103 Infidelity Quotes Explained

In the intricate tapestry of human relationships, infidelity is a thread that has long been the subject of deep contemplation and discussion. It evokes a spectrum of emotions and raises profound questions about trust, loyalty, and the complexity of the human heart. To shed light on this multifaceted issue, we have curated a collection of the top 103 infidelity quotes, each accompanied by thoughtful explanations. These quotes offer perspectives from a diverse range of voices, encapsulating the pain, betrayal, and occasional redemption that infidelity brings into our lives. Join us as we explore these poignant reflections to better understand the nature of faithfulness and betrayal, and perhaps find some solace and wisdom along the way.

1. “What a kid I got, I told him about the birds and the bees and he told me about the butcher and my wife.” - Rodney Dangerfield

2. “Someone told me the delightful story of the crusader who put a chastity belt on his wife and gave the key to his best friend for safekeeping, in case of his death. He had ridden only a few miles away when his friend, riding hard, caught up with him, saying 'You gave me the wrong key!” - Anais Nin

3. “Statistically speaking, there is a 65 percent chance that the love of your life is having an affair. Be very suspicious.” - Scott Dikkers

4. “Why did God make women so beautiful and man with such a loving heart?” - Walker Percy

5. “It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving, it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.” - Thomas Paine

6. “Infidelity is an opium of unfaithfulness.” - Toba Beta

7. “A pink razor is like a mouse, where ever it is the pussy will follow.” - Helen Ellis

8. “I told my wife the truth. I told her I was seeing a psychiatrist. Then she told me the truth: that she was seeing a psychiatrist, two plumbers, and a bartender.” - Rodney Dangerfield

9. “In so many senseless deaths, beauty is to blame.” - Suzanne Finnamore

10. “The real genesis is forbidden to me, vis-à-vis N´s inability to confess even the mildest transgressions.” - Suzanne Finnamore

11. “A heart can stop beating for a while, one can still live.” - Suzanne Finnamore

12. “I am going insane. Yes. That is what´s happening. Good. Insane.” - Suzanne Finnamore

13. “Irrationally, I think, Will You Marry Me? Four words. I Want a Divorce. Four words. I would like time to count the letters as well, but there is not time.” - Suzanne Finnamore

14. “I am not ready to think of him as either insane or evil, to consider in full how I could love and have a child with such a person. I am not ready to think about anything, except ways in which this may still be averted.” - Suzanne Finnamore

15. “My mother is a firm believer in the long pause, useful in interrogations, proclamations of truth, and the occasional cutting dead of someone without their knowing it.” - Suzanne Finnamore

16. “My mind floats like ash. I blame myself most cruelly.” - Suzanne Finnamore

17. “I mentally bless and exonerate anyone who has kicked a chair out from beneath her or swallowed opium in large chunks. My mind has met their environment, here in the void. I understand perfectly.” - Suzanne Finnamore

18. “Bushwhacked, I examine my hands. Same hands. Rings still there but no longer valid.” - Suzanne Finnamore

19. “This people know where their husbands are. I would like to vomit. I would like to vomit my soul out.” - Suzanne Finnamore

20. “Already things are changing; it´s starting with small shit but oh it´s starting, the change, the irrevocable, impossible change.” - Suzanne Finnamore

21. “The whole world seems tilted, my inner ear displaced by a hole where my spouse used to be.” - Suzanne Finnamore

22. “Delusion detests focus and romance provides the veil.” - Suzanne Finnamore

23. “I saw my reflection in their eyes, but not the men themselves, not clearly. This preserved the idea that all intelligent and even vaguely attractive men were essentially good. Delusion detest focus and romance provides the veil.” - Suzanne Finnamore

24. “It had all seemed as inevitable as sunset. Instead it was the beauty of the sun glinting upon the scythe.” - Suzanne Finnamore

25. “Such silence has an actual sound, the sound of disappearance.” - Suzanne Finnamore

26. “This is much worse than losing a cat. You do not wish the cat dead, for example, after the first two days. You still love the cat and presumably the cat still loves you, or some variation of love that may in fact be dependence and even indifference.” - Suzanne Finnamore

27. “I think: I would like to take N back to a story right now, like a rake. I would say, "Oh, this rake is uneven. Do you have any where the tines go straight across?" I would like to do a straight exchange. But there are things that cannot be returned. Errant husbands are one of them. Wives are not. Wives can be exchanged; I have always known this.” - Suzanne Finnamore

28. “Flannel shirts should be outlawed for ex husbands; I realize this now. Flannel shirts are to women what crotchless panties are to men.” - Suzanne Finnamore

29. “Cheating and lying aren't struggles, they're reasons to break up.” - Patti Callahan Henry

30. “People told me not to get married; I didn´t listen. No one ever listens, it seems to me now. Perhaps people should stop trying to communicate. N was not a communicator; early on, I´d insisted on communication. Now I see his point acutely. I would love to have him back to not communicate with me. I would never ask for communication again, I would simply go elsewhere for the deep fish. Also, I´m not at all sure I want to hear what he has to say in this new vista. This works out well.” - Suzanne Finnamore

31. “The abandonment came, and now this shabby bacchanal.” - Suzanne Finnamore

32. “I should have known then it wasn´t nothing, as he called it. But I was eight months pregnant. No sense closing the barn door now, or so I thought. I swallowed the nothing, straightaway after the usual tears and denial.” - Suzanne Finnamore

33. “I sensed he may have occasionally strayed in some of his past relationships. It was something I felt but ignored, a rent in the fabric of an otherwise splendid garment I thought I could mend. I thought I could live with it—I thought, yes and I admit it, that I would be different. That at the very least, middle age and children would slow him down; however, they seemed to accelerate his pace.” - Suzanne Finnamore

34. “I know one thing about men," Bunny says with finality, leaving the room to check on A. "They never die when you want them to.” - Suzanne Finnamore

35. “I want to own this transition, not to simply swallow the shame of it entire. I will push for every little irony.” - Suzanne Finnamore

36. “They ought to do away with divorce settlements. Instead, both parties should flip a coin. The winner gets to stay where he or she is and keep everything. The loser goes to Paraguay. That´s it.” - Suzanne Finnamore

37. “This is much easier than when N left. Our son is unable to grasp and simultaneously turn doorknobs yet. If only this trick could be unlearned by men over thirty, many more families would celebrate Christmas together.” - Suzanne Finnamore

38. “It´s like watching someone do a triple backflip dismount and land on two feet, solid, arms splayed in the air. I know I could never do it, don´t even know where I would begin to learn, but some people are built for it. He was handcrafted to leave, had practiced on other women since adolescence. I was one of an unnumbered series.” - Suzanne Finnamore

39. “It´s a little song about abandonment, and it goes something like this....” - Suzanne Finnamore

40. “Soon he was online every night until one or two a.m. Often he would wake up at three of four a.m. and go back online. He would shut down the computer screen when I walked in. In the past, he used to take the laptop to bed with him and we would both be on our laptops, hips touching. He stopped doing that, slipping off to his office instead and closing the door even when A was asleep. He started closing doors behind him. I was steeped in denial, but my body knew.” - Suzanne Finnamore

41. “I was steeped in denial, but my body knew.” - Suzanne Finnamore

42. “I travel back in time, falling back into what I know for certain, the historical data I cling to in order to not go mad, not assume I made a suicidal and well-informed error in marrying this man.” - Suzanne Finnamore

43. “I feel angry but not homocidal; this may be unlooked-for progress.” - Suzanne Finnamore

44. “Conversely, I though humiliation would be everything, but it´s such a nothing.” - Suzanne Finnamore

45. “I played possum. I did this, as the possum does, out of fear.” - Suzanne Finnamore

46. “He left a bit too easily and with obvious relief. His feet were swift and sure on the muddy path.” - Suzanne Finnamore

47. “Daily I walk around my small, picturesque town with a thought bubble over my head: Person Going Through A Divorce. When I look at other people, I automatically form thought bubbles over their heads. Happy Couple With Stroller. Innocent Teenage Girl With Her Whole Life Ahead Of Her. Content Grandmother And Grandfather Visiting Town Where Their Grandchildren Live With Intact Parents. Secure Housewife With Big Diamond. Undamaged Group Of Young Men On Skateboards. Good Man With Baby In BabyBjörn Who Loves His Wife. Dogs Who Never Have To Worry. Young Kids Kissing Publicly. Then every so often I see one like me, one of the shambling gaunt women without makeup, looking older than she is: Divorcing Woman Wondering How The Fuck This Happened.” - Suzanne Finnamore

48. “I feel incendiary, a wildfire. My spirit licks at the gates of a very elaborate, customized, and distracting emotional Hades.” - Suzanne Finnamore

49. “Très, très, triste...” - Suzanne Finnamore

50. “Naturally, I do blame Françoise. I blame her for having N in the first place. She was young, she was beautiful, she was married to a doctor, and she was intelligent. She could have abstained from producing her first son. It was wrong on a variety of levels.” - Suzanne Finnamore

51. “Although I notice there is never a truly good time to have a nice long chat with one´s mother-in-law, unless you are having an extraordinary life and marriage and your mother-in-law is, say, Maureen Dowd, or Indira Gandhi. Someone of that ilk.” - Suzanne Finnamore

52. “How can I grieve what is still in motion?" I ask her. "Shoes are still dropping all over the place. I´m not kidding," I say. "It´s Normandy out there.” - Suzanne Finnamore

53. “They feel life is for the taking, and that everyone deserves happiness no matter what the cost. I must remember these tricks if I ever decide to have my soul surgically removed.” - Suzanne Finnamore

54. “Someday I will have revenge. I know in advance to keep this to myself, and everyone will be happier. I do understand that I am expected to forgive N and his girlfriend in a timely fashion, and move on to a life of vegetarian cooking and difficult yoga positions and self-realization, and make this so much easier and more pleasant for all concerned.” - Suzanne Finnamore

55. “I review what I know once again, confronting the monolith now alien and almost unconnected to me: my marriage.” - Suzanne Finnamore

56. “I used to loathe ambivalence; now I adore it. Ambivalence is my new best friend.” - Suzanne Finnamore

57. “There is that, and there is also the Irreconcilable Differences line. It seems so catchall, so vague. You could say that about anyone, any man and woman at all. Jesus and Mary Magdalene: "Irreconcilable Differences." JFK and Jackie, anyone at all. It´s built into the man-woman thing. What kind of paltry reason is that? "Insanity" is another box to be checked on the divorce petition, the only alternative to "Irreconcilable Differences." I would like to check it.” - Suzanne Finnamore

58. “I love you as the mother of my child": the kiss of death.Mother of His Child: demotion. I am beginning to see this truism: Mothers are not always wives. I have been stripped of a piece of self.” - Suzanne Finnamore

59. “He announces that lately he keeps losing things. "Like your wife and child," I want to say, but don´t. At fourty, I´ve learned not to say everything clever, not to score every point.” - Suzanne Finnamore

60. “I´ve blown it, the whole grisly charade.” - Suzanne Finnamore

61. “I remember one desolate Sunday night, wondering: Is this how I´m going to spend the rest of my life? Marrid to someone who is perpetually distracted and somewhat wistful, as though a marvelous party is going on in the next room, which but for me he could be attending?” - Suzanne Finnamore

62. “So many events and moments that seemed insignificant add up. I remember how for the last Valentine´s Day, N gave flowers but no card. In restaurants, he looked off into the middle distance while my hand would creep across the table to hold his. He would always let go first. I realize I can´t remember his last spontaneous gesture of affection.” - Suzanne Finnamore

63. “Take me now, God!" I shout to the inky sky. "I´m ready.""You´re not ready. You´re not even divorced yet," Bunny says. "You cannot die married to that man.” - Suzanne Finnamore

64. “The snag about marriage is, it isn´t worth the divorce.” - Suzanne Finnamore

65. “We talk. Darlene worries aloud that her husband works with a lot of attractive young women; she herself is fourty. I tell her it´s not about age. "Little thing called character," I say, thinking, Accepting marital advice from me: the height of lunacy.” - Suzanne Finnamore

66. “Together we agree that there are few tableaus more pathetic than a woman poring over a plethora of self-help books, while in a small café across town her husband is sharing a bottle of Pouilly-Fuissé and fettucini Alfredo with a beautiful woman, fondling her fishnet knee and making careful plans to escape his life.” - Suzanne Finnamore

67. “Surprises, I feel now, are primarily a form of violence.” - Suzanne Finnamore

68. “You get what you give," we will tell his sorry, selfish ass." The Betty Lady has spoken. I detect a Bronx accent."But," I demur, "it will make the other woman say, ´See? She IS a jealous and paranoid and pushy wife.´"The Betty Lady rips open a cell phone statement with a nail file and, without looking up at me, says, "Let me tell you something, honey. In my experience? The only thing they care about is what they see in the mirror each morning and WINNING...or their perception of winning.” - Suzanne Finnamore

69. “I am replete with stamina in finding out every single fact I can about this whole affair.Yet, I think, do I want to pull that thread? Do I want to unleash the truth, unravel deceit, and kill reality as I´ve known it? It is irreparable, if I do, from the moment we met until now. It is long. If I discover too much that is false about what I thought my past was, Time will be skewed even further. I already have a poor connection with the present. Example: I have no sense of what day it is. It´s better.” - Suzanne Finnamore

70. “How do you know? How best to ensure his nervous breakdown?" I ask."Keep going," Christian says. "Just go on as if nothing has happened. We all hate that.” - Suzanne Finnamore

71. “The Betty Lady explains love and splitting up: "It´s like playing the shell game with Jesus. You can´t figure anything out; it´s best not to try. You´ll just humiliate yourself.” - Suzanne Finnamore

72. “For me, it´s sloth," I say. "Hedonistic sloth and escapism.” - Suzanne Finnamore

73. “To keep myself from harming or calling N and to stave off the rage and despair, I focus on my extraordinary son, drink midrange Chardonnay every night after he is asleep, and make a barrage of late-night mail-order retail purchases placed from the couch. The couch has officially become my second battle station. I am angry and I have credit And I´m all blackened inside; I should wear a pointy witch hat around Larkspur as I go to the bank and drop A off at day care. It would be more honest.” - Suzanne Finnamore

74. “This does not escape my notice, it is a context. I resent the fact of a context; my social status has shifted and no one is going to acknowldege it, that´s certain. I´m expected to be Brave and Rise Above. I dress for the role; I must look far better now that I did when I was married. I must look pulled together into a nice tight Hermès knot of self-containment. I don´t make the rules; I just do my best to follow them.” - Suzanne Finnamore

75. “God is great and God is good," Lisa says. "But where are the Apache attack helicopters when you need them?” - Suzanne Finnamore

76. “I know my vision is impaired and cannot be trusted with even the simplest tasks, much less dating. Not that I´ve come within talon distance of a man.” - Suzanne Finnamore

77. “I´m just not sending out the right vibe lately. Perhaps the fact that I wear stained sweatpants and free T-shirts is holding me back. I just can´t seem to get back into the intelligent-slut-for-hire outfits that lure men; even shoes with laces evade me. Plus my hair is Fran Lebowitz-esque. I think my eyes are getting closer together. I don´t know.” - Suzanne Finnamore

78. “How could you do that to me?" I repeat. I don´t have to itemize. He knows what I speak of.Eventually N produces three answers, in this order:1. "Because I am a complete rotter." I silently agree, but it´s a cop-out: I have maggots, therefore I am dead.2. "I was stressed at work and unhappy and we were always fighting...and you know I was just crazy..."I cut him off, saying, "You don´t get to be crazy. You did exactly what you chose to do."Which is true, he did. It is what he has always done. He therefore seems slightly puzzled at the need for further diagnosis, which may explain his third response:3. "I don´t know."This, I feel instinctively, is the correct answer. How can I stay angry with him for being what he is? I was, after all, his wife, and I chose him. No coincidences, that´s what Freud said. None. Ever.I wipe my eyes on my sleeve and walk toward the truck, saying to his general direction, "Fine. At least now I know: You don´t know."I stop and turn around and fire one more question: a bullet demanding attention in the moment it enters the skin and spreads outward, an important bullet that must be acknowledged."What did you feel?"After a lengthy pause, he answers. "I felt nothing."And that, I realize too late, was not the whole truth, but was a valid part of the truth.Oh, and welcome to the Serengeti. That too.” - Suzanne Finnamore

79. “I know I am but summer to your heart, and not the full four seasons of the year.” - Edna St. Vincent Millay

80. “If theft is advantageous to everyone who succeeds at it, and adultery is a good strategy, at least for males, for increasing presence in the gene pool, why do we feel they are wrong? Shouldn't the only morality that evolution produces be the kind Bill Clinton had - being sorry you got caught?” - Robert J. Sawyer

81. “Touch. It is touch that is the deadliest enemy of chastity, loyalty, monogamy, gentility with its codes and conventions and restraints. By touch we are betrayed and betray others ... an accidental brushing of shoulders or touching of hands ... hands laid on shoulders in a gesture of comfort that lies like a thief, that takes, not gives, that wants, not offers, that awakes, not pacifies. When one flesh is waiting, there is electricity in the merest contact.” - Wallace Stegner

82. “I think you still love me, but we can’t escape the fact that I’m not enough for you. I knew this was going to happen. So I’m not blaming you for falling in love with another woman. I’m not angry, either. I should be, but I’m not. I just feel pain. A lot of pain. I thought I could imagine how much this would hurt, but I was wrong.” - Haruki Murakami

83. “When your lover is a liar, you and he have a lot in common, you're both lying to you!” - Susan Forward

84. “I know that many, if not most, women would have a problem with my acceptance of what happened with Lara. The reality is I shall always be grateful to Lara for helping my husband when I could not do so. I couldn’t have chosen a better or kinder surrogate.” - Deirdre-Elizabeth Parker

85. “It was hard for them to accuse their wives of infidelity when their rival was an invisible man.” - Diane Wakoski

86. “The punishment of vertical rending was given to those who had destroyed marriages to satisfy their own lust.” - cindy pon

87. “There are all kinds of ways for a relationship to be tested, even broken, some, irrevocably; it’s the endings we’re unprepared for.” - Katherine Owen

88. “....his silence he has indicated that he is willing. He hasn't the strength any more, the excess vitality, for an affair—its danger, its demand performances, the secrecy added like a filigree to your normal life, your gnawing preoccupation with it and with the constant threat of its being discovered and ended.” - Updike

89. “Fidelity is a living, breathing entity. On wobbly footing, it can wander, becoming something different entirely.” - Kay Goodstadt

90. “Many partners of addicts have told me they feel bad about themselves for staying in the relationship because of the betrayal they’ve experienced. They imagine that the people who know their past judge them to be stupid for staying with the person who’s caused them so much pain. I often counter this thinking, explaining that leaving may seem quick and easy because they can pretend they’re okay and the problem has disappeared. However, if you leave your relationship, you’ll be stuck with your pain and sorrow without the person you loved to help you sort it out. Why is this true? Because even though it feels as if your pain comes from your partner, it’s actually coming from inside you.” - Alexandra Katehakis

91. “It was your choice to sleep with her Gavin! It didn't just happen!” - Belinda G. Buchanan

92. “composure, n.You told me anyway, even though I didn’t want to know. A stupid drunken fling while you were visiting Toby in Austin. Months ago. And the thing I hate the most is knowing how much hinges on my reaction, how your unburdening can only lead to me being burdened. If I lose it now, I will lose you, too. I know that. I hate it.You wait for my response.” - David Levithan

93. “Sex isn't all that important, but it is when you love someone very much.” - Ava Gardner

94. “there was only one thing that interested her and that was getting into bed with men whenever she'd the chance. And I warned her straight. 'You'll be sorry one day, my girl, and wish you'd got me back'.” - Albert Camus

95. “It is a pity he did not write in pencil. As you have no doubt frequently observed, the impression usually goes through -- a fact which has dissolved many a happy marriage.” - Arthur Conan Doyle

96. “I hope it's that she simply doesn't figure large enough in his life to be worth mentioning, Vita thought.And then she thought, if that was the case. It was therefore rather pathetic that Suzie loomed larger for her than for Tim, that Suzie was in some ways a more real presence in her life than in his. What she thought it boiled down to was that she really didn't want the woman he left her for to be the true, profound love of his life.I auditioned for that role. I put so much effort into it, I loved it. I'm not ready to let it go to someone else.But you keep forgetting he didn't leave you, Vita - you left him.And then she thought, is this a slewed version of Aesop's dog in the manger? I don't want him - but I don't want him wanting anyone else?And then she thought, For God's sake, shut up! This is doing me no good at all. All this thinking and wondering that I do isn't going to change him or the past. What a waste of quarter of an hour - sifting through all that emotional JUNK. She knew there was nothing of value in it- she'd been through it with a fine toothcomb over and again.” - Freya North

97. “Love making can produce a child, sex can produce pregnancy” - Anonymousmale1

98. “Sometimes… Sometimes doubt is the opposite of faith, but sometimes doubt can be a pathway to faith. Sometimes weakness is the opposite of strength, but sometimes weakness can be the pathway to strength. Sometimes addiction is the opposite of sobriety, but sometimes addiction can be the pathway to sobriety. Sometimes infidelity is the opposite of fidelity, but sometimes infidelity can be a pathway to fidelity. Sometimes failure is the opposite of success, but sometimes failure can be the pathway to success.” - David W. Jones

99. “The only sheets I'll ever long for are my own.” - A.J. Hartley and David Hewson

100. “Was he a bad man or just a foolish one? He didn't feel bad to himself. As a husband he believed himself to be essentially good and loyal. It just wasn't written in a man's nature to be monogamous, that was all. And he owed something to his nature even when his nature was at odds with his desire, which was to stay at home and cherish his wife. It was his nature – all nature, the rule of nature – that was the bastard, not him.” - Howard Jacobson

101. “Affairs are like a seventh day. They are a break from all duties and obligations and responsibilities. I'm not saying this is right and I'm not saying it lightly. This is just how they are. You can't be responsible when you're with your lover. And since you already know you're way out of line, you go the extra distance. You throw yourself in headfirst. You become the very personification of irresponsible. You are way alive. Every detail sings. It would be a great way to live if it weren't so ruinous.” - Wendy Plump

102. “It had been years since she question his fidelity, but he'd stepped on to the old fame track again, and that was where the road had taken them before. Infidelity could be forgiven, but forgetting it was impossible. Strangely, that wasn't what bothered her the most. What bothered her was that she didn't really care.” - Kristin Hannah

103. “Marriage to the groom does not means that his heart belongs to the bride.” - Dennis E. Adonis