Male POV Cheating Short Stories & Novels

My girlfriend, Emma Marshall, had hearing loss and was always claiming she misheard me. I asked her to pick up a gaming setup. She came home with two. "I must've heard you wrong again. Kevin can take the extra one." I asked her to order tacos. She got sushi instead. "Sorry, I heard you wrong. Kevin loves sushi, though. We should invite him over." Then I spent months planning every detail of the home we were supposed to build together and asked her to buy a place in Blackmere. On the day we were supposed to go see it, she drove straight to Carlifield instead. She didn't seem to notice anything was wrong until she realized I hadn't said a word the entire drive. "I'm sorry. I really thought you said you liked the scenery in Carlifield, so when I found this place, I bought it without thinking twice." But Kevin Stone, her childhood best friend, worked only a few minutes away. She hadn't misheard me. She just never cared enough to listen. Something inside me went completely still. For once, I didn't argue. I didn't ask for an explanation. I didn't even feel angry. I just looked at her and said calmly, "Emma, I think we should break up."

I am the most famous weather presenter in the city, yet somehow, I have never gotten a single forecast right. Over time, everyone catches on. In Haddon, the weather depends entirely on the mood of Shelly Fuller's lover. One moment, I'm on air forecasting moderate to heavy snowfall, and the next, the clouds clear and the sky turns sunny. My boss openly mocks me in front of everyone. "You used to be the station's number one presenter. Looks like you're not so useful anymore. Your wife is spending money to manipulate the weather, so what's the point of you even doing the forecast?" A colleague beside him adds, "I heard your wife's new lover hates the cold. Looks like Haddon won't be seeing snow for the next six months. At this rate, you'll be drowned in disciplinary notices." I clutch more than a dozen disciplinary notices without saying anything. Back home, I toss them at Shelly expressionlessly. "Clean up your own mess. Choose someone else to be the man of the Fuller family."

The day I return home, my wife, Lauren Stewart, is supposed to pick me up at the airport. But at the last minute, she sends someone else instead. The man, Ethan Parker, stops me at the arrivals gate and looks me up and down with open contempt. "You're the guy who's been hanging around Lauren, right?" "The villa district on Fairview Avenue in Riverton," I say urgently. "Take me there. Now." That morning, our butler, Joshua Edwards, called to tell me that my grandfather, William Astor, was bedridden, so I caught the earliest flight home. But instead of taking me anywhere, Ethan blocks my path and glares at me like he's ready for a fight. "You homewrecker! You think you can steal another man's wife? I'll beat you to a pulp!" The first slap leaves me stunned. Then the punches start coming. Luckily, I know enough martial arts to defend myself. I strike back, sending several of them crashing to the ground. "What the hell is your problem? Were you seriously sent here by my wife to pick me up?"

In my hometown, boys are expected to make their own wine by stomping on grapes from a young age. The wine will be given to their future wives and drunk on their wedding day. Since college, Suzanne Landon and I have left our hometown to make our fortunes elsewhere. Now that we've achieved success, we return home. The bottle of wine I've been keeping for 28 years can finally be opened. I know how much of a germaphobe Suzanne is. So, I deliberately replace my wine with a store-bought bottle for the Cherry Blossom Festival, even though I know it's against tradition. Just as I'm about to tell her the secret, I overhear her talking to her friends outside the door. "If you drink Finley's wine, then according to our local customs, you'd have to marry him. Wouldn't Chadwick be pissed?" "Exactly. Chadwick has already opened his bottle of wine. If no one drinks it, wouldn't it be embarrassing for him?" Suzanne laughs nonchalantly and says, "There's no way he'll leave me. He's even replaced the wine for my sake. Besides, his wine has been aged for 28 years. Who would possibly drink that? Finley's has only been aged for 20 years. I've heard that's the sweetest. "Even though I've chosen Finley, I won't mistreat Chadwick. If no one else is willing to marry him, I suppose I could always give him a place to stay by my side." It feels as though a hole has opened in my heart, and the cutting cold wind howled through it. I slowly pull my hand back. I'm not unwanted, and it's not like I have to marry her. I open the message that arrives every year without fail and type a few words before hitting send. "Are you still willing to marry me?" The reply comes almost instantly. "Wait for me."

My wife was diagnosed with a terminal illness, and the specialty medicine that kept her alive was expensive enough to strip my whole family down to nothing. I worked day and night on less than four hours of sleep, all of it to buy her a little more time. My father sold one of his kidneys through a black-market broker to raise the money, and died in the hospital of a postoperative infection. My mother took a job at a factory that cut every corner, breathed in toxic fumes for months, and came away with her lungs destroyed. My wife cried until she couldn't see straight and said it was her fault, that she was dragging our whole family down with her. Then, on a delivery run to Havenford's most extravagant private club, I watched her spend a fortune throwing a birthday party for someone else. "Ms. Calder really doesn't hold back. She bought out the entire club for her boyfriend's birthday. That has to be hundreds of thousands." "His actual birthday isn't until tomorrow. Tonight is just the appetizer." My dying wife lay in a strange man's arms, smiling, without a trace of illness on her. With the whole room egging them on, the two of them kissed long and deep in front of everyone. The message she'd sent me an hour earlier was still sitting on my phone. "Julian, I'll be home late. Don't forget to pick up my medicine." Vivian Calder, I'm done treating your illness.

To save my daughter, I collected 50,000 plastic bottles. Day after day, I dug through trash, carried them home, and traded them for scraps of hope. However, when I finally hauled them all to the recycling center, I learned their selling price had dropped. The 50,000 bottles were worth only enough to buy my daughter a better urn. Desperate, I held my feverish daughter in my arms as she suffered a seizure. I called my actress wife for help. Her answer was ice-cold. “$5,000 for a fever? Do you think I’m some kind of charity?” The irony was that she had spent $50 million building a private hospital for her screen partner’s dog just hours earlier.

I stood at the airport in a downpour and waited four hours. All I got for it was a message from Nicole McKenna: [Something came up at the office. Just grab a car and head home on your own.] I called a ride, but with the storm outside, it took another hour before a driver actually picked up my request. As unlucky as that was, I felt strangely calm once I finally climbed into the car. I even felt a flicker of relief when I saw the post from Freddy Sandler, Nicole's college junior. The photo showed the two of them at a candlelit dinner, captioned: [I said the rain was boring, so you came to keep me company.] None of it stung anymore. I'd finally made up my mind to leave her. The realization put me in such a good mood that I tapped "like" on the post without even thinking twice. Afterward, though, Nicole came to me with her eyes rimmed red and begged, "We've been together for years. You're really just going to let it go?"

My girlfriend was a chess prodigy while I had trouble playing checkers, but she always let me win. When others questioned if I deserved her, she would tell them with unshakeable conviction, "I'd rather lose everything than lose him." Later on, she joined the national team while I stayed in a local college. Despite being apart for four years, we were always on video calls, and I'd travel over to visit whenever I had a break, even if it meant watching her from a distance through the training camp fences. We never thought we'd drift apart until one competition, where she blundered across seven rounds because she was playing a certain handsome youth. I knew right then that it was over between us.

My father was dying. There was no time to waste. Every flight and express-train seat to Meadowridge was sold out that day. The only remaining option was a last-minute business-class airline ticket costing twelve hundred dollars. My wife, Marissa Langley, a corporate president earning eight figures a year, frowned at the price. "Do you know what that much money means to this family?" "You're a stay-at-home husband who gets to live comfortably while I work. You never think about how hard I earn our money." Then she froze my cards. She took my phone. She kept my driver's license so I couldn't buy the ticket. Because of her, I missed my father's final moments completely. After the funeral, I saw a social-media post showing her celebrating the birthday of Tyler Beckett, the college intern in her department. The cheapest present she gave him was a custom Velvet Swan cake that cost thirty-three hundred dollars.

At our baby's one-month celebration, my wife, Emilia Hayes, decides to hold a vote. Anyone who thinks the baby should take my last name votes A. Anyone who thinks the baby should take her first love, Alex Mitchell's, last name votes B. Every relative and friend at the table votes for Alex. And yet, when Emilia's family is at its lowest, I am the one who gives her the money to start her business and helps put her younger brother, Elliot Hayes, through college. Elliot, who used to proudly tell everyone I am part of his family, laughs the loudest. "Ryan has been devoted to Emilia for 15 years. There's no way he'd risk losing his wife and son over a last name." Emilia notices my discomfort and frowns as she defends me. "Don't say that. He has his pride too." Then she places our baby in Alex's arms, takes his hand, and asks, "Have you decided what to name the baby?" My mom, Winona Williams, looks at her grandson with tears in her eyes. Afraid I'll really lose my wife and baby, she forces a smile. "It's okay if your first child takes his last name," she says. "You can always have another baby later." I open my mouth to argue. But watching my mother lower her head alongside everyone else just to keep my family together makes me realize there is no point. What they don't know is that tomorrow, along with the application to change my son's last name, I'll also be serving Emilia with divorce papers.

It is New Year's Eve, so I fix a big spread of dishes for my girlfriend, Lily Heath. Lily doesn't even spare me a glance. She continues to pack her luggage, saying coldly, "I can't spend New Year's with you this year." I say nothing at all and simply eat my meal in silence. Lily's first love, Forrest Zimmer, posts a photo on his social media right as the clock strikes midnight on New Year's Eve. Lily is leaning affectionately on his shoulder in the photo, with dazzling fireworks lighting up the sky outside. He even has a caption that says, "She said that all I have to do is ask, and she'll leave it all behind for me." I refrain from throwing a scene or questioning her, merely giving the post a like. Lily calls me, her voice tense and frantic. "Please don't be upset, Ethan. I'll definitely spend next New Year's with you." I chuckle bitterly. "It's just a shame that there won't be a next year for the two of us."

Erin Greer values a good joke more than boundaries. She always says that we have to keep things fun if we want our relationship to last. So she and her childhood friend, Mark Levine, have a standing arrangement. They will orchestrate a surprise every year on our wedding anniversary—with all their friends playing along—just to see if I'll fall for it. Three years ago, she told Mark in front of me that she regretted marrying me. When I turned to leave, she laughed and pulled me back, saying I was too easily teased. Two years ago, she had Mark put divorce papers beside my pillow. After I signed them with a trembling hand, she laughed and said it was just a prank. Last year, she and Mark held a fake wedding and forced me to stand beside them as the best man. When I got upset, she shrugged it off, saying I was being too serious again. And this year, their surprise is even more outrageous. A guilty-looking Mark stands before me, holding a prenatal test report. "Richard, I'm sorry. Erin is pregnant with my child." Not only does Erin not explain herself, but she also stands obediently beside Mark. They exchange a look, as if waiting for me to break down in despair. I look at their faces as they struggle to hold back their laughter, and suddenly, I feel exhausted. This time, I don't get angry or make a scene. Instead, I take off my wedding ring. "I'm not playing along with this year's surprise."

The first time I find a man's watch in my fiancee Lydia Winslow's car, her father calls me himself to explain it away. "Jonah, you've got the wrong idea about Lydia. That watch is mine. I must have left it there by accident." The second time, when I discover two movie ticket stubs, her best friend tags me in a group chat. "Don't overthink it. I asked Lydia to buy those tickets for me." It happens a third time, then a fourth, and every time after that, someone steps forward to cover for her. By the ninth time, I pull a tie from between the car seats and hold it up in front of her face. "Whose tie is this?" Her hand on the steering wheel gives the faintest tremor before she dials a number with practiced ease. "Someone left a tie in my car. Which one of you is it?" The call connects to my own sister, Leah Stratton, and my best friend, Bryce Hollander, who also happens to be Leah's husband. "Lydia? Oh, so that's where it went! No wonder Bryce couldn't find it anywhere. Honestly, though, Jonah, are you doing this again? "Everyone told you at the last get-together—if you keep picking fights over nothing, you two might as well call off the wedding." Bryce chimes in right after, saying, "Come on, Jonah. You know how good Lydia is to you. You've been way out of line lately." After the call ends, Lydia looks at me with wide, innocent eyes. "Happy now? Can you please stop doubting me? That's nine times now, Jonah. If you do this again, maybe we should just call off the—" I smile and cut her off. "You're right. Let's not bother. Cancel the whole thing." What Lydia doesn't know is that the tie doesn't belong to her lover or to Bryce. I bought it myself and left it in her car on purpose to expose the truth—that every single person around her has been helping cover up her affair.

The first time I meet my girlfriend, Nadine Grant‘s parents, she stops me at the door. Her childhood friend and neighbor, Nick Lockwood, has just pulled a tarot card. The card says I'll attract trouble today, so I shouldn't go inside. Before I can say a word, Nadine reaches for the gifts in my hands. "Wait in the car for a while," she says. "When dinner's over, we'll go home together." I don't let go. "I've spent over a month getting ready to meet your parents, and you're not even letting me in?" Displeasure is written all over her face. "Andy, I'm doing this for your own good!" Before I can argue, she shoves me back into the car. Nick smiles at me through the car window. He says, "Andy, don't take it the wrong way. I'll go in and keep Mr. Grant company for you." Nadine stands beside him without looking back once. This is all happening because of one tarot card Nick pulls. I'm the one who's here to meet Nadine's parents, yet I'm somehow the last person they want inside. Then, I have no reason to become part of this family either!

On our wedding anniversary, my wife, Yvonne Ashby, who has never set foot in the kitchen before, prepares a feast. Every time I take a bite, she eagerly asks me what I think and carefully writes down my feedback. At one point, she goes into our bedroom to answer a call. It's the custom ringtone for her assistant, Michael Holden. I casually pick up the notebook Yvonne left behind and leaf through it, only to discover that it is filled with detailed notes about things that have nothing to do with me. "The green beans are a little undercooked. Michael probably won't like them." "The mushrooms are a little too salty. Remember to use less salt when you make them for Michael." "The lamb is too gamey. Replace lamb with beef when you make it for Michael." Yvonne comes back and reaches for her notebook, only to catch me holding it. "Samson Camden, you really have no manners, do you? When did I ever give you permission to touch my belongings?" I'm about to respond when an excruciating pain shoots through my head, and Yvonne's figure begins to blur and double before my eyes. "Yvonne, I'm feeling a little unwell. It's probably because the green beans were undercooked…" "In that case, I'd better write this down so I cook them longer when I make them for Michael." Ignoring me, she scribbles in her notebook and hurries toward the door. "I'm heading out. You have such a strong immune system. If you don't feel well, just take some medicine." Before passing out, I call Yvonne one more time. However, her impatient voice comes through the phone. "Is it really that serious? Are you dying? Call me when you're dead!" I think to myself, "Yvonne Ashby, I'll never reach out to you again."

For the 18th time, Tyra Stone calls off our wedding because I'm a beat too slow during the vows. She looks at me with utter disappointment. "You know I'm a perfectionist. Why can't you follow the wedding schedule exactly? If you can't keep up next time either, maybe you should just let your best friend marry me instead." My so-called best friend, Jeremiah Young, is known for being obsessively punctual. For some reason, Tyra has made him the standard I'm expected to meet. If I come downstairs a minute later than he does after work, she will drive off with him without looking back. If I arrive at the restaurant half a step after him on Valentine's Day, she will give him the candlelit dinner meant for me. If I reach the airport 20 seconds after him for our anniversary trip, she will cancel my ticket and board the plane with him instead. As a result, our wedding has been canceled 17 times. Each time, Jeremiah takes my place and goes through the entire ceremony with her. To ensure the 18th attempt finally goes smoothly, I fill the hall with countdown clocks and spend more than 200 nights practicing in secret. However, ten seconds before the vows are supposed to begin, Jeremiah jumps the gun and says, "I do." Tyra chooses to go by his timing. She ignores me as the hundred-something clocks around us chime in unison. For the 18th time, she calls off the wedding. It turns out the problem is never my timing. The problem is that I'm the groom, not Jeremiah. If that's what she wants, I'll give her the perfect wedding she's been blindly chasing. Tyra takes Jeremiah's hand again. "Watch closely. We'll show you one more time." I laugh and casually slip the wedding rings onto their fingers. "Save it. I hope you two have a long and happy marriage instead."

On New Year's Eve, Gwen Hurst and I attended a reunion with our old classmates. After several rounds of drinks, someone suggested a game of Truth or Dare. Gwen was the first to lose and drew Truth. "What was your biggest regret when it came to love?" She answered without hesitation, but her gaze kept drifting toward her first love, Nikolas Stratton, who was sitting nearby. "My greatest regret was not ending up with the person I loved most. Instead, I married my backup and settled for a life of compromise." The room erupted in shock. Everyone thought I would storm out in anger, but I only smiled and gestured for the game to continue. When it was my turn, the question became, "Have you ever kept anything from your partner?" "I have." "What was it?" "I've been raising a seven-year-old son outside our marriage."

Yvonne Sharp, my fiancee, and I are at the city hall, intending to get our marriage certificates for the 27th time. The staff member has just called our number when Aaron Sutton, Yvonne's stepbrother, suddenly bends over and grabs his stomach. "My stomach is killing me, Yvonne…" Yvonne immediately supports him, saying, "I'll take you to the hospital right now." Aaron quickly shakes his head. "You don't have to do that. It's a very important day for you and Charlie, so I'll just tough it out, Yvonne." He keeps a tight grip on Yvonne's sleeve despite saying so. Yvonne furrows her brow and says, "You don't have to tough it out. I'll take you to the hospital this instant, Aaron." She hands me the queue ticket after saying that. I look at her and say, "It'll only take ten minutes to register our marriage. Is that too much to ask for?" Yvonne doesn't even spare me a glance. "You've already waited for this moment 26 times. What difference will one more make?" I let out a sudden chuckle after hearing how casual she sounds about it. It turns out that she has always known all along—she has just never taken my waiting seriously. "If we don't register our marriage today, there won't be a 28th time, Yvonne." Yvonne helps Aaron along. She doesn't even bother to look at me as she says, "That's enough, Charlie. I'll go take care of Aaron first." I look down at my phone and pull up the contact information of someone I haven't reached out to in a long time. "Grab your personal documents and get to the city hall within ten minutes."

I was the simple-minded fool that General Adelaide Knight had pulled from a pile of corpses on the battlefield. The poison had been too severe. I survived, but my mind never fully recovered. When people hit me or cursed at me, all I ever did was stare blankly and smile. Adelaide took pity on me. She brought me into her home and refused to let anyone mistreat me. She once said, "Reed may be a fool, but he's my whole life." And like a fool, I believed her. For five years, I followed her everywhere like a shadow. Then Fabian Ortega returned to the capital. He looked so much like me that we could almost have been brothers. He'd been poisoned, and none of the doctors knew how to save him. His only chance was to fight poison with poison—using blood drawn from the heart of someone whose body was already saturated with an even deadlier toxin. So Adelaide placed a dagger and an empty bowl in front of me. Her voice had never been gentler. "Be good, Reed. Your body's already full of poison. It's just a small cut over your heart. It won't hurt. Let me take some blood for him. I'll buy you your favorite candy tomorrow, okay?" I stared at the cold gleam of the blade and slowly blinked. The truth was, when the knife pierced my chest, the blood came so fast that I felt so cold. Still, I endured it and forced the same vacant smile onto my face. "Okay." I watched Adelaide pick up the bowl of warm blood and hurry toward Fabian's room. She was in such a rush that she didn't even spare a glance at the bloodstained dagger she'd left lying on the floor. I tossed the cheap candy she'd bought me into the fire and clumsily began packing my things. Since she no longer wanted Reed's life, this poisoned fool had no reason to stay.

On our anniversary, I stood in the doorway holding the diamond ring I'd just bought, waiting for Crystal Linley to finish her video call. She casually took the ring box, set it aside without a glance, and checked her watch. "The client wants last-minute changes to the proposal. Go ahead and eat without me." I sat down at the table alone. The food tasted like nothing. At midnight, her childhood friend posted a photo of the two of them on Instagram, out on a yacht. Crystal was wearing the dress I'd given her, leaning against his shoulder with a glass of champagne in her hand. The caption read: [She said if I ever come back to her, she'll drop everything and run to me.] I calmly liked the Instagram post. A second later, my phone lit up. "Don't get the wrong idea!" Crystal's voice was frantic. "I swear, next anniversary..." I let out a long breath. "There won't be a next anniversary."