Tragic Love Romance Short Stories & Scumbag Cheating Novels

My husband's long-distance girlfriend is coming to check up on him again. I hear she'll be here in 20 minutes. Before my husband can say anything, I head to the master bedroom and grab my suitcase, as I always do. Thankfully, after her last visit a month ago, I never bother putting my clothes or toiletries back where they belong. So, this time, I don't have to pack in a panic. It's also thanks to her frequent visits that I'm able to go from hysterical and heartbroken in the beginning to completely numb and unfazed now. Seeing how efficiently I'm making my exit, Isaac Jones actually follows me out for once. He reaches out and ruffles my hair. "Once Candy leaves, we'll get remarried. She's always been proud and would never agree to be the other woman. So, you'll just have to put up with this a little longer. Once I'm done with her, I'll settle down. I won't keep messing around like all the other guys in my circle." As he speaks, I receive a bank transfer of one million dollars as compensation. This time, I don't send it back. I simply pull the car door shut. What Isaac doesn't know is that after eight marriages and eight divorces, I've finally broken free from him. This time, I'm not coming back.

Adam Locke made it his mission to control our marital finances. Every time I needed money, he subjected me to an interrogation. All I was allowed was 300 dollars a month, no more, no less. "Asking for money again?" Adam asked, shoving his ledger in my face. "You've already reached your withdrawal limit for this month!" I stared at the ledger. That 300-dollar budget was supposed to cover our children's medical bills, our daily household expenses, and even the money Adam owed restaurants or colleagues whenever he got drunk at one of his "business events." Not a single one of those expenses had been for me. Suddenly, his phone rang. He picked it up from the table, and his tone softened almost instantly. "Oh no. Did Zack get into another fight? How much do you need to settle it? I'll send you the money right away." "They said 15,000 dollars, or Zack's getting locked up at the station," replied his secretary, Yolanda Sharpe. Adam did not need to be asked twice. He hung up and immediately wired Yolanda the full amount so her little brother could stay out of trouble. It was as if Zack mattered more to him than his own wife did. I waited until he finished, then calmly said, "Mom was in a car accident. I need money for her medical bills. Please, anything would help." He tossed the ledger in front of me. "I told you, you've reached your withdrawal limit for this month!" he grumbled. "Can't she wait until next month to take care of whatever business she needs to handle?" This time, I did not argue or insist that he give me the money. I simply nodded and said, "Sure." Then I turned away from him and called my mother-in-law, who was lying on an operating table in the ER. "Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it seems your son has refused to pay to save your life."

In Grovefield, wedding cars never doubled back. But on my wedding day, my fiance, Wade Chesney, backed our convoy up for twelve miles just to make way for another wedding convoy. I was about to roll down the window and ask what was happening when I overheard Wade talking to his best man, Tyler Krause. “You took a detour of more than seventy miles just to see Hayley off at her wedding. You’re really going all out for her. “Are you still planning to back us up even more? Aren’t you worried Mila’s going to lose it?” Wade motioned for the convoy to keep backing up. “Relax. She’s waited ten years for me. No matter how much of a fuss she makes, she’d never get out and run away from her own wedding. “If my family hadn’t pressured me so hard, I never would’ve said yes to her so easily. “Hayley can’t marry me, so the least I can do is back up and see her off for part of the journey. It’s my way of making up for all the years she spent with me.” My bouquet fell beneath the seat, and I let out a bitter, self-deprecating laugh. “So much for believing that all those years of hardship would eventually lead to a happy ending. It had all been wishful thinking on my part,” I thought. I opened my messages and sent my location to someone. I texted, [Do you still want to marry me? Hurry over.]

At a gathering with friends, my boyfriend, Donovan McPherson, suggested we play a game of “I Have, Have You?” The winner would get to make one request of him. Everyone there knew I had been trying to get him to make me, Celeste Campbell, Mrs. McPherson for five years, and for as long he had not obliged. Now they all assumed he was giving me a chance. So, tacitly aligned, everyone held back to let me win. But his childhood sweetheart, Lily Kensington, would not relent. “Donovan watched the first snowfall with me. “He gave me a scarf he knitted with his own hands. “The tattoo on his wrist is my initials. “His passenger seat is permanently adjusted to fit my height.” After those four, I had only one finger up. Yet she was not done. Tilting her head, she flashed a smirk at me. “Donovan only started this game to make me happy.” My heart dropped, while my eyes darted instinctively to Donovan. He wore a doting smile, choosing to side with her, just as he had every single time over the past five years. I slowly dropped my finger down. “I lost.” In that split second, something dawned on me. There was nothing left in this relationship worth holding onto.

My CEO husband, Martin Gentry, finds out I volunteered to donate some of my brainstem tissue to wake Evelyn Stout, the woman he's never gotten over. He finally leaves the monastery where he's spent the past seven years praying for her. For the first time, he comes to see me at the office and asks what I want in return. Everyone assumes I'll use the opportunity to ask him for a baby and secure my place as his wife. Instead, I hand him divorce papers. Everyone thinks I'm just playing hard to get. Martin's expression turns cold. He removes me from every position I hold at the company. Then he promotes Evelyn, gives her a raise, and tells me to think long and hard about what I've done. What Martin doesn't know is that the surgery wiped out seven years of my memories. I'm no longer the wife who put up with everything just to keep the peace. I'm the woman I was seven years ago, full of dreams and never afraid to stand up for myself. And this time, I'm done putting myself last for anyone.

The night before the Fourth of July holiday, my husband gathered the entire company for what I thought would finally be our long-awaited public announcement. Instead, his clueless assistant burst into the room wearing a wedding dress. "Cameron, I'm here to marry you." He didn't turn her down. If anything, his eyes softened with unmistakable affection as he promoted her to vice president on the spot. The entire company erupted in cheers for their love story. When my coworkers noticed me standing frozen off to the side, one of them couldn't resist reminding me. "Stephanie, you've been with Mr. Cox for nine years. You can't let a moment this special pass without saying something!" I smiled, walked onto the stage, slipped off my wedding ring, and tossed it to Poppy Campbell. "What kind of wedding doesn't come with a ring? Here, take it."

Because my older sister, Zara Gomez, dreamed of becoming a psychologist, I became her favorite test subject simply because I had been highly sensitive since birth. She said children should not be given too much security, so my parents missed every important moment in my life for years. She said people at their lowest should not be coddled, so when I was critically injured in a car accident, they turned around and went on vacation to Coral Isle. Only Aaron Shaw ever stood up to them. He would tell me gently, "Cry if you need to. I'm here." Then came the wedding by the beach. I waited and waited, but he never showed. Holding up the hem of my wedding dress, I searched the beach anxiously all night. In the end, all I got was his latest update on social media. [Celebrating the successful completion of Zara's ten-year experiment.] A second later, he called me on video. When he saw my red eyes, he sounded almost delighted. "Zara said the training works best when the thing you're looking forward to most falls apart. Look at you. You didn't even cry this time." Zara held his arms with a shy look on her face. "Thanks to you serving as the control subject all these years, I've finally finished the last part of my project." I looked down at my bleeding feet, and I let the ocean wind dry the last of my tears. So… All the warmth I had treasured had only been part of Zara's control experiment. Now that the final experiment was over, it was also time for the test subject to quietly leave the stage.

The day I find out I'm pregnant, I also discover my husband is cheating on me. To think that Brock Emerson, a celebrated OB-GYN, is sleeping with his own protegee, Wendy Blair! I strip Wendy's clothes off in front of the entire hospital, humiliating her for everyone to see. After that, the staff group chat turns into a daily betting pool on whether I'll show up to cause another scene. When Brock pulls me off the balcony railing yet again, he drops to his knees. "I've already had Wendy transferred. What happened that day was just an accident. You're all I care about." I give Brock two choices—either he sends Wendy to prison, or he signs the divorce papers. He personally submits evidence of Wendy's medical malpractice and chooses to stay. From then on, every year on the anniversary, I visit Wendy in prison to ease my grief over losing my child. On one of those visits, as I sign the log on my way out, I overhear two janitors talking. "That poor woman still hasn't figured out it's not really Wendy in there. It's just some actress they hired as a look-alike." "Dr. Emerson was scared she'd lose it again and hurt Dr. Blair, so he paid to build a whole fake prison wing just to keep her fooled. He and Dr. Blair are the real thing." "I heard their baby turned one today, and the whole family's celebrating together. They couldn't be happier." My blood runs cold. I can't believe what I'm hearing. The whole time I think we're starting fresh, Brock already has another family.

When I walked out of the funeral home, the Perfect Wife app my boyfriend, Ryan Keller, developed popped up with its 99th penalty notification. [Perfect Wife Score: -3. Reason: Too many calls.] I opened the app. Three years' worth of deductions filled the screen. I lost a point for asking him to pick me up from work in the pouring rain. Apparently, that made me too dependent. Three more disappeared after a fight because I refused to admit I was wrong. According to the app, that made me dishonest. Then there were the ten points I lost because I once asked Mom to pretend she was sick for me. Apparently, that meant she had raised me badly. I scrolled through the list without feeling much of anything until I reached the one name that had always mattered more than mine. Claire Snyder. Ryan's ex-girlfriend, who apparently couldn't handle anything on her own. A pipe burst in her apartment, so Ryan rushed over to fix it. Her neighborhood lost power at night, so she needed him to stay with her. Even today, when Claire's mom twisted her ankle during a dance class, Claire called Ryan to drive them to the hospital. Meanwhile, Mom suffered a sudden brain hemorrhage. I called Ryan 58 times. Every call went straight to a busy signal. By the time I stopped calling, Mom's hand had already gone cold. Not long after, she was wheeled out of the hospital and into the funeral home. I flexed my stiff fingers and tapped "No Objection" for the first time. Claire's cloying prerecorded voice immediately played through my phone. "Congratulations! Looks like you've finally learned how to be understanding. That puts your Perfect Wife Score at 60, which means you're officially eligible to get married! Better make it to the courthouse within three days, though, or you'll lose your chance!" I stared at the screen for a second, then deleted the app. Three days from now, I really was going to the courthouse to get married. Just not with Ryan.

The eighth time I catch Philip Mumford cheating on me, he pours a bottle of concentrated disinfectant over his groin. "Happy now?" Amid the wreckage, his face is deathly pale as he looks at me like I'm the one who has lost my mind. It's the first time he's ever backed down. I stand frozen, clutching a piece of broken porcelain, suddenly feeling completely lost. During our worst fight, I strap dynamite to myself and his mistress, forcing him to choose between us. In response, he has himself and my parents tied to five semitrucks chained together, then smiles and asks if I still want him to choose. That's how we spent ten years torturing each other, neither of us willing to give in, back down, or walk away. Now, he looks at me with something close to pity. "Leave Vivian alone," he says. "She's normal, not crazy like you. Punish me all you want—just leave her out of it." I stare at him. "What do you mean?" A faint, tired smile touches his lips. "It means I'm giving up. Happy now? Isn't this what you wanted all along?" Yes, he's giving up. But it's obvious who he's doing it for. The hatred burning in his eyes makes the past ten years feel like a cruel joke I played on myself. At that moment, a wave of helplessness washes over me. Suddenly, I just want us to let each other go.

After she was intimate with her husband, Derrick Gladwin, Celine Clarkson headed to the bathroom to clean up. Then the closet door swung open. Jenny Dlay—Celine's best friend—popped out, laughing like crazy. "Wow, Cece. You act all innocent, but you still make that face when things get good? I'm dead." Jenny rolled her eyes and stuck out her tongue, mocking the way Celine had bitten her lip and trembled. Celine went pale and froze. Jenny didn't care. She strutted over, went up on her toes, and hooked an arm around Derrick's neck, her nails brushing through his Adam's apple. "Okay, Ricky. Didn't know you had that in you. You seriously wore her out." She smirked. "Almost feel bad for her." Derrick laughed and flicked her forehead. "Told you. You just didn't believe me." "Can you blame me? I thought you were all talk." Jenny grinned and tugged at his robe. "Guess I'll have to check for myself..."

During a project inspection in the mountains, Lily Quinn's husband, Shaun Stone, brought a woman back with him. He said that without her, they would never have made it out of the mountains. Lily believed him. Later, Shaun named the woman Ninian Stone and said that she was strong-willed, conscientious and responsible, he gradually entrusted more and more of his resources to her. It was not until Lily's mother, Martha, became critically ill that Ninian revealed her true colors by denying Martha access to the medical resources she desperately needed.

Lawrence Yancey gave me a supplementary card with a spending limit of 300 dollars, and any excess required his approval with a receipt. He said this was to ensure transparency in the management of the family's finances. I did as he asked for three years. At last month's medical checkup, I was diagnosed with thyroid nodules, and the doctor recommended that I undergo a needle biopsy. I took a picture of the bill and sent it to him. “7,200 dollars?!” He replied in an instant. “It’s just a nodule. Can’t you just monitor the situation first?” I didn’t reply to his text and canceled the appointment. That night, when he got home, he flung two shopping bags onto the floor by the foyer. I recognized that logo. I opened one of the bags and pulled out a necklace worth 8,600 dollars. A greeting card lay at the bottom of the bag with a message in his handwriting. “Happy birthday, Wendy. You deserve the best.” Wendy was his new colleague in the Planning Department. At last month’s department gathering, she had even asked me with a smile, “Mrs. Yancey, is Lawrence extremely generous to you?” I put the greeting card back where I found it. My mom ended up accompanying me to the test for the nodule, which turned out to be benign. The day my report was out, I didn’t tell him the results. I told the court instead. When he received the court summons, he asked, “Can’t we talk things through?” I finally learned how to use the phrase he taught me: “Send in an application and wait for my approval.”

"I want a divorce! My husband doesn't love me anymore!" I step into the county clerk's office holding my water-damaged marriage certificate just in time to hear a young woman at the next window filing for divorce. She's sobbing uncontrollably, insisting that she and her husband have fallen out of love. By a strange stroke of luck, her husband shares the exact same name as mine—Louie Russell. The only difference is that her husband is the wealthiest man in Jalenne, while mine is just an ordinary guy. Smiling at the coincidence, I hand my marriage certificate over to the clerk. "Could you please issue me a replacement?" But the next second, the clerk gives me a strange look. "Ma'am, your records show you're single. As for this gentleman, he's already married. And this certificate is a fake." I freeze, a cold sweat breaking out across my skin. My head snaps toward the next window. The woman's phone wallpaper is a wedding photo. The man in the tuxedo standing right beside her is the same man I've been married to for the last three years.

I once believed meeting Charles was the final ray of comfort in my life. A sightless man and a terminally ill woman, leaning on each other to find warmth in the dark. I gave up chemotherapy, pushing through cancer pain to work, all just to leave behind every cent I had for my "blind" boyfriend and our unborn baby. I even signed an organ donor form, hoping that after my death, my eyes could finally bring him light. That belief shattered when I saw a photo in the hospital director's office. There he was, surfing under the bright sun. His eyes shone, with an arm wrapped around an heiress dripping in multi-million-dollar jewels. It turns out our whole love story was nothing more than a rich kid's bet, and my devotion was nothing more than entertainment for his wealthy friends. He trampled my father's hard-earned savings into the dirt and burned my late mother's legacy on a single night of fireworks just to make another woman smile. So, I shredded the donor agreement and lay on the operating table for an abortion with a smile. Since they wanted a game, I’d play along with them until the end.

The day I caught Joel Kemper in bed with another woman, she slashed up her own face. Joel pulled her tightly into his arms, refusing to let me see her no matter how hysterical I got. His eyes were bloodshot as he looked at me. "This is all my fault, Valerie. I'll spend the rest of my life making it up to you. I'm begging you. Don't go after her." After that day, Joel gave up every shred of privacy. He handed over his phone every day and even installed hidden cameras throughout his car. If a female patient so much as texted him, I would question him over and over, and he never once complained. He went along with everything, asking only that I take him back. Then, three days before our wedding, I went to pick up my dress, only for the sales associate to stare at me in confusion. "Ms. Clayton, you already picked up your wedding dress this morning. I actually just saw a video from your ceremony online." She pulled up the clip. The same friends of Joel's, who had still been acting like I was the one he was going to marry yesterday were now handing the rings to the bride and groom, with several of our mutual friends standing nearby. Joel leaned toward the bride with a smile and murmured tenderly, "I love you, Daphne." The name, and the face that looked exactly like mine, left me frozen in place.

My fiancé, Everett Prescott, spent five whole years designing my wedding dress, and it finally arrived today. Except I couldn't zip it up. It stayed wide open until my best friend, Sienna Hart, slipped into the dress perfectly. The fabric hugged her curves like a second skin. She turned to my fiancé with an exasperated sigh. "Everett, are you serious? You got Leah’s size wrong. Again." My blood ran cold. Over the five years Everett and I had been together, this wasn't the first time he'd conveniently forgotten my measurements. When he bought me pajamas that were a size too small, he just blinked, flashing that easy grin of his. "Oh, wait. I think this is Sienna's size, right? Let's just give it to her. I'll buy you another set." When my engagement ring turned out to be too small, he scratched the back of his neck and shrugged. "My bad. Well, we already bought it, so we might as well give it to Sienna. Lucky her." Our wedding was in two days, and once again, he got the measurements dead wrong. Everett rubbed his nose, giving a weak laugh. "Totally my fault, babe. My bad. I'll just take it back to the shop and get it altered." "Everett, altering a custom wedding dress takes at least six months," I said, my voice barely a whisper. He offered a helpless smile. "Well, you can't exactly walk down the aisle without a dress, right? Don't worry about it. As soon as the dress is altered, we'll have the wedding immediately. We've already waited five years. What's another six months?" Right then, my phone buzzed in my palm. [Sweetheart, the guy you have an arranged marriage with is flying back into the country in two days. I don't care what excuse you have this time. You’re coming home and marrying him!] I stared at the screen for a long time before replying: [Got it. I'll be there.] I spent five long years waiting around for this wedding. I'm not waiting another six months.

We had been in love for five years and married for three. My husband had taken the whole “going Dutch” to an absurd extreme. A two-dollar bottle of water for the house? Split it in half. A $105 utility bill? He'd send me a Venmo request for my half. He called it “the spirit of equality in a modern marriage.” According to him, rules were rules. I gritted my teeth and put up with it. Until I found out I was pregnant. To save money on the prenatal appointments and nutritional expenses he insisted we split, I could barely afford anything more than plain boiled eggs every day. Even when I was heavily pregnant and caught in a downpour, if I tried to call a cab, he'd lecture me for lacking the independence a modern woman was supposed to have. Yet when another woman told him she was “having a bad day,” he didn't hesitate to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on luxury goods for her. He even paid her expensive tuition to study abroad. I thought I'd already become numb to it all, so numb that I was prepared for whatever came next, even if it killed me. Then came the day when his disgusting penny-pinching calculations went too far. He tried to make me pay my “share” of the medication I needed to stay alive.

At the reunion, the wives got rowdy and dared each other to take part in a "best husband" challenge. Each woman had to call her husband and ask for 6,000 dollars to buy a bag. Whoever got a yes first would win. As expected, Matthew Whitebrook picked up almost instantly, his voice gentle. "Buy it, baby. You remember the card password, right?" Everyone groaned with envy and said I'd hit the jackpot by landing the better of the twin brothers. I laughed and hung up, then glanced at my sister, who sat curled up in the corner. She clutched her phone but refused to make the call. "I won't bother," she said quietly. "He's on another business trip. He won't pick up anyway." My sister had been dating Matthew's older twin brother for three years, but he was constantly away on business. Almost no one had ever seen him in person. I felt bad for her, so I snatched the phone from her hand and dialed the number myself. It rang twice before someone answered. "Baby, why the sudden call?" The room fell silent. That voice was identical to the one that had told me, "Buy it, baby," just ten seconds earlier. For a moment, I thought I had misheard. But when I turned to my sister, her face had already gone white. She snatched the phone back, her smile strained. "Bad signal. You must have misheard." However, I had heard it clearly. From the other end of the call came the unmistakable sound of the record player in my own living room, the one I had forgotten to turn off before I left the house that afternoon.

For six months I renovated the condo where my fiancé and I were supposed to begin our married life. Grant said he was buried in a project. My brother said he was always traveling. My best friend said something had come up at home. Not one of them had time to lend a hand. The night before I moved in, they covered my eyes and told me someone I would never guess had come back to warm the place for me. The door opened, and there was Serena Cole, a childhood friend I hadn’t seen in years, wearing my slippers and rushing at me with a smile. “Surprised?” I was. Until she said, offhand, “These past few days I couldn’t have managed without Grant helping me pick a mattress, Owen carrying my bags, and Tessa helping me choose curtains.” The smile faded off my face. They hadn’t been busy. They had all been busy with her. I pushed open the door to the primary bedroom. The bedding I had bought was a different color. The vanity was covered with her things. Half the closet had been emptied out. I asked, “If she’s living here, where do I sleep?” Grant frowned. “Serena’s engagement just ended, and she’s in a bad place. Stay at your brother’s for a couple of weeks.” My brother tried to reason with me too. “We all grew up together. Don’t treat her like a stranger.” My best friend laughed and smoothed it over. “She’s had terrible luck lately. Staying in your new place might let a little of your good luck rub off on her.” I looked at the three of them for a few seconds, and then I smiled too. Then I walked to the entryway and reset the lock code. Grant’s face changed. “What are you doing?” “Nothing much. “I just remembered that I’m the only name on the deed.”