"Your cheatin' heart will make you weep.
You'll cry and cry and try to sleep.
But sleep won't come the whole night through.
Your cheatin' heart will tell on you."
You'll cry and cry and try to sleep.
But sleep won't come the whole night through.
Your cheatin' heart will tell on you."
— Hank Williams, "Your Cheatin' Heart"
Adultery. Two-timing. Seeing someone on the side. Having an affair. Cheating. Whatever it's called, the act of having a romantic or sexual affair with someone other than one's established spouse or lover has ever been a source of drama in fiction and in real life. It has brought lovers together, but it has also torn lovers, marriages and even families apart, and it is one of the most common reasons for someone to end up killed. These tropes explore infidelity, the forms it takes, and the effects that it has upon people. See also Netorare.
Tropes:
- Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder: A character starts a relationship with someone else while physically separated from their love interest.
- Accidental Adultery: A character cheated but was tricked, didn't know they were married, believed their partner to be dead, etc.
- Affair? Blame the Bastard: Taking out your anger from your spouse's infidelity on the bastard child born of said infidelity.
- Affair Hair: The discovery of a strand of unfamiliar hair leads to accusations of infidelity.
- Affair Letters: Love letters that document someone had an extramarital affair.
- Attempted Homewrecker: A character wants to steal an uninterested person from their lover.
- Bed Trick: A form of rape by deception where a person tricks another into agreeing to sexual intercourse by impersonating the victim's significant other, in effect tricking the victim into being unfaithful.
- Bedroom Adultery Scene: An adulterous couple gets caught in the middle of sex by one of their spouses/partners.
- Blame the Paramour: A cheated-on character blames the other lover, rather than their cheating partner.
- Business Trip Adultery: A cheating spouse uses the excuse of going on business trips to see the one they're having the affair with.
- Cheating with the Milkman: A housewife has an affair with service personnel that visit the house.
- Chocolate Baby: When a newborn infant looks nothing like their "dad", implications that their mom slept with another man soon follow.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: A girl who won't stand for her partner seeing someone else.
- Crazy Jealous Guy: The guy who gets mad at the idea of his partner seeing someone else.
- Cuckold Horns: A pair of horns used to show that a man's lover has been unfaithful.
- A Deadly Affair: Someone ends up dead, whether it's the perpetrator(s), the victim, or the baggage holding the affair back.
- Death by Woman Scorned: A man or other partner does not survive the retribution of their betrayed partner.
- Emasculated Cuckold: Having an unfaithful wife is a blow to a man's power, masculinity, and status.
- A Family Affair: The cheater sleeps with their partner's relative.
- Good Adultery, Bad Adultery: In a work with multiple instances of adultery, the adulterer is portrayed sympathetically in one instance and evil in another.
- Lipstick Mark: Lipstick on your clothing, collarbone, or cheek reveals an affair.
- Love Forgives All but Lust: Someone is willing to forgive or deny all their partner's faults or crimes except adultery or wandering eyes.
- Mal Mariée: A young woman unhappily married to an older man, who often cheats on him with a man her own age.
- Mistaken for Cheating: Someone mistakenly believes their partner is cheating on them.
- The Mistress: A relatively long-term lover whose partner is married to someone else.
- Plot-Inciting Infidelity: When the plot of a story is kickstarted by having the protagonist catch their partner cheating on them.
- Playing Sick: For the version of the trope where one member of a couple (normally, a man) is in the mood, but the other (normally, the woman) feigns a sickness (normally, a headache) in order not to have sex. Usually, this will happen repeatedly, and it's implied (if not explicit) that she doesn't really love or isn't attracted to him, or even that she's having an affair with someone else.
- Psychosexual Horror: A subgenre that explores psychosexual development as a subject matter, including themes of sexual development and sexual activities.
- Remarried to the Mistress: A man marries the same woman with whom he cheated on his ex-wife.
- Scarpia Ultimatum: A character sleeps with a villain in exchange for sparing their partner.
- Secret Other Family: A mistress plus kids—a whole second family.
- Seduction as One-Upmanship: A character seduces another character's S.O. to put one over on them.
- Serial Homewrecker: A character who seeks out romantic or sexual partners who are already in relationships.
- Sex with the Ex: In cases where one or both exes have new relationships but still sleep together.
- Sleeping with the Boss's Wife: Screwing around with your employer's spouse.
- Stepping Stone Spouse: A partner sacrifices for their spouse only to be left behind for another when fortunes increase
- Sympathetic Adulterer: Cheater portrayed sympathetically.
- Two-Timing with the Bestie: One of the more common affair setups is a character's partner cheating on them with their best friend.
- Two-Timer Date: A person schedules two dates at the same time and goes between them. Usually Played for Laughs.
- Woman Scorned: A woman becomes violent or otherwise vengeful upon discovery of being cheated on.
