Infidelity.
It’s the relationship crime we all fear most: the ultimate betrayal and the one thing we swear we’ll never forgive.
But here’s what years of experience with couples has taught me: cheating, however painful, isn’t usually what delivers the knockout blow to relationships.
Instead, it’s the everyday betrayals – the ones we may not even think of as such – that quietly, insidiously, rot the relationship to the core.
I’m talking the partner who changes their mind about children after three years of trying. The one who disappears into their phone every evening while you sit next to them on the sofa. The spouse who sides with your bullying boss instead of defending you.
These are the things that really destroy relationships.
They change their mind about the future you planned
‘We made major changes to try for a baby. I gave up a promotion, we moved closer to good schools, I started fertility treatment when nothing was happening,’ Rachel, 34, told me. ‘Then one night he said he’d changed his mind about having children. Just like that. Years of my life built on a plan he simply decided to abandon.’
Few betrayals cut as deep as discovering your partner has changed their mind about the life you’ve been visualising together.
It might be children, moving abroad, career sacrifices promised or reneging on longed for lifestyle choices. You’ve changed your life to work towards this moment – then they casually announce they don’t want it anymore.
Even small backpedals – they’re not doing that diet with you or now think using grandparents for after school care isn’t OK – make their mark.
Sexual infidelity can be a terrible mistake made in the heat of the moment. But changing your mind about major life plans, knowing you’re having doubts while watching your partner invest everything in a future you’ve already abandoned in your head, is unforgiveable.
They’re not there when you need them the most
‘My father died suddenly. My mother was shattered and I’m an only child. My wife? She told me I wasn’t fun anymore and it wasn’t manly to cry. When I needed her most, she made me feel like my grief was an inconvenience in her life,’ one man told me.
There’s a reason people include ‘in sickness and health, for better or worse’ in their vows. How people behave in a crisis reveals who they are.
When you’re at your lowest – bereavement, illness, job loss, big problems with your kids – and your partner is nowhere to be found, this hurt can feel more profound than any affair.
It answers the question every relationship depends on – ‘Will this person be there when I really need them?’ – with a devastating no.
It’s a shock and one that shakes you to the core.
They’re not even on your team
‘My boss was bullying me. I’d come home in tears and instead of supporting me, my husband sided with my boss – who he’d never met,’ Hana told me. ‘He’d say, “Maybe you’re being unreasonable” or “He has a point, actually.” I had a critic, not a partner.’
On their own, incidents like this seem trivial. But over time, you notice a pattern: your partner consistently takes everyone else’s side but yours.
Your mother’s being difficult? You’re overreacting. A friend is way out of line? You’re being too harsh. Your daughter didn’t come home until 5am? Your demands are outdated.
Instead of ‘you and I against the world’, it’s ‘the world against you’ – and your partner’s on the world’s team.
Partnerships are about having someone in your corner. Wanting to hear both sides or playing devil’s advocate occasionally is healthy but not every time.
They do a vanishing act
‘He was just…absent. Physically there but emotionally gone. Every evening on his phone, every weekend with his friends or hobbies. I’d plan things together and he’d agree, then cancel. I became like wallpaper in my own relationship,’ Sophie says sadly.
Some partners leave the relationship long before they leave the house.
This type of emotional abandonment – a gradual withdrawal of attention and investment – is harder to name, harder to challenge and leaves you questioning whether you’re overreacting.
They haven’t technically done anything wrong – they’re working, using their phone, seeing friends – but the message is clear: you are never first priority. Or even a priority at all.
They cut you off sexually – and make you the villain for minding
‘She just stopped having sex with me. No explanation, nothing,’ Marcus revealed. ‘We didn’t have sex for two years. But if I brought it up, I was the bad guy – shallow, making her feel uncomfortable. I felt like I was begging for affection from someone who was supposed to want to give it.’
Let me be crystal clear here: I’m not talking temporary drops in desire for perfectly valid reasons (like health, new parenthood etc). I’m talking about withdrawing all sexual contact and refusing to even discuss it as a problem.
This is one of the most common – and most dismissed – relationship betrayals I encounter.
When it happens, it’s usual for the partner who withdraws sexually to control the narrative entirely. Any attempt to discuss it is framed as pressure, their partner is ‘sex obsessed’. They cut you off sexually – then make you the villain for minding.
The rejected person is shamed for having needs – and expected to stay faithful to someone who has unilaterally altered the terms of the relationship.
The real cruelty? Being made to feel wrong for caring about physical connection and wanting to feel attractive and desired.
They have no empathy for your feelings
‘I had a miscarriage and was devastated. He said, ‘Oh well, at least it was early’ and went to play golf. That’s when I understand he just couldn’t be who I wanted him to be,’ Emma confessed. She left three months later.
You can sometimes work through infidelity. But you can’t teach someone to care about your feelings if they don’t.
Empathy isn’t a skill you can learn from a YouTube tutorial – it’s either there or it isn’t.
Some people are genuinely incapable of meeting you in your emotions. They minimise your feelings and react to joy or excitement with indifference. They’re impatient when you get down or upset about something and baffled why you’ve let it bother you in the first place.
This creates a particular kind of loneliness – being unseen by the person who claims to love you most. It also creates resentment – especially if they’re caring (or pretending to care) more about others than you.
The uncomfortable truth
We obsess about sexual infidelity because it’s clear cut.
These other betrayals are messier, more elusive. Do you even have the right to be devastated? After all, they didn’t cheat, they just changed their mind/withdrew/sided against you/left you emotionally stranded.
Which is worse.
An affair shows your partner at their worst in a moment of weakness. The others show who your partner is when the good behaviour slips away.
Once you see clearly that they aren’t who you thought they were or need them to be, there is often no path back to the innocence required for love to survive.
The conversations couples need to have aren’t just about infidelity.
They’re about honestly, solidarity, being there – and the countless small ways we either build or destroy trust every day.
New episodes of Tracey’s podcast, SexTok, are released every Wednesday. Find her books wherever you buy good books and her product ranges at lovehoney.co.uk.
