When your friend is a cheater, does that cross a moral line—or is it not your place to judge? A therapist shares how to respond without condoning infidelity.
Among the many relationship taboos modern society has loosened its grip on—age gaps, unconventional bedroom kinks, whatever’s happening with Benny Blanco’s feet—cheating remains one of the few that’s still deemed unambiguously wrong.
It’s why we side-eye celebrities caught betraying their partners and rarely talk about infidelity as a one-time mistake. Instead, we’ve turned it into an identity: They didn’t just cheat. They’re a cheater. And of course we do. Being blindsided by someone who promised commitment can shatter the foundation of everything we thought we knew about love—that it’s supposed to be safe, steady, and sacred. But what happens when the so-called villain isn’t your partner? What if it’s your sweet, amazing friend? The one who brought you soup when you were sick, who stayed on the phone with you until 2 a.m. after your breakup? The one who has, in every other context, been loyal? Suddenly, our black-and-white moral rules start to blur. It’s an internal dilemma that makes for irresistible pop culture drama. It was a pivotal plot point in Sex and the City, Girls, and more recently, the newest season of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, when Demi Engemann’s emotional affair forces MomTok to reckon with an uncomfortable question: When your friend is society’s “villain,” where do your loyalties lie? The contradiction becomes even clearer when the question gets personal. I asked readers how they handle friendships with people who cheat—and for something we seem to agree upon so unanimously, the responses revealed just how ambivalent we actually are. “I cut off my maid of honor for being a home-wrecker,” one woman tells me. Her zero-tolerance policy makes sense: If someone can disregard one of the most intimate relationships in life, what does that say about their character—or how they might eventually treat you? Less proudly, another woman admitted to ghosting her childhood best friend after learning about her drunken affair with a coworker. In her words, “I could never see her the same way, and I couldn’t respect her. I still don’t.” Most others I spoke with, however, weren’t willing to exile their loved ones—even those who had been burned by cheating in their own lives before. Longstanding friendship, it turns out, has a way of softening even our most rigid ethics. “That’s my girl,” one woman tells me, explaining that her best friend’s relationship is now ending because of an affair. “I’ve told her what she did was wrong, but I think you can call someone out on their shit without making them feel undeserving of love.” At first glance, that leniency might read as hypocrisy. But relationship experts like Vienna Pharaon, LMFT, a New York–based therapist and author of The Origins of You, say perspectives tend to shift once the “bad guy” is someone we know personally—and understand as a full, complicated human being. “People can be great friends and maybe not-so-great partners,” Pharaon says, largely because romantic relationships expose parts of ourselves that platonic ones don’t. With a partner, the stakes are higher with expectations around sex, exclusivity, long-term commitment, shared finances, and domestic labor. Friendships, while just as intimate and meaningful, operate under a looser set of rules, Pharaon explains. There’s no explicit agreement on exclusivity, no universally agreed-upon definition of platonic loyalty, and far less pressure to merge your lives completely. Because of that, a person’s actions in romantic relationships don’t necessarily translate into how they’ll treat those they care about platonically. Through this lens, Pharaon says she “rarely sees someone just snap their fingers and end an otherwise healthy friendship for just cheating”—at least, not in isolation or without wanting context. More often, it’s not the affair itself that breaks the bond but what it exposes. That includes red flags that were easier to ignore before—like realizing the friend whose reckless flirting you once laughed off as chaotic, quirky, and “on-brand” might actually just not care who gets hurt, as one person explained to me. While reflecting on what led to the end of a five-year friendship, another woman recalls her cuffed friend grinding on strangers during what was supposed to be a wholesome girls’ trip. “She knew what she was doing, and it made everyone else in the group uncomfortable,” she tells me, noting that she was met with defensiveness and even shouting when gently bringing up her concerns. “I took this as my sign to distance myself,” she explains, not because the moment revealed something entirely new, but because it made her friend’s “my way or no one else’s way” attitude impossible to ignore. Should a friend’s affair be your dealbreaker? There’s no universal answer here, despite how much our culture likes to treat cheating as a simple line you either cross or don’t. In reality, how we react is shaped by our individual experiences. “Maybe you grew up in a household where an affair took place,” Pharaon notes. In that case, “there understandably may be more judgment and reactivity than from somebody who’s never experienced that kind of betrayal.” Neither response is inherently right or wrong—and, like any mistake, even a serious one rarely defines an entire person. Still, deciding what that means for your friendship can be difficult, which is why Pharaon recommends asking yourself the guiding questions below. Do I want to stay close to this person? It sounds obvious, but we often convince ourselves we have to out of loyalty, habit, or shared history rather than genuine desire. Pharaon suggests checking in more honestly: Do you respect your friend? Do you feel anxious around them now? Do you think you can trust them again? Do you even want to spend time together? Do they feel remorse—or even understand why I’m upset? “Some people really do want to understand what’s going on,” Pharaon says. “Others chronically cheat on every single person they’re with because they don’t care—or aren’t in a place in their life where they want to think about it,” which can tell you a lot about their character and the future of your relationship. Can I be my best self around them? “Being around someone who engages in things we don't agree with can become all-consuming in the friendship too,” Pharaon says. Even if they rarely mention the affair, you might still feel the tension, begrudgingly defending their behavior to others or internally rationalizing it to yourself. “We want to be around people who encourage us to move in the direction of growth,” she reminds us—not ones who make us compromise our values. What would I need in order to be friends? Sometimes, the answer isn’t cutting someone off but setting clearer boundaries. That might mean asking them to be honest with their significant other instead of hiding the affair or making it clear you don’t want to discuss the situation at every hangout. After answering these questions, Pharaon says choosing to end the relationship is just as reasonable as choosing to continue. The point simply is that it’s possible to hold someone accountable without pretending their worst decision defines the entirety of who they are—or what your friendship means. Related: 5 Signs You’re Too Dependent on Male Validation, According to Therapists Are Best Friends the New Boyfriends? Meet the ‘Finger Princess’: The Annoying Friend Everyone Has Get more of SELF's great friendship content delivered right to your inbox—for free.
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