Stop Blaming The Other Woman For Your Boyfriend Cheating—He’s The One Who Betrayed You

In light of the recent drama between Khloe Kardashian, Jordyn Woods, and Tristan Thompson, I felt like it was an important time to point out that blaming the other woman for your partner’s infidelity is dumb as hell and totally ridiculous. I’m not saying that being betrayed by a friend doesn’t suck, but it’s your boyfriend/husband/child’s father who truly disrespected you, so take it up with him rather than excusing his BS behavior and blaming her for his inability to keep it in his pants.

  1. He’s the one you’re in a relationship with. Yes, it’s a violation of the girl code, and if the other woman was someone you considered a friend, it really sucks that she would do this to you. However, your S.O. is the one who’s truly supposed to have your back. You’re supposed to be partners in every sense of the word, so the fact that he found it so easy to step out on you is absolutely inexcusable.
  2. It’s a violation of your trust. If you can’t trust your partner, why are you even in a relationship? You should be able to trust that whether you’re together or not, he’s going to respect you and your relationship enough not to violate your bond by flirting, making out with, or having sex with another woman. How can you ever come back from a betrayal like that?
  3. Women have been blamed for men’s crap for way too long. How much longer do women have to take the fall for men’s bad behavior? When a man does something amazing, he’s praised endlessly and lauded as a god on earth. When he messes up, suddenly it’s a woman’s fault. What did we do wrong? How could we have prevented it? Were we not meeting his needs? Was the other woman tempting him too much? Screw this BS. It’s internalized misogyny and it needs to stop. We’ve been fed this crap about women being at fault for men’s inability to act like decent human beings for so long that we’ve actually started believing it.
  4. If he’s that weak, is he really strong enough to be a good partner? Blaming another woman for “tempting” your partner into cheating is literally the most insane thing I’ve ever heard. You honestly believe your S.O. is that weak that he couldn’t have resisted someone coming onto him? If that’s the case, how is he ever going to be strong enough to weather any real problems with you down the line? Get a grip—he’s a loser.
  5. Men won’t be men and cheating isn’t inevitable. The idea that men are ruled by their penises and that it’s up to women to be chaste and ensure that we demonstrate self-control lest we arouse sex-crazed men and inspire them to cheat on their partners is ridiculous. Again, this places the onus on women to be responsible for a man’s behavior. You’re not a pedophile, I assume, so you must be dating a grown man. Treat him like one and hold him accountable. If he cheats on you, he’s making a decision to do so. That’s on him.
  6. She didn’t hold a gun to his head. A guy who gives you a bunch of crap about how he was drunk, didn’t know what he was doing, it was an accident, blah blah blah is making the world’s lamest excuses. The truth is that the woman he cheated with may have been inappropriate in what she was doing, but she also didn’t force your partner to do it with her. He needs to take responsibility for his actions.
  7. She may not even have known you exist. If the other woman was a stranger, do you honestly think your partner told her all about his girlfriend/wife and expressed excitement about the fact that he was cheating? Wake up—there’s every chance she thought she was having a casual hookup with a single dude and was doing nothing wrong. Your partner, on the other hand, knew exactly what he was doing.
  8. You get what you put up with. It doesn’t matter whether you’ve been together for years, whether you just bought a house together, whether you have kids together, whatever—if you justify your partner’s cheating the first time, you can’t be surprised when he continues to do it to you. Blame the other woman all you want, but what about next time? Will it be that woman’s fault too? And in the meantime, are you just sitting home being disrespected and betrayed continually, staying because you’re trying to save face? You’re better than that, but he won’t treat you like you are, so act like it and leave his ass.
Jennifer Still is a writer and editor with more than 10 years of experience. The managing editor of Bolde, she has bylines in Vanity Fair, Business Insider, The New York Times, Glamour, Bon Appetit, and many more. You can follow her on Twitter @jenniferlstill
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