Your Cheating Heart: Difference between revisions

''You'll cry and cry and try to sleep.

''But sleep won't come the whole night through,

 

Two-timing, playing away from home, having a bit on the side, going behind your partner's back, adultery, infidelity... There are a lot of names for cheating on your partner, but most of them have the same outcome: [[Love Hurts|a world of hurt.]]

* In ''[[Oniisama e...]]'', {{spoiler|Mariko Shinobu's father Hikawa, who is an erotic novel writer, not only had an affair with a former actress during his marriage with Hisako, but later left his wife for said former actress.}} This was the cause of {{spoiler|Mariko}}'s [[Does Not Like Men|distrust towards men]].

** Discussed, but ultimately averted with {{spoiler|Prof. Misonoo}}. {{spoiler|[[Drowning My Sorrows|He turned to drinking]] when his first wife left him and took their kid (Takehiko) away with her, and it was during these days that he met Nanako's mom (the beautiful waitress of his favorite pub) and fell for her. However, the letter that demanded Nanako's ousting from the Sorority accused the second Mrs. Misonoo of being a homewrecker, which she obviously wasn't.}}

 

== Film ==

* Happens all over the place in ''[[Forgetting Sarah Marshall]]''. First we have the titular character cheating on her boyfriend Peter with the [[British Rock Star]] Aldous Snow (later, it's revealed that they've been sleeping together for a year before she told Peter. At dinner, Aldous starts talking and claims that he has a right to bed any woman he wants, which implies that he may have already done so while being with Sarah. Finally, after Aldous breaks up with Sarah, she tries to get back together with Peter, and they even start having sex, before Peter snaps back and leaves in mid-blowjob. Unfortunately for him, he then tries to explain himself to his new girlfriend Rachel, who promptly breaks up with him. Luckily, they get back together after a while.

* ''[[Film/Loverboy|Loverboy]]'' is about a college slacker (played by [[Patrick Dempsey]]) who, unexpectedly, finds himself in the escort business, sleeping with women (all order than him) whose husbands are ignoring them. Why? So he can pay for college and get back to his girlfriend. He sees nothing wrong with this up until the end, when she confronts him about it and is uncertain she wants to stay with him. Interestingly, she doesn't immediately shut him out and appears to understand that he meant well. Then there are his three primary clients, who are obviously cheating. Their husbands are implied (and one outright admits it) to also be cheaters. At the end, two of the couples get back together, seeming to forgive each other's "mistakes". One, though, decides that she's had quite enough of her husband who treats her "like a geisha" and leaves him to rot in jail.

 

== Literature ==

** In ''[[The Mysterious Affair at Styles]]'', {{spoiler|John Cavendish is unfaithful to his wife. To be fair, their marriage is generally problematic. It gets better.}}

** In ''[[Sad Cypress]]'', the protagonist, Elinor Carlisle, is charged with [[Murder the Hypotenuse|murdering the hypotenuse]] when her [[Childhood Friend Romance|fiance]] falls in love with a girl who dies of morphine poisoning.

 

== Live Action TV ==

* {{spoiler|Gwen}} has an affair with {{spoiler|Owen}} in ''[[Torchwood]]''.

** She feels really guilty about it, though, and tells Rhys... after spiking his drink with [[Laser-Guided Amnesia|Retcon]]. While she wants to hear him forgive her, she doesn't really want this to end their relationship. She ends up breaking off the affair and marrying Rhys.

* A standard plot-line in ''[[Gossip Girl]]'', with literally too many instances to list and many of them too complicated to explain.

** Prime example is Dan Humphrey. He's cheated on three out of four girlfriends.

* It would be easier to list the characters who have been faithful on ''[[The Secret Life of the American Teenager]]'' than list the many instances of cheating.

* Taub of ''[[House (TV series)|House]]'' is a big offender, despite his recent efforts to stay faithful to his wife.

** Conversely, in a season 6 episode B.J. Hunnicutt cheats on his wife and feels terrible as a result.

* ''[[The Tudors]]'' has a lot of this. Henry cheats on his first three wives. Katherine of Aragon takes it stoically, Anne Boleyn blows up over it, and Jane Seymour actually doesn't seem that bothered - she is perhaps remembering that Anne Boleyn got her head cut off and is therefore being cautious. Plus, is was perfectly normal and socially acceptable for a man in Henry's position to have multiple mistresses, so [[Values Dissonance|whether it would actually be considered as "cheating" by the standards of the time is debateable]]. Needless to say, the same rule did ''not'' apply for married women. Wife no. 5, Katherine Howard cheats on Henry with Thomas Culpepper, and is executed for it. Part of what ruins the Charles Brandon/Princess Margaret marriage is that [[The Casanova|Charles can't be faithful]]. Both of the gay couples on the show involve married men, so they're cheating on their wives. Technically Ursula Misseldon was cheating on her fiance with Francis Bryan and Henry. Anne Stanhope cheats on Edward Seymour twice, first with Francis Bryan and then with his own brother, Thomas (though we never know for sure if Edward knows about the second). She also flirts with the Earl of Surrey, but Edward seems to have been encouraging that one... It's also inverted, since Anne Boleyn gets executed for adultery when she ''didn't'' cheat on Henry.

* ''[[Once Upon a Time]]'': In the Real World, Mary Margaret ([[Identity Amnesia|Snow White]]) and David ([[Identity Amnesia|Prince Charming]]) start having an affair while David is married to another woman. They are found out, and [[Double Standard|Mary is ostracized for it]]. There is much [[Your Mileage May Vary|debate]] over whether this "counts" as cheating since the two are [[One True Love|meant to be together]], but as they aren't aware of the fact that they're supposed to be married, it is still cheating.

* Infidelity and people's attempts to cover up or get revenge for said infidelity is a frequent plot point in ''[[Person of Interest]]''.

 

== Music ==

* "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)" is a strange example. A man decides to cheat on his wife with an unknown woman who posted an ad in the paper looking for romance. He arranges to meet with her by sending a reply message to the paper, and when he reaches the rendezvous, he discovers that the woman he plans to cheat on his wife with is... his wife. Strangely, catching each other trying to cheat on each other revitalizes their marriage instead of destroying it.

 

 

== Theatre ==

* In [[Rodgers and Hammerstein]]'s ''Allegro'', when Joe moves to the big city, it turns out that his wife is cheating on him with Lansdale, the benefactor of the hospital he works for. He finds this out from Mrs. Lansdale.

* In Noh theatre, the bridge princess youkai is the eternally-jealous spirit of a noblewoman whose husband cheated her. Depending on the retelling, she either [[Death by Woman Scorned|murdered]] or cursed him, and the gods turned her into a bridge-haunting youkai as punishment.

 

== Video Games ==

* ''[[Persona 4]]'' uses the same social link mechanic, but you're given the option of keeping your friendships with the girls platonic and pursuing only one or no girls. However, you also have the option of sleeping with them all if you do it right.

* The game ''[[In the 1st Degree]]'' has this happen. To start, you have Zachery Barnes and his wife Yvonne Barnes, as well as James Tobin and his girlfriend Ruby Garcia. Yvonne has been very focused on her career, leaving Zach unhappy. Tobin has slept around, and even told Ruby that he is only interested in getting into her pants, leaving Ruby unhappy. As a result, Zach and Ruby had an affair. There were reprecussions from this. First, Zach wrote a love letter to Ruby admitting that he loves her, but he is convinced that the affair should not have happened. Second, Tobin found out about the affair and was furious over it, giving him one more reason to murder Zach. Third, {{spoiler|Yvonne found out about the affair, and brought the gun from Zach's cousin Daryl Barnes to the art gallery to threaten her husband. Yvonne and Zach did have a long talk and may have planned to give their marriage a second chance. Yvonne did tell Zach about the gun, but he laughed and decided to have it locked in his desk until he can return it to his cousin}}. Now that is drama!

* In ''[[Katawa Shoujo]]'', {{spoiler|you can have a sex scene with [[Schoolgirl Lesbians|Misha]], but not only is Hisao [[What the Hell, Hero?|already going out with Shizune by this point]], this whole thing leads to her bad end, where Shizune breaks up with Hisao because she blames ''herself'' that it all happened.}}

* Chandra in ''[[Eternal Darkness]]'' sends Karim on a fool's errand to retrieve an [[Artifact of Doom]] for her, promising to wait only for him. He's gone long enough that she "gives herself to a nobleman with a jealous mistress" and is murdered for her infidelity. She and Karim end up being [[Together in Death]].

* In ''[[Culpa Innata]]'', the citizens of the World Union are encouraged to avoid romantic attachments. Marriage (or rather "[[Insistent Terminology|nuptial agreements]]") are not permissible for Union citizens. They are, however, allowed to have primary sexual partners, which means absolutely nothing from a legal (or personal) standpoint. During the game, one of the potential Union citizens is an Indian immigrant, who reveals that he has cheated on his wife on several occasions and doesn't feel guilty about it (he's also {{spoiler|a sociopath}}), while his wife never did because of the social [[Double Standard]] in Indian culture.

 

* The issue of just what constitutes cheating was raised in ''[[Friendly Hostility]].'' Fox is devoted to his boyfriend, Collin, but his bisexual colleague Derringer springs a kiss on him, just to see what it's like. Fox is outraged. However, he's even more outraged when Derringer questions Fox's kissing skills... and so Fox kisses him again to prove his aptitude. On the ''Friendly Hostility'' blog (doubling as [[The Rant]]), fans varied between "kissing is cheating" to "it was just a kiss" to "kissing usually counts, but there was no affection behind it, so it doesn't." Some fans even suggested that it might be good for Fox and Collin to break up following this incident, since they [[Hollywood Psych|didn't think it was psychologically healthy]] for Collin to only have one romantic/sexual partner in his lifetime and he needed to "see other people" rather than remain exclusive to Fox.

* [[Nerf Now]] had {{spoiler|Sniper-tan}} cheating on {{spoiler|Pyro}} with {{spoiler|the Spy}}, after an argument. {{spoiler|Spy}} later produced ambiguous evidence that {{spoiler|Pyro had had an affair with Engie-tan}}. {{spoiler|Subverted in that nether of them were caught... at least by each other.}}

 

== Western Animation ==

* On ''[[Daria]],'' Daria and Tom kiss while Tom is dating Daria's best friend Jane.

** It's implied that both Brittany and Kevin have cheated on each other at various times, though this is [[Played for Laughs]].

** Also, Buck Strickland cheats on his wife. Quite a lot, in fact.

* On ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]],'' Apu cheated on his wife Manjula. [[Averted Trope|Averted]] with Homer and Marge; both have had opportunities and temptations to cheat, but have racked up quite a few [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|Crowning Moments Of Heartwarming]] by sticking together.

* [[Batman Beyond|Terry McGinnis]] has a girlfriend throughout the entirety of the series and the movie. Yet on several occasions he spends quality time with 10 of the Royal Flush Gang.

** However the first time was when he and Dana were broken up.

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Romance Arc]]

[[Category:Romance Novel Tropes]]