Every relationship has its “red lines” that, once crossed, tend to mean the end. More often than not, this happens early enough, but in some unfortunate cases, the couple can be far along enough to be considering marriage. One pretty common “hot topic” is, of course, past infidelity.

A woman wondered if she went too far after she kicked her brother out for revealing to her fiancé that she cheated on her high-school boyfriend almost a decade ago. We reached out to the woman in the story via private message and will update the article when she gets back to us.

Trust can be broken in a relationship very quickly

One woman ended up having her marriage called off when her brother shared a time she cheated in high school

Image credits: Jakob Rosen / unsplash (not the actual photo)

Image credits: Katerina Holmes / pexels (not the actual photo)

Image credits:  Karolina Kaboompics / pexels (not the actual photo)

Image credits: broken_inside_me

Cheating is a very contentious topic at the best of times

This story is complicated, as it’s quite easy to see both sides of the story. In the woman’s case, yes, she should not have cheated, but high-school relationships, particularly short ones, are often tenuous. Similarly, even if there were no mitigating circumstances, this was almost a decade ago, people do change.

After all, the brother didn’t mention any instances of cheating, so this does not appear to be something this woman does all the time. That being said, it is telling that she hasn’t told the man she intends to marry. As much as “Hunter” might, understandably, dislike cheating, it’s also possible that this reaction was the result of him realizing that the woman was hiding things from him.

From his perspective, he has suddenly realized that the woman he is engaged to is hiding something from him. It’s not much of a stretch to think that if someone is hiding one part of their life, they might be hiding more. Even “worse” this is something that appears to be “common knowledge” for her brother, but not for him.

In general, infidelity is a very controversial topic, mixing trust issues and social norms. Some researchers believe that cheating is actually more regulated across history than sex before marriage, despite the latter being such a “hot topic” in some cultures. Similarly, while the woman might not think this instance of her cheating was a big deal, perhaps Hunter has had some negative experiences in the past.

It can be hard to trust someone in your life after being cheated on

People who have been cheated on in the past tend to suffer, at best, some self-esteem and are slower to trust. In worse cases, the victim of cheating might suffer from depression and, in general, a feeling of lower quality of life. Even if Hunter was not cheated on, it’s entirely possible that he went through something similar in his life and this revelation opened up a particular wound. Ultimately, this was something that was, perhaps, bound to end the relationship at some point anyway, so the only silver lining is that it happened before marriage.

So the woman’s past actions are not necessarily “unforgivable,” but, equally, Hunter might have good reasons for why he can’t move forward with this relationship. However, the crux of the story isn’t actually the past cheating, but her kicking out her brother. In his defense, what he said was dumb, but, equally, how could he have known that this would be such an issue?

Indeed, it’s not at all unreasonable to assume that she had already told Hunter. He is engaged to her after all, and she has indicated that he’s an important person in her life. Conner was perhaps short sighted, but he most definitely did not act with malicious intent. The various volatile topics in this story didn’t result in a clear cut answer. You can find a variety of different opinions from netizens from the comments section below.

A few readers wanted more information

Most thought everyone shared the blame

While some thought the woman needed to own up to her past

However, a thought she was not to blame

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