she dropped the bomb.
[SPEAKER_00]: He'd been cheating on her for almost a year with someone from his office.
[SPEAKER_00]: When she found out she left and he begged to get her back.
[SPEAKER_00]: He even proposed.
[SPEAKER_00]: She laughed in his face.
[SPEAKER_00]: She told me.
[SPEAKER_00]: He talks about you a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think he thought you'd be waiting.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wasn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story twelve.
[SPEAKER_00]: My ex-girlfriend cheated on me with our band's drummer.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had been making music together for years, and she always said she loved our shared rhythm.
[SPEAKER_00]: Guess she wanted more solo time with the percussion section.
[SPEAKER_00]: They toured together for a bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Small shows, dive bars.
[SPEAKER_00]: Meanwhile, I focused on myself, picked up producing, started doing studio sessions, got a few viral tracks.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then I got a message.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can we talk?
[SPEAKER_00]: Apparently, she walked in on the drummer with the band's new singer.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the green room, shirtless.
[SPEAKER_00]: When she confronted him, he laughed and said, it's what musicians do.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was devastated.
[SPEAKER_00]: I told her I was headlining a small festival that weekend.
[SPEAKER_00]: She said she'd come watch.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, you already missed the best part of the song.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story thirteen.
[SPEAKER_00]: My ex-husband left me after ten years of marriage for his massage therapist.
[SPEAKER_00]: He told me it wasn't cheating just a deep emotional connection born out of vulnerability.
[SPEAKER_00]: I told him it was a midlife crisis with scented oils.
[SPEAKER_00]: He moved into her condo.
[SPEAKER_00]: I moved into therapy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Two years passed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then I got an email from his sister asking if I'd heard what happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: Apparently, the massage therapist caught him sexting a woman from his gym.
[SPEAKER_00]: She threw him out, kept the dog, and went public on Facebook with the screenshots.
[SPEAKER_00]: The part that made me laugh the most, he used the same phrases with the gym woman that he'd used with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Word for Word.
[SPEAKER_00]: Creativity wasn't his strength.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story fourteen.
[SPEAKER_00]: In college, I dated a guy who cheated on me with a girl from his philosophy class.
[SPEAKER_00]: She always gave me weird vibes, very into Nietzsche, War All Black, whispered in corners.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I caught them kissing behind the library, he said, it's not cheating.
[SPEAKER_00]: If it's existential, cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: I packed my stuff and left his dorm that night.
[SPEAKER_00]: A semester later, I got invited to a group trip in the mountains.
[SPEAKER_00]: He and the girl were there, awkward.
[SPEAKER_00]: On night two, she got drunk and confronted him for sleeping with her roommate.
[SPEAKER_00]: He denied it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then the roommate appeared with screenshots.
[SPEAKER_00]: Full blown campfire meltdown.
[SPEAKER_00]: I sipped hot cocoa and watched the show.
[SPEAKER_00]: Best free entertainment of my life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story-fifteen.
[SPEAKER_00]: She cheated on me with a guy she met in her cooking class.
[SPEAKER_00]: Said he understood flavors better than I understood her.
[SPEAKER_00]: I kid you not.
[SPEAKER_00]: They opened a little bakery together.
[SPEAKER_00]: Called it sweet beginnings.
[SPEAKER_00]: Instagrammed everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: Meanwhile, I kept my head down, kept working, kept living.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then someone sent me a link to a local blog.
[SPEAKER_00]: The headline, sweet beginnings turned sour.
[SPEAKER_00]: Co-owner accused of stealing recipes cheating on partner.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had taken all their business accounts, the recipes she developed, and run off with one of their part-time employees.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was left with debt, a burned reputation, and a closed storefront.
[SPEAKER_00]: She tried to reach out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Said she missed our stability.
[SPEAKER_00]: I told her, hope you find your flavor.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story-sixteen.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was my first serious relationship, and we were together through grad school.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was brilliant, ambitious, and increasingly cold.
[SPEAKER_00]: I chalked it up to stress.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then I found the texts.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hundreds of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: He'd been cheating with a professor in his department.
[SPEAKER_00]: Twice his age, married.
[SPEAKER_00]: I left without a word.
[SPEAKER_00]: I moved back home, started over.
[SPEAKER_00]: A year later, I was working in a bookstore when he walked in.
[SPEAKER_00]: Gone, broken looking.
[SPEAKER_00]: I almost didn't recognize him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He asked if I had time to talk.
[SPEAKER_00]: Turned out the professor's husband found out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not from me, but from her accidentally texting him instead of my ex.
[SPEAKER_00]: Divorce followed the professor lost tenure, and with her academic reputation in shambles, she blamed him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Completely.
[SPEAKER_00]: She cut him off, publicly blamed him for coercion, and he became a pariah in their academic circle.
[SPEAKER_00]: He looked at me with eyes full of regret, asked if we could find a way to talk again.
[SPEAKER_00]: I smiled politely and told him, you're not the same man I loved.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm not the same woman who waited.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story Seventeen.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was my wife.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eight years.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought we were solid.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had a kid together, a mortgage, shared Spotify playlists.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then came her new coworker.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just a friend, she said.
[SPEAKER_00]: He started coming over for work projects.
[SPEAKER_00]: They laughed too easily.
[SPEAKER_00]: He brought wine.
[SPEAKER_00]: One day I came home early and there it was.
[SPEAKER_00]: I left that night.
[SPEAKER_00]: A year later, I heard from a mutual friend that they'd broken up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Badly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Apparently, he cheated on her while she was pregnant, with someone from his CrossFit class.
[SPEAKER_00]: She found out through a group chat when the other woman bragged about stealing a man from a mom to be.
[SPEAKER_00]: She spiraled, lost custody of her newborn after a breakdown.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her family took over.
[SPEAKER_00]: My son lives with me now, and I've built a quiet calm home.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes she writes, I don't respond.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just look at my boy sleeping and think, this right here is the only closure I needed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story eighteen.
[SPEAKER_00]: She left me while we were still paying off a honeymoon we hadn't even gone on yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Said she felt trapped and had more life to live.
[SPEAKER_00]: Days later, she posted a photo with a bartender from our favorite pub.
[SPEAKER_00]: The caption, found the real thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I stayed offline, focused on work, paid off the honeymoon debt by myself, moved cities.
[SPEAKER_00]: Two years later, I ran into her sister at a conference.
[SPEAKER_00]: She looked embarrassed, nervous.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't bring anything up, but she did.
[SPEAKER_00]: Apparently the bartender had stolen money from her.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thousands.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her credit score was wrecked.
[SPEAKER_00]: He ghosted her, changed his number, and skipped town.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one knew where he went.
[SPEAKER_00]: She filed a police report, but it didn't go far.
[SPEAKER_00]: The sister said she cried for weeks.
[SPEAKER_00]: Finally admitted she messed up something real.
[SPEAKER_00]: I smiled, shook her hand, and walked away.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's crazy how fast the real thing can dissolve.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story-nineteen.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was a model.
[SPEAKER_00]: Literally.
[SPEAKER_00]: Shot campaigns.
[SPEAKER_00]: Had followers.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was proud of him.
[SPEAKER_00]: until I found Flirty DMs with a photographer who used to shoot us both.
[SPEAKER_00]: I confronted him, and he had the audacity to say, you don't get it.
[SPEAKER_00]: She understands art.
[SPEAKER_00]: They moved to LA.
[SPEAKER_00]: I stayed behind, heartbroken, but rebuilding.
[SPEAKER_00]: Took a while, but I started doing well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Landed a contract with a niche fashion brand.
[SPEAKER_00]: Started getting recognition.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then the scandal hit.
[SPEAKER_00]: She caught him cheating, not just once, but with multiple clients.
[SPEAKER_00]: She went full scorched earth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Exposed his messages online, blacklisted him in several circles.
[SPEAKER_00]: Agency's dropped him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He messaged me months later, asking if I'd consider doing a couple's shoot for old times sake I replied with a link to an ad I had just starred in.
[SPEAKER_00]: Solo.
[SPEAKER_00]: No words?
[SPEAKER_00]: Just a reminder.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of us grow in the silence others leave behind.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story twenty.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were engaged.
[SPEAKER_00]: Rings, venue, invites.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything was booked.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then I got a text, anonymously.
[SPEAKER_00]: Check Room IIO III.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's there with her.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought it was a joke.
[SPEAKER_00]: I drove to the hotel.
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't a joke.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was in bed with his friend from work.
[SPEAKER_00]: A girl he said was like a sister.
[SPEAKER_00]: I walked out, canceled the wedding, and left the country for two months.
[SPEAKER_00]: A year later, he tried to friend me on Facebook.
[SPEAKER_00]: I ignored it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Two days later, I got a message from her.
[SPEAKER_00]: The same woman he cheated, she said.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just wanted to say I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't know how it started would be how it ended.
[SPEAKER_00]: Turns out, he cheated on her with her best friend.
[SPEAKER_00]: On her birthday, she found out while cutting her cake.
[SPEAKER_00]: She told me she saw my old wedding Pinterest board and cried for hours.
[SPEAKER_00]: I told her we both dodged bullets, just at different points.
[SPEAKER_00]: I never responded again, but I kept the message.
[SPEAKER_00]: A little digital trophy of survival.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story-twenty-one.
[SPEAKER_00]: He cheated on me with his tattoo artist.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, really.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was literally there when he got her number, said it was for touch-up appointments.
[SPEAKER_00]: A month later, he told me we lacked spontaneity and moved in with her.
[SPEAKER_00]: Two months after that, she posted a cryptic quote about betrayal and blocked him on everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't know what happened until he drunkenly called me at one AM, asking if I still had his passport.
[SPEAKER_00]: Turns out she cheated on him with her ex.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not once, but repeatedly, in the same apartment they shared.
[SPEAKER_00]: She even tattooed her ex's name on herself while still dating my ex.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then said it was symbolic.
[SPEAKER_00]: When he confronted her, she laughed and said, you knew what I was when you met me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I did not give him his passport back.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mailed it to his mom.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story-twenty-two.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was a nurse working night shifts when my ex started hanging out more with his climbing buddy.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was too exhausted to be suspicious.
[SPEAKER_00]: Until I saw their tagged photos from a cabin trip, he swore he skipped, due to flu.
[SPEAKER_00]: He admitted it when confronted.
[SPEAKER_00]: Said he didn't mean for it to happen, but she made him feel alive.
[SPEAKER_00]: I told him I hope that feeling came with a seat belt because karma moves fast.
[SPEAKER_00]: Six months later, I saw his name on a patient chart.
[SPEAKER_00]: ER visit.
[SPEAKER_00]: He didn't recognize me at first.
[SPEAKER_00]: Looked rough.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had come in after an accident during a hike.
[SPEAKER_00]: Turns out she left him midway through a trip after meeting another climber.
[SPEAKER_00]: She took the car.
[SPEAKER_00]: He walked five miles with a dislocated shoulder before someone picked him up.
[SPEAKER_00]: I patched him up and told the doctor to keep the painkillers coming.
[SPEAKER_00]: Life already did the rest.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story twenty-three.
[SPEAKER_00]: My ex and I were in a long distance relationship while she studied abroad.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything seemed fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Until I stumbled across her secret Instagram account.
[SPEAKER_00]: Full of pictures with another guy, romantic captions, matching outfits.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I called her out, she didn't even deny it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Said, I didn't think you'd find it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then blocked me on everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: A year later, I got a random email from a burner account from her.
[SPEAKER_00]: She said he cheated on her while they were backpacking in Asia.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hooked up with someone in their hostel and filmed it.
[SPEAKER_00]: She found the video on his phone.
[SPEAKER_00]: She said I didn't deserve what happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: That I was the one who always showed up.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wrote back a single sentence.
[SPEAKER_00]: Too bad you didn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story twenty-four.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was a tech executive, driven and brilliant.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was her fiance, a graphic designer, maybe not flashy but stable.
[SPEAKER_00]: One day, she told me she'd been seeing someone else.
[SPEAKER_00]: Said she met him at a leadership retreat.
[SPEAKER_00]: He understood her ambition.
[SPEAKER_00]: She broke off the engagement three weeks before the wedding.
[SPEAKER_00]: Took her ring back to sell it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Two years passed.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was working a conference booth when I saw her.
[SPEAKER_00]: She looked tired.
[SPEAKER_00]: We chatted awkwardly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then she told me he had cheated on her with his mentee.
[SPEAKER_00]: She caught them in a hotel room.
[SPEAKER_00]: Same chain we'd booked for our honeymoon.
[SPEAKER_00]: She looked like she wanted me to say something.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I smiled.
[SPEAKER_00]: Handed her a branded pen from my booth and said, hope the retreat was worth it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story twenty-five, he left me for his gaming buddy, someone he met playing Valorant.
[SPEAKER_00]: They flirted in voice chat, then met IRL.
[SPEAKER_00]: Within two weeks, he said he needed to explore what happiness looked like.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fine, let them play house.
[SPEAKER_00]: They stream together for a while, gained a tiny following, until one day she stopped showing up.
[SPEAKER_00]: He posted a teary vlog saying she ghosted him and drained their joint Patreon account.
[SPEAKER_00]: Viewers were sympathetic, until she posted receipts, showing he had sent Flirty DMS to a dozen fans.
[SPEAKER_00]: Apparently, she was just faster at exposing him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now he streams alone, barely breaking double-digit views.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every now and then someone comments.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where's your duo?
[SPEAKER_00]: He deletes them fast, but I keep the screenshots.
[SPEAKER_00]: They remind me what dodging a bullet looks like.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story twenty six.
[SPEAKER_00]: He cheated on me while we were renovating a house together.
[SPEAKER_00]: Literally, while we were sanding floors and picking back splash tile, he was hooking up with our real estate agent.
[SPEAKER_00]: I found out when I walked into the house one day and saw her car in the driveway.
[SPEAKER_00]: But no sign of him until I checked the bedroom.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was still buttoning up her blouse when I walked out.
[SPEAKER_00]: He moved in with her a week later.
[SPEAKER_00]: I signed over my half of the house to avoid the drama.
[SPEAKER_00]: Cut my losses.
[SPEAKER_00]: Two years later, I got a letter from his lawyer.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was suing her for fraud.
[SPEAKER_00]: Apparently, she took out a second mortgage without telling him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Emptyed their joint account and fled to Florida with someone new.
[SPEAKER_00]: He lost the house, the money, and his job.
[SPEAKER_00]: Turns out he'd used company funds to furnish the place.
[SPEAKER_00]: I framed the lawsuit notice and put it in my home office.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not out of spite, just as a reminder that Woodrod's fast went built on lies.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story twenty-seven.
[SPEAKER_00]: She cheated on me with a coworker during a company retreat.
[SPEAKER_00]: Told me it was just drinks and that I was being paranoid.
[SPEAKER_00]: A month later, she moved in with him and took our cat.
[SPEAKER_00]: Said I could visit if I behaved.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't fight.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just let her go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eight months later, I got a call from a mutual friend.
[SPEAKER_00]: Apparently, she walked in on him sleeping with their neighbor, who also happened to be her boss's wife.
[SPEAKER_00]: Things exploded.
[SPEAKER_00]: She lost her job, he got kicked out of his apartment, and the boss made sure neither of them worked in the industry again.
[SPEAKER_00]: She texted me, I miss when life was quiet.
[SPEAKER_00]: I replied, I don't.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story twenty-eight.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was my boyfriend of five years.
[SPEAKER_00]: A quiet artsy guy who painted murals and read Dusty Fsky.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought we were soulmates.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then I noticed he was getting close to a fellow artist.
[SPEAKER_00]: Someone I'd introduced him to.
[SPEAKER_00]: He swore it was platonic.
[SPEAKER_00]: They opened an art exhibit together.
[SPEAKER_00]: I attended only to find a painting titled, after she left me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hadn't left him.
[SPEAKER_00]: That night, I packed my things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Six months later, I got tagged in a Facebook post.
[SPEAKER_00]: A photo of him crying at a gallery, a caption written by her.
[SPEAKER_00]: He broke my heart like he said she broke his.
[SPEAKER_00]: Artists lie beautifully.
[SPEAKER_00]: Turns out he cheated on her with his ex ex, the one before me.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had a pattern.
[SPEAKER_00]: One brush stroke of betrayal at a time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story twenty-nine.
[SPEAKER_00]: She cheated on me with her personal trainer.
[SPEAKER_00]: cliche, I know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I paid for the sessions as part of her birthday gift.
[SPEAKER_00]: ironic, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: She said I was too controlling when I confronted her.
[SPEAKER_00]: and left me for him the same week.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fast forward a year.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was at a charity five K and saw her volunteering at a booth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Alone, we made eye contact, and she awkwardly waved.
[SPEAKER_00]: Later, a friend told me the trainer dumped her after she got injured and couldn't work out for months.
[SPEAKER_00]: Told her she was killing his brand.
[SPEAKER_00]: She tried to sue him for emotional distress.
[SPEAKER_00]: He posted her texts online, and she ended up getting fired for violating her company's conduct policy.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't say a word to her at the five K. I just ran my race, fast-free, and fifteen pounds lighter.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story thirty.
[SPEAKER_00]: My ex-girlfriend cheated on me with her theater director.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were in college and she got cast as the lead in a Shakespeare production.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was charismatic, older, and had a wife.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I found out she said, you don't understand passion?
[SPEAKER_00]: This is about art.
[SPEAKER_00]: I dropped out of the play I was helping with and never looked back.
[SPEAKER_00]: Two years later, she reached out through LinkedIn of all places.
[SPEAKER_00]: Said she was rebuilding her life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Apparently, the director's wife found out, exposed everything to the university, and both of them were banned from the campus.
[SPEAKER_00]: He divorced her.
[SPEAKER_00]: She got blacklisted from several theater companies.
[SPEAKER_00]: She wanted to reconnect creatively.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hit delete because some roles aren't worth rehearsing again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story thirty one.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was my childhood friend, turned boyfriend.
[SPEAKER_00]: We grew up on the same street.
[SPEAKER_00]: Went to the same schools and by college, we were inseparable until he met her during a summer internship abroad.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was edgy, foreign, mysterious.
[SPEAKER_00]: I could feel the shift when he got back.
[SPEAKER_00]: Distant texts, just tired, fewer calls.
[SPEAKER_00]: One night, he told me he'd fallen in love with her that he never felt this free.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was stunned.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not angry, just broken.
[SPEAKER_00]: He left, moved to her city, posted a dozen photos of her captioned, finally alive.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fast forward two years.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got a long message from a mutual friend.
[SPEAKER_00]: Apparently, she cheated on him with one of his best friends from the internship.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not just emotionally, she was pregnant, and there was a paternity question.
[SPEAKER_00]: His best friend admitted it was his.
[SPEAKER_00]: My ex lost it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Got into a fight, broke a hand, dropped out of the grad program he'd moved for.
[SPEAKER_00]: And to top it off, the girl refused to speak to him unless it was through a lawyer.
[SPEAKER_00]: He messaged me months later.
[SPEAKER_00]: I miss who I was with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I never replied.
[SPEAKER_00]: I buried the boy I once loved the moment he let her erase me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story thirty two.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were married for three years.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was stable, predictable, a dentist.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was charming and reckless.
[SPEAKER_00]: A musician trying to find himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: I supported his dream while he toured.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mostly open mics and tiny venues.
[SPEAKER_00]: Turns out he found more than just himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: He found his bandmate's sister.
[SPEAKER_00]: I caught them when I surprised him on his birthday.
[SPEAKER_00]: The hotel room had one bed.
[SPEAKER_00]: He didn't even try to lie.
[SPEAKER_00]: He filed for divorce first, which was fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: I walked away clean.
[SPEAKER_00]: No kids, no debt, a year later his sister called me, his sister.
[SPEAKER_00]: She said he was a wreck.
[SPEAKER_00]: The girl cheated on him with their manager, emptied the tour fund, and left him stranded mid-tour in another country.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had no visa, no cash, and no way home.
[SPEAKER_00]: His passport had expired.
[SPEAKER_00]: He ended up sleeping on couches, begging for help from people he'd burned.
[SPEAKER_00]: I watched his latest YouTube cover.
[SPEAKER_00]: The first lyric?
[SPEAKER_00]: Should have stayed with the one who knew me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Damn right, you should have.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story thirty-three.
[SPEAKER_00]: My ex-boyfriend was a cop, respected, clean-cut, charming in that my mom loves him kind of way.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'd been together for five years when I noticed something off, late night shifts that didn't match his patrol schedule, guys only trips that suddenly included someone named T. It was another officer, a rookie, a woman he was mentoring.
[SPEAKER_00]: He swore nothing happened until I got an anonymous letter, printed screenshots, photos, he was cheating and using his patrol card to sneak around.
[SPEAKER_00]: I left.
[SPEAKER_00]: Two years later, he was suspended.
[SPEAKER_00]: Internal affairs.
[SPEAKER_00]: Apparently, she cheated on him with their precinct captain.
[SPEAKER_00]: They got caught in uniform, on dashcam footage from another cop's car during an off-duty party.
[SPEAKER_00]: His reputation tanked.
[SPEAKER_00]: She transferred departments.
[SPEAKER_00]: He now runs security at a strip mall.
[SPEAKER_00]: Still wears his badge on his belt like it means something.
[SPEAKER_00]: I drive by sometimes on my lunch break.
[SPEAKER_00]: He never looks up, but that's okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Karma did enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story thirty-four.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was a wedding planner.
[SPEAKER_00]: Beautiful, organized, and adored love stories.
[SPEAKER_00]: We met when I hired her for my sister's wedding.
[SPEAKER_00]: Months later, we were dating.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought it was fate.
[SPEAKER_00]: What I didn't know?
[SPEAKER_00]: She was sleeping with one of her grooms.
[SPEAKER_00]: a guy who's wedding she had planned while we were together.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I found out, she said, it was never about you.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was about timing.
[SPEAKER_00]: They got together publicly, moved fast, got engaged six months after his divorce finalized.
[SPEAKER_00]: The internet called them a love story born in chaos.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, she found out he was still seeing his ex-wife.
[SPEAKER_00]: The same one he'd left.
[SPEAKER_00]: Apparently, the ex never stopped loving him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when he realized that, he went crawling back two weeks before their wedding.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was humiliated.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lost clients deleted her socials.
[SPEAKER_00]: She messaged me months later.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know I hurt you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I finally understand how much.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't write back.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because love isn't a timeline.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a mirror.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she never liked what she saw.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story thirty-five.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was my college girlfriend.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were the golden couple, voted most likely to get married.
[SPEAKER_00]: We talked about moving to New York, building a life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then she took a semester abroad in Italy.
[SPEAKER_00]: The calls slowed down.
[SPEAKER_00]: I made excuses.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eventually, she told me she met someone.
[SPEAKER_00]: A local chef's son.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's more than a fling, she said.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the kind of passion you read about.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was devastated, but I didn't beg.
[SPEAKER_00]: Years later, I visited Rome with my fiance.
[SPEAKER_00]: not to relive the past and just coincidence.
[SPEAKER_00]: We walked into a small restaurant, and there she was.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hosting, she froze when she saw me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Turns out, he had cheated on her with a tourist, a college girl, while she worked double shifts to help him open the place.
[SPEAKER_00]: She stayed, then he did it again.
[SPEAKER_00]: This time, with their waitress.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now she manages the place alone.
[SPEAKER_00]: He moved to Florence with the second girl.
[SPEAKER_00]: She smiled at us like everything was fine, but her eyes were exhausted.
[SPEAKER_00]: When we left, my fiance said, she looked like she wanted to be anywhere else.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just said, she chose her passion.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story thirty-six.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was my manager at a tech startup.
[SPEAKER_00]: Confident, ten years older, and wildly charismatic.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was an office romance gone serious.
[SPEAKER_00]: People raised eyebrows, but we were good.
[SPEAKER_00]: Until she hired a new project manager, a guy with a British accent and big ideas.
[SPEAKER_00]: I saw how she looked at him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I knew something was off.
[SPEAKER_00]: She eventually admitted it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't mean for it to happen," she said.
[SPEAKER_00]: It just did.
[SPEAKER_00]: She promoted him.
[SPEAKER_00]: They started dating publicly.
[SPEAKER_00]: I left the company quietly.
[SPEAKER_00]: A year later, one of our old co-workers sent me a video.
[SPEAKER_00]: The guy had been secretly recording meetings, audio and screen captures, and leaking them to a competitor.
[SPEAKER_00]: He wasn't even British.
[SPEAKER_00]: The accent was fake.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just branding.
[SPEAKER_00]: He took her data, her clients, and disappeared.
[SPEAKER_00]: She had to step down.
[SPEAKER_00]: Investors pulled out.
[SPEAKER_00]: The company folded.
[SPEAKER_00]: I never glowed it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I did pour a glass of wine that night, and watch the video again, like a movie with a satisfying twist.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story thirty-seven.
[SPEAKER_00]: My ex left me for her spin instructor.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, the cliche happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had abs, charisma, and the stamina of a caffeinated gazelle.
[SPEAKER_00]: She said I was too calm, and he made her feel alive.
[SPEAKER_00]: I packed up my stuff and walked out without a fight.
[SPEAKER_00]: Three months later, she invited me to their soft opening, a new boutique gym they co-opened.
[SPEAKER_00]: I declined.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I followed the Instagram page out of morbid curiosity.
[SPEAKER_00]: Cut to five months later, she posted a black square, taking time to heal.
[SPEAKER_00]: Please respect my privacy.
[SPEAKER_00]: The gym was gone.
[SPEAKER_00]: A Reddit threat explained it.
[SPEAKER_00]: He'd been hooking up with three clients, all sisters.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of them caught him, exposed him publicly during a class.
[SPEAKER_00]: A dumbbell was thrown.
[SPEAKER_00]: She lost everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lease, reputation, even her dog.
[SPEAKER_00]: She had co-adopted it with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I heard she moved back in with her parents.
[SPEAKER_00]: She never messaged me.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I know she saw me biking past her old gym.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ear buds in, not looking back.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story thirty-eight.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was my fiance.
[SPEAKER_00]: High school sweet hearts.
[SPEAKER_00]: I followed him to college.
[SPEAKER_00]: Helped him through med school.
[SPEAKER_00]: We even had a Pinterest board for the wedding.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then he cheated.
[SPEAKER_00]: with a nurse during his residency.
[SPEAKER_00]: Said he needed someone who understood the pressure.
[SPEAKER_00]: She moved into our apartment the week I moved out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eighteen months later, I got a wedding invite from him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not for his wedding for a mutual friends.
[SPEAKER_00]: I declined.
[SPEAKER_00]: The next week I heard the update from that friend.
[SPEAKER_00]: The nurse had left him for his supervising doctor.
[SPEAKER_00]: She'd been cheating for months.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when she was offered a transfer to a better hospital, she ghosted him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He spiraled, called off his boards, moved home.
[SPEAKER_00]: His mom reached out to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He still loves you, she said.
[SPEAKER_00]: I told her, that man died in a supply closet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story-thirty-nine.
[SPEAKER_00]: I dated a guy who was obsessed with cryptocurrency.
[SPEAKER_00]: All day, white papers, charts, tokens, I supported him through the ups and downs, even when he drained our savings into a coin that tanked.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eventually, he started talking about a woman from his discord group.
[SPEAKER_00]: She gets blockchain like no one else, when I confronted him, he admitted they'd met in person and slept together.
[SPEAKER_00]: He moved to her city for a fresh start.
[SPEAKER_00]: They launched an NFT project together.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm muted everything and moved on.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then the scandal broke.
[SPEAKER_00]: She rug pulled the whole project.
[SPEAKER_00]: Took over the wallets, sold everything, vanished.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was left broke, banned from major forums and being mocked on YouTube.
[SPEAKER_00]: He sent me a message.
[SPEAKER_00]: You were right.
[SPEAKER_00]: She never loved me.
[SPEAKER_00]: She just loved the wallet.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't reply.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I framed the message.
[SPEAKER_00]: Title.
[SPEAKER_00]: Proof of work.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story forty.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was my neighbor-turned girlfriend.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sweet, soft spoken, loved plants and baking.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought she was different until I noticed her phone lighting up every night with new client messages.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was a freelance designer, or so I thought.
[SPEAKER_00]: Turns out she was meeting a married man.
[SPEAKER_00]: A client, yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the kind who pays in hotel keys.
[SPEAKER_00]: I found out when I saw her enter his car.
[SPEAKER_00]: She later admitted it and cried about financial stress.
[SPEAKER_00]: She moved in with him when I ended it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Two years later, I got an anonymous email from his wife.
[SPEAKER_00]: She found my info through old apartment mail.
[SPEAKER_00]: She told me he cheated on my ex with his original wife, never divorced her, and used my ex's money to pay child support.
[SPEAKER_00]: My ex, evicted, broke, working retail, living with a cousin, I responded once.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were both fooled, at least I escaped sooner.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story forty-one.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was my husband of seven years.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were trying to conceive, weekly appointments, meds, stress.
[SPEAKER_00]: One day, he tells me he's overwhelmed and needs space.
[SPEAKER_00]: The next week I find out through our shared Amazon account that he booked a trip for two.
[SPEAKER_00]: Turns out he was having an affair with our fertility specialist.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had literally sat in the same room with her while she talked about hormones and timelines.
[SPEAKER_00]: All while planning weekends away with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I filed for divorce and changed clinics.
[SPEAKER_00]: Two years later, she was sued for malpractice.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not for me, but for another patient who caught her falsifying test results.
[SPEAKER_00]: and her relationship?
[SPEAKER_00]: It ended when she found out my ex was secretly seeing her assistant.
[SPEAKER_00]: He'd been juggling them both.
[SPEAKER_00]: She left the state.
[SPEAKER_00]: He tried emailing me recently.
[SPEAKER_00]: You were the only one who never asked me to pretend.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I only ever asked him to be honest.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was the one thing he couldn't do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story forty two.
[SPEAKER_00]: She cheated on me with her tattoo apprentice.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was the main artist in a trendy shop, and he was this brooding younger guy covered in batting and misplaced confidence.
[SPEAKER_00]: I walked in one day with lunch and caught them kissing in the back room.
[SPEAKER_00]: She said I was too stable, and that chaos made her feel real.
[SPEAKER_00]: I left quietly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Took my dog my clothes and never looked back.
[SPEAKER_00]: About eight months later, I heard from a mutual friend that the apprentice had ghosted her.
[SPEAKER_00]: move to a different state, took some of her clients with him, and started his own shop using stencils she designed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Claimed them as his.
[SPEAKER_00]: She tried to sue, but he had made her sign paperwork during their relationship.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was humiliated publicly, lost followers.
[SPEAKER_00]: and even had her yelp page flooded with fake reviews calling her unoriginal.
[SPEAKER_00]: She tried to contact me through a new number.
[SPEAKER_00]: I blocked her mid-text.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't need apologies from someone who inks betrayal so permanently.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story forty-three.
[SPEAKER_00]: He cheated on me with a girl from his church group.
[SPEAKER_00]: Said she helped him reconnect with God.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't even know he was religious.
[SPEAKER_00]: He left me two weeks after we moved into a new apartment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Broke the lease.
[SPEAKER_00]: Left me with everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: Said it was God's will.
[SPEAKER_00]: They got married in a rush ceremony four months later.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone praised their purity journey.
[SPEAKER_00]: Meanwhile, I took on a second job to pay rent and unfollowed every connection we shared.
[SPEAKER_00]: A church livestream caught her in the background during a sermon, holding hands with someone not my ex.
[SPEAKER_00]: Turns out she had been guiding multiple men, and this one happened to be the pastor's son.
[SPEAKER_00]: They divorced quietly.
[SPEAKER_00]: The church released a statement.
[SPEAKER_00]: My ex deleted his socials.
[SPEAKER_00]: I never set a word, but I did frame a screenshot of the video.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right next to my least termination letter, story forty four.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were both chefs, worked together in the same kitchen.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a high pressure fourteen-hour shift kind of life, but we made it work until he started mentoring one of the new pastry chefs.
[SPEAKER_00]: Young, fresh out of culinary school.
[SPEAKER_00]: I found out through a text meant for her that he accidentally sent me can't wait to taste your dessert tonight.
[SPEAKER_00]: Real subtle.
[SPEAKER_00]: I left the job, the apartment, and him.
[SPEAKER_00]: They moved in together.
[SPEAKER_00]: Trying to launch a YouTube cooking channel called Hearts and He It Flopped.
[SPEAKER_00]: A year later, I got a message from the girl.
[SPEAKER_00]: She said he'd been stealing her recipes, submitting them under his name at competitions.
[SPEAKER_00]: When she confronted him,
[SPEAKER_00]: He accused her of being overly emotional.
[SPEAKER_00]: She dumped him, posted everything online.
[SPEAKER_00]: He got banned from two food festivals and lost a spot on a local cooking show.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now he does TikTok reviews of frozen meals.
[SPEAKER_00]: I own a food truck that's booked out six months in advance.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story forty-five.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was my college roommate's cousin.
[SPEAKER_00]: We started dating after graduation, seemed sweet, low-key, worked in finance.
[SPEAKER_00]: I found out he was cheating on me through Venmo.
[SPEAKER_00]: His payments to her had emojis that got progressively less subtle.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I confronted him, he said, she makes me feel dangerous.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: I cut him off.
[SPEAKER_00]: He moved in with her, a bartender slash influencer.
[SPEAKER_00]: She loved flashy clothes and high end posts.
[SPEAKER_00]: At some point, she convinced him to invest in their future through a crypto pyramid scheme she was a part of.
[SPEAKER_00]: He dumped thousands into it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then she dumped him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Took the money, deleted all their photos, and rebranded herself with a new username and boyfriend within a week.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had to move back in with his parents.
[SPEAKER_00]: His Instagram went dark.
[SPEAKER_00]: I still have the screenshot of those Venmo transactions.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just in case I ever need a reminder of what dangerous looks like in clown shoes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story forty six.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was a novelist.
[SPEAKER_00]: We met at a writer's retreat and clicked instantly.
[SPEAKER_00]: I supported her through writer's block, the stress of deadlines and rejection letters.
[SPEAKER_00]: One day she tells me she needs space to create.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought it meant she needed a loan time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Turns out it meant she needed time with her new editor.
[SPEAKER_00]: The one who called her brilliant and misunderstood, they got close.
[SPEAKER_00]: Really close.
[SPEAKER_00]: She left me with a half-written manuscript in a broken lease.
[SPEAKER_00]: A year later, I saw her in a bookstore, alone.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her book had flopped, the editor.
[SPEAKER_00]: He'd sold her manuscript to another publisher without crediting her.
[SPEAKER_00]: They sued each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: It went nowhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: She tried to strike up small talk, said she missed my quiet belief.
[SPEAKER_00]: I told her I wasn't a character in her plot line and walked out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story forty seven.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was my fiance.
[SPEAKER_00]: A paramedic always on call always exhausted.
[SPEAKER_00]: I excused every late night, every unexplained shift change.
[SPEAKER_00]: Until I saw a notification pop up while he was in the shower.
[SPEAKER_00]: I missed last night already.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her name, a nurse from his station.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I confronted him, he didn't even look sorry.
[SPEAKER_00]: Said,
[SPEAKER_00]: You knew I had trauma as if that was a hall pass for betrayal.
[SPEAKER_00]: He left me and got engaged to her six months later.
[SPEAKER_00]: Two years later, I was working in hospital admin when her file crossed my desk.
[SPEAKER_00]: She'd filed a harassment report.
[SPEAKER_00]: Guess what?
[SPEAKER_00]: He'd been texting multiple other nurses and someone finally spoke up.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was suspended, pending investigation.
[SPEAKER_00]: I smiled to myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: Funny how trauma always gets louder when accountability walks in the room.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story forty-eight.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was a social media manager, polished, funny, full of filters.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were together for two years.
[SPEAKER_00]: She handled my photography page and I paid for everything while she built her brand.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then one day she tells me we're in different places.
[SPEAKER_00]: I found out days later she'd been dating one of her influencer clients.
[SPEAKER_00]: A fitness guy with a million followers and zero shirts, they made a big splash online.
[SPEAKER_00]: Matching posts.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hashtags.
[SPEAKER_00]: Number sign power couple.
[SPEAKER_00]: But six months later, their couple account went silent.
[SPEAKER_00]: I eventually found her new page.
[SPEAKER_00]: Solo again, posts full of cryptic breakup quotes.
[SPEAKER_00]: A friend glued me in.
[SPEAKER_00]: He cheated on her with a model in Bali during a brand retreat.
[SPEAKER_00]: She'd caught him live streaming with the girl while logged into their joint account.
[SPEAKER_00]: She tried messaging me after.
[SPEAKER_00]: I replied with just the camera emoji.
[SPEAKER_00]: No caption.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story forty-nine.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was a firefighter.
[SPEAKER_00]: Dependable, brave, and community loved.
[SPEAKER_00]: But behind the scenes he was distant, emotionally shut off.
[SPEAKER_00]: I chalked it up to the stress of the job until I found his second phone in his locker.
[SPEAKER_00]: Turns out he was seeing someone he'd met on a wellness retreat.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was into crystals, tantra, and called herself an energy healer.
[SPEAKER_00]: I confronted him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He didn't deny it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just said, she gets my soul.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Two years later, my cousin texted me a link to a Reddit post.
[SPEAKER_00]: She'd gone viral, the healer, for running an emotional boot camp that was actually a front for exploiting clients.
[SPEAKER_00]: Multiple lawsuits.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was mentioned by name, not as a victim, but as her co-creator.
[SPEAKER_00]: They both got investigated.
[SPEAKER_00]: He lost his job.
[SPEAKER_00]: She vanished from social media.
[SPEAKER_00]: I printed the Reddit thread and mailed it to him anonymously.
[SPEAKER_00]: Folded in a fire safety brochure.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story fifty.
[SPEAKER_00]: She cheated on me with my twin brother.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not just a fling.
[SPEAKER_00]: They had a full-blown secret relationship behind my back for over six months.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I found out, I confronted him, not her.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, we didn't mean to fall in love.
[SPEAKER_00]: I cut them both off.
[SPEAKER_00]: They moved in together shortly after.
[SPEAKER_00]: The family was split.
[SPEAKER_00]: Holidays became awkward.
[SPEAKER_00]: I stayed away, moved across the country, started therapy, met new people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then a year later,
[SPEAKER_00]: I got a call from my mom.
[SPEAKER_00]: My brother had been dumped.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not by her, but by his own ex, who he'd reconnected with behind my ex's back.
[SPEAKER_00]: Same pattern.
[SPEAKER_00]: Same betrayal.
[SPEAKER_00]: My ex showed up at Christmas.
[SPEAKER_00]: Alone.
[SPEAKER_00]: She tried to sit next to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got up and walked outside without a word.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because sometimes revenge isn't about fire.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's about making sure you're not there to burn.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story fifty-one.
[SPEAKER_00]: She and I were both in law school, the same cohort.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were the power couple everyone knew, debated together, interned together, and even had mock trial chemistry.
[SPEAKER_00]: But halfway through our final year, she started pulling away, late study nights, unanswered texts.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her explanations never quite made sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then one day, I saw them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her and our civil procedure professor, laughing too closely in a downtown cafe.
[SPEAKER_00]: She never confessed, but two days later, she broke up with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not about anyone else, she said.
[SPEAKER_00]: I knew better.
[SPEAKER_00]: They got together right after graduation.
[SPEAKER_00]: She posted a cringey caption.
[SPEAKER_00]: He taught me more than case law, vomit.
[SPEAKER_00]: A year later, the professor was fired after it came out he'd been involved with three students all overlapping.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of them filed a formal complaint.
[SPEAKER_00]: My ex was publicly humiliated when texts were leaked in the investigation, revealing he'd called her just a mid-tier brain with a top-tier body.
[SPEAKER_00]: She messaged me a long apology, filled with shame and regrets.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't respond.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I did send a donation to the Title IX fund in her name.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story fifty-two.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was a park ranger and we met during a forest conservation project.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was a biologist.
[SPEAKER_00]: He guided hikers.
[SPEAKER_00]: We lived off grid for months, cooking over fires and watching stars.
[SPEAKER_00]: It felt like love stripped of all noise, but then he met her.
[SPEAKER_00]: A travel blogger who came through to document nature with authenticity.
[SPEAKER_00]: She flirted hard and he lapped it up.
[SPEAKER_00]: I should have known something changed when he started wearing Cologne to the base camp.
[SPEAKER_00]: He left me for her.
[SPEAKER_00]: Said I was too serious.
[SPEAKER_00]: They moved into a van together and started a nature YouTube channel.
[SPEAKER_00]: Six months later, they got stranded during a storm in Arizona.
[SPEAKER_00]: She blamed him in a series of Instagram stories saying he ignored basic survival safety.
[SPEAKER_00]: Their channel tanked.
[SPEAKER_00]: She broke up with him on livestream, throwing his hiking boots out of the van mid-Rant.
[SPEAKER_00]: He called me afterwards said, you were the only one who understood the land in me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said,
[SPEAKER_00]: Too bad you treated both like they'd always be there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story fifty-three.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was an EMT, cool under pressure and full of dark humor.
[SPEAKER_00]: We dated for two years, lived together, shared a dog, had a rhythm.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then came the new hire.
[SPEAKER_00]: A rookie paramedic who wrote shotgun on all her calls.
[SPEAKER_00]: She started coming home later, showering before hugging me, locking her phone.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eventually I found the texts, explicit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Cruel, mocking me, she said she didn't mean to hurt me, but what we had ran its course, they got a place together two weeks later.
[SPEAKER_00]: I let her keep the dog.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't want to argue over anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: A year later, she showed up at my door.
[SPEAKER_00]: Alone, crying, said he had cheated on her during a call, made out with a nurse while a patient was being transported.
[SPEAKER_00]: It got reported.
[SPEAKER_00]: She got suspended for unprofessional conduct by association.
[SPEAKER_00]: She said, he ruined everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, no, you did.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then I shut the door.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story fifty-four.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were small town royalty.
[SPEAKER_00]: High school sweetheart's prom king and queen voted most likely to marry and we did.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right out of college.
[SPEAKER_00]: I stayed to teach third grade.
[SPEAKER_00]: He got into real estate.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were the golden couple until he started showing too many listings to his assistant.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was ten years younger with fake lashes and fake concern.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I confronted him, he told me she made him feel like a man again.
[SPEAKER_00]: I filed for divorce.
[SPEAKER_00]: Small town, big whispers.
[SPEAKER_00]: They got engaged fast.
[SPEAKER_00]: She moved into the house I designed.
[SPEAKER_00]: For a year I stayed quiet, smiling through PTA meetings and sideways looks.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then I heard through the grapevine she cheated, with his business partner, in his own office, caught on a ring camera.
[SPEAKER_00]: He tried to win me back.
[SPEAKER_00]: Said, let's talk like adults.
[SPEAKER_00]: I smiled and handed him a note my students made that said,
[SPEAKER_00]: We're proud of Miss Daniels for kicking butt.
[SPEAKER_00]: He left without a word.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story-fifty-five.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was my business partner and boyfriend.
[SPEAKER_00]: We co-owned a boutique clothing brand.
[SPEAKER_00]: He handled logistics.
[SPEAKER_00]: I did the designs.
[SPEAKER_00]: We grew fast.
[SPEAKER_00]: Local media features.
[SPEAKER_00]: Instagram deals.
[SPEAKER_00]: Life felt big.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then I saw the invoices.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thousands going to a supplier I'd never heard of.
[SPEAKER_00]: I dug deeper.
[SPEAKER_00]: The supplier was her.
[SPEAKER_00]: A model we had hired for a single shoot.
[SPEAKER_00]: Turns out, he was paying her to ghost design backup collections without telling me.
[SPEAKER_00]: He told me I was too emotional to scale.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was a better collaborator.
[SPEAKER_00]: I sold my shares.
[SPEAKER_00]: Quietly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let him have the brand.
[SPEAKER_00]: He renamed it after her and relaunched.
[SPEAKER_00]: Six months later, she sued him for breach of contract, claiming she designed all the IP.
[SPEAKER_00]: Their court fight made headlines.
[SPEAKER_00]: Investors pulled out the site when offline.
[SPEAKER_00]: He lost everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: I started a new brand, just my name on the label.
[SPEAKER_00]: Clean.
[SPEAKER_00]: Simple, untouchable.
[SPEAKER_00]: He DM'd me a year later.
[SPEAKER_00]: I miss building things with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I replied with a link to my Forbes feature.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story-fifty-six.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was a pilot.
[SPEAKER_00]: Smooth talker, always jetting off somewhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: both literally and metaphorically.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were together for almost four years.
[SPEAKER_00]: I trusted him blindly, even when he went on long haul flights and sometimes went dark for twelve hours at a time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eventually, I found his second Instagram.
[SPEAKER_00]: Private, different name.
[SPEAKER_00]: different city tagged in all the posts.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in every single one, the same woman.
[SPEAKER_00]: Turns out he had a whole second relationship with a flight attendant.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said she made him feel untethered, whatever that means.
[SPEAKER_00]: They moved in together in Miami.
[SPEAKER_00]: She posted photos of their beach dates and captioned them, found my copilot.
[SPEAKER_00]: But six months later, she posted a cryptic story.
[SPEAKER_00]: If he lies to one woman, he'll lie to you too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then she tagged me.
[SPEAKER_00]: People started connecting the dots.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had been cheating on her with someone in Brazil.
[SPEAKER_00]: Another flight attendant.
[SPEAKER_00]: She found love notes.
[SPEAKER_00]: He blamed Jetlag.
[SPEAKER_00]: He now flies budget airlines.
[SPEAKER_00]: Alone.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I, I grounded myself in therapy and found someone who doesn't need a passport to be honest.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story fifty-seven.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was a therapist, a literal mental health professional.
[SPEAKER_00]: We met through mutual friends, and I admired how thoughtful and centered she seemed.
[SPEAKER_00]: But over time, I noticed she was always decompressing after client calls, with one specific coworker, a crisis counselor.
[SPEAKER_00]: Turns out, there after hours chats weren't exactly clinical.
[SPEAKER_00]: I confronted her when she forgot to switch accounts before sending a message meant for him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I miss our sessions more than the clients do.
[SPEAKER_00]: That hurt more than anything else.
[SPEAKER_00]: The emotional intimacy she shared with me was being rerouted.
[SPEAKER_00]: They moved in together.
[SPEAKER_00]: She started a podcast about healing through honesty.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm muted at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: A year later, someone posted a viral threat about unethical behavior in the therapy world.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was about her.
[SPEAKER_00]: Apparently, she'd broken confidentiality to manipulate a client into stopping therapy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because the client was dating her new boyfriend's ex, the licensing board got involved.
[SPEAKER_00]: The podcast was taken down.
[SPEAKER_00]: He left her for someone less complicated.
[SPEAKER_00]: She emailed me in apology.
[SPEAKER_00]: I replied with a single line, you were trained to do better.