Blame the Paramour

Cassie: Let's say I did [have an affair], though. And you found out like Fabian did. Who would you be angrier at—me or the other guy, who clearly didn't know about you, either?
Duke: […] You. But maybe it would be easier to take it out on him. Someone I didn't love. You know?

—More Than You'll Ever Know

Being cheated on sucks. It can leave you feeling emotionally devastated and bitter, and in some cases, thirsting for revenge. But not all revenge outlets make total sense. In some cases, you see the heartbroken partner going after the other guy/girl, rather than their unfaithful partner.

In-universe, this might be explained by a few things. They might have seen the other person as a friend, and feel especially betrayed. They might be mad at their (ex-)romantic partner, but the other person is just an easier target or more suitable for their rampage. Often, the partner will just get dumped if anything, but the other person becomes the victim of revenge pranks, physical attacks, or other attempts at retribution... Even if, logically, the other person was being cheated on too or was convinced that they were dating someone single.

From a writing perspective, there's a few other reasons this happens. One involves gender stereotypes:

• Girls are seen as catty, having rivalries and, in some cases, it's believed that All Women Hate Each Other. With these stereotypes in mind, it makes sense to a degree that a girl would go after the other girl and not the boy who cheated on them. Plus, while Slut-Shaming is an unfortunate reality for sexually active women, men are usually brushed off as being unable to help it.
• For boys, there's a different sort of stereotype at play — that is, that they're allowed to and sometimes encouraged to be aggressive toward other boys, but a work that shows a man getting revenge on his girlfriend/wife for cheating on him will more often than not take a dark turn and portray the guy as being abusive... Even if he's just reacting like any normal human would to getting cheated on. If they don't want the dude to turn completely unsympathetic in the eyes of the audience, then writers usually need to stick to showing them attack other guys, instead.
• If the other lover is gay, then the problem has less to do with the gender of the attacker and more with general homophobic stereotypes, like the belief that All Gays are Promiscuous or that it's more acceptable to take retribution on them. Of course, as being gay becomes more accepted by society and media, they're more likely to be shown sympathetically, or at least undeserving of the retribution over the person's actual lover.

Whichever way it goes, there's a Double Standard involved.

It can also work as a quick excuse for drama. Sure, it's dramatic to see the girl dump her cheating boyfriend, but it's even more dramatic to see that same girl declare war on the other one and have multiple episodes of conflict that wouldn't have otherwise happened if her only reaction was to dump the guy.

Sometimes the person being cheated on is the protagonist, and we're meant to sympathize with them, even if we think they went overboard. The other lover might've been willing and eager to date or sleep with someone in a relationship, and thus deserve a little more ire. If the other lover is the protagonist, however, it'll also have the impact of showing them to be a victim, not only of cheating but of unjust blame and punishment. The more sympathetic the character is supposed to be, the more ridiculous or harsh the revenge will be. It might even become a case of Blaming the Victim, if the "other lover" was manipulated or worse — didn't consent. And of course, there's always the chance they were just Mistaken for Cheating. Whoever we're supposed to like changes the narrative, as well as how heroic and justified this trope is portrayed.

One variant involves people other than the cheated-on partner getting angry on that partner's behalf. Unlike the normal version, this one is almost never portrayed as justified, as there's a difference between being angry at personal heartbreak and betrayal, and watching an entire community dogpile someone regardless of what actually happened. Sometimes, both versions are at play, typically making the paramour almost or completely Hated by All. It's a bit more justified if it's not an entire group and only one or two people close to the victim, as they're also likely to feel hurt and betrayed, or will feel the need to defend the partner no matter what.

Compare Affair? Blame the Bastard, Blaming the Cuckold, and Maternal Death? Blame the Child! for similar sorts of misplaced blame. Subtrope of Misplaced Retribution. Contrast The Unfair Sex, for when the women aren't blamed at all.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• In Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin Zeon Zum Deikun's wife Roselucia resents Deikun's mistress Astraea and by extension her children rather than her husband, who is implied to have left her since she was infertile. After Zeon dies Roselucia takes her frustration out on them by separating the children from their mother and effectively keeping her under house arrest, never mind that the children don't seem to have known she even existed before then.
• In Takopi's Original Sin, Marina's toxic home life includes her abusive father staying out late with prostitutes and fighting with his wife when he's home. Marina blames this on Shizuka's mother, his favorite prostitute, and bullies Shizuka as a proxy for her.

Comic Books

• Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose: While Licorice Dust is Boo Cat's girlfriend, Boo Cat is shown to be very promiscuous and has several lovers on the side. While Boo Cat does love Licorice Dust, she wants their relationship to be open while Licorice Dust wants a more committed relationship. Because of this, Licorice Dust will often take out her frustrations on Boo's on-again/off-again lover Tarot.
• Through the Woods: In "A Lady's Hands Are Cold", a young woman is put into an Arranged Marriage with a rich man, but soon discovers that the man murdered his first wife, cut her to pieces, and then scattered the pieces throughout the manor. The second wife gathers all the pieces of the first wife and ties them together with string, at which point the first wife comes back to life as a Revenant Zombie and attacks the second wife, calling the latter an usurper. Fortunately the second wife barely manages to escape and the first wife then turns her anger on the husband who killed her.
  First Wife: I gave my love everything... and he cut off my hands. Do you think he loves you now? Think you've usurped my role? When I've torn you to pieces girl, then I'll be whole.

Fan Works

• Non-Partner example in the Miraculous Ladybug fic I Saw Mummy Kiss Chat Noir, where Marinette and Adrien's eldest daughter Emma sees Marinette kissing Chat Noir, and starts violently loathing all things related the hero for trying to ruin her parents happy marriage and family, unaware that Chat is her father Adrien. After Alya lampshades this possibility to the couple when they wondered what gotten into Emma, Marinette asks why aren't Emma and their son Louis Slut-Shaming her for "cheating". Alya reminds her that Marinette is their sainted mother, so of course they'll blame the "sleazy flirt in the leather suit."
• In Sonic High School, Knuckles was in a Secret Relationship with Rouge. When he learns that Espio had a tryst with her, he's utterly furious with Espio; nobody acknowledges that Espio had no idea that they were dating, or that Rouge never bothered informing him.
• A variation in Total Drama Do Over. Trent becomes convinced that Charlotte is cheating on him and scouts out potential "man-mistresses", eventually narrowing it down to Geoff. Trent is no more than condescending and passive-aggressive towards Charlotte, believing that she'll come back to him as soon as the other man is off the island. However, he is incredibly angry with Geoff, even punching him after Charlotte dumps him. When Trent learns that Charlotte got with Mel after she dumped him, he lashes out at Mel, but is more concerned for Charlotte due to Mel's history of being a Serial Homewrecker, and assumes Charlotte's new relationship is just a phase she needs to overcome. Eventually, Charlotte snaps at Trent for not trusting her word or respecting her agency in the whole ordeal.
• With Pearl and Ruby Glowing:
  • Shank is raped and impregnated by her abusive foster father. When she tells his wife, the wife lashes out and calls her a "skank" with no mention of blaming her husband.
  • Chel is similarly abused by her stepfather Tzekel Kan, and when her mother catches him with her, she throws Chel out of the house half-undressed, leaving her to make her way in the world as a drug cooker. Karma hits when Chel discovers several years later than Kan probably murdered her mother and doesn't care at all.

Films — Live-Action

• Girl, Interrupted: Susanna is confronted by the wife and daughter of the college professor she had a sexual relationship with and is called a home-wrecker. Never mind that the professor was twice her age; the relationship was part of what drove her to attempt suicide.
• Hot Tub Time Machine 2: Adam Jr. goes back in time to kill Lou for having sex with his Jill, his soon-to-be wife. Jill willingly decided to cheat on Junior to spite him for both his debauchery with the men and being an unwilling contestant in Choozy Doozy (where he was forced to have sex with Nick).
• John Tucker Must Die: When John's three girlfriends find out about each other, they start fighting. When Kate gets hurt in the crossfire, she calls them out on how stupid it is for them to be fighting each other, when John was the one cheating on all of them.
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest: Jack Sparrow gets Norrington to turn against Will Turner by pointing out Will freeing Jack and getting together with his betrothed Elizabeth in the first film is what sullied Norrington's honor. While arguably Jerkass Has a Point in the first case, in the second case Elizabeth's long-time crush on Will, her choosing to be with Will, and Norrington agreeing at the time to let her go is not acknowledged.
• Scream: Both Billy Loomis and his mother blame Sydney's mother Maureen for having an affair with Billy's father which resulted in him and Mrs. Loomis getting a divorce. Neither of them acknowledges Mr. Loomis's part in the affair.
• The Sixth Sense: Malcolm is infuriated when he spies on his wife and sees her with another man, and insults the man under his breath. She's not actually cheating on him, though; he is Dead All Along.

Literature

• In Garden of Shadows, a ghostwritten prequel to Flowers in the Attic, protagonist Olivia discovers that her husband Malcolm is deeply obsessed with his teenage stepmother Alicia, who is several years younger than he is. Rather than point her anger at Malcolm, Olivia resents Alicia for being young, beautiful, vibrant, and fertile. Alicia doesn't reciprocate Malcolm's feelings even slightly, not that he cares. Malcolm's father has a fatal heart attack when he catches his son trying to force himself on Alicia. Months later, Alicia is pregnant with Malcolm's Child by Rape, and Olivia still resents her for it, making it a serious case of victim-blaming.
• Downplayed with George's wife Isabelle in I've Got You Under My Skin, who reveals she's known for years about his affair with Betsy. She privately forgave him and decided to never bring it up because they were happy together afterwards, plus she knew George chose her over Betsy, although she did punish him to a degree by letting him stew over whether she would find out for twenty years. Isabelle has nothing but contempt but Betsy, who she dismisses as a manipulative slut. Isabelle even says she doesn't care if George killed Betsy and will cover for him if necessary. Considering that Isabelle overheard Betsy blackmailing George for $25 million in exchange for not telling Isabelle about the affair, and mockingly adding that if she did maybe the shock would cause the pregnant Isabelle to miscarry again, Isabelle's hatred for Betsy is very understandable.
• Judge Dee: "Night of the Tiger" has the consumptive daughter of a local landowner fall in love with the steward, who also sleeps with one of the serving girls. She ends up torturing the girl to death for having "seduced" her lover away, when it's clear the steward only slept with the daughter out of ambition and found the servant much more attractive.
• Warrior Cats: In Mapleshade's Vengeance, we learn that, in addition to being exiled from her Clan and losing her kits to a flood, that Mapleshade's RiverClan lover Appledusk had a separate mate in his Clanmate, Reedshine. Instead of being angry at Appledusk for cheating on her even after she'd had and lost his kits, she focuses her anger on Reedshine herself, being very possessive over her relationship with Appledusk. Her attempt to kill Reedshine wound up with both herself and Appledusk dead, but Reedshine survived and had kits, causing Mapleshade to later visit and curse their descendant, Crookedstar.

Live-Action TV

• 2 Broke Girls: An early series arc sees Max swooning over an avant-gaurde artist who likes her cupcakes (and her too). He ends up doing a large art project featuring himself kissing Max, much to her delight, and she opts to take the relationship to a physical level. The next episode reveals the artist has a fiance, who is also his art dealer, and Max feels horrible because she doesn't break up relationships. Oddly, the woman confesses to Max that this sort of behavior is not uncommon for the artist, who regularly takes a lover but comes back to his fiance every time. Despite the dealer assuring Max there's no hard feelings, she still feels the need to hire Max and Carolyn to cater an art exhibition, reveling in debasing Max as a server and forcing her to stand beside the now embarrassing art piece depicting the kiss.
• 7th Heaven has a downplayed, non-mutual version with some obnoxious boy flirting with Lucy, which angered his jealous and somewhat unhinged girlfriend. In spite of Lucy insisting that she doesn't like him and that the girl should discuss any issues with her boyfriend, she refuses to listen and keeps threatening (along with her girl posse) to beat Lucy up.
• The Brittas Empire: In "Surviving Christmas", a mishap with one of Colin's Christmas cards leads Helen to believe that her husband Brittas is cheating on her with Carole. Although she's somewhat annoyed at Brittas, she's even more so at Carole, and she spends the episode making death threats at her whilst largely ignoring Brittas.
• Cobra Kai: In season 2, Tory Nichols sees her boyfriend Miguel Diaz kiss her rival Samantha LaRusso. Rather than confront Miguel over this, Tory challenges Sam to a fight at school the following day. The attempts by Miguel and Robby to de-escalate the situation fail and the fight explodes into an all out brawl across the school that ends with Miguel being paralyzed by Robby.
• CSI:
  • In "The Finger", a husband whose mistress actually told the wife about the affair murders his mistress and then frames his wife for the murder, attempting to invoke this trope. It even results in Catherine being kidnapped as she investigates, a ploy the killer arranged with his lawyer, who played the role of kidnapper, to try and convince Catherine of his innocence.
  • In "Miscarriage of Justice", a senator's wife catches chlamydia from her husband who caught it from his mistress. This leads to said wife losing her baby and deciding to murder the mistress. CSI Catherine Willows is even surprised at the end that the wife decided to target her over her actual husband.
• Desperate Housewives: Orson Hodge's mother Gloria murders his mistress Monique Polier after learning of their affair, and assumes that Orson will go back to his wife Alma. However, this is portrayed as Insane Troll Logic at best.
• Doctor Foster: Gemma thoroughly blames Kate for the affair with Simon. Although she is very angry with Simon, she assumes that she and Simon will be able to make it through for a large amount of Season 1.
• Drake & Josh: In "Battle For Panthatar", Drake accidentally hooks up with his friend Thornton's girlfriend without knowing who she was, with the girl herself being totally complacent, just before the night of Thornton's awesome birthday party. However, Thornton's anger is mostly directed at Drake, causing him to become Uninvited to the Party (and Josh too, by proxy). Drake tries to jump through several hoops to make it up to Thornton, but when none of them work, he and Josh crash the party just to get his signed Abbey Road album back.
• The Drew Carey Show: In the season four premier, Mimi meets and begins a relationship with a man named Ron who later admits to being married. Despite initially being outraged about the deception, Mimi continues to see him. Two episodes later, Mimi is confronted by Ron's wife who has discovered the affair. The woman spends a good 28 seconds calling Mimi all manner of awful names, yet there is no mention of her confronting her husband over the affair he took part in.
• Frasier: When Niles suspects Maris is cheating on him with her fencing coach, Frasier tells Niles he needs to confront her. As soon as Frasier leaves the room, Martin convinces him to confront the fencing coach instead. The show seems to intend for Martin to look like the voice of wisdom.
• Friends: Downplayed. Ross's wife Carol cheats on him and divorces him for another woman, Susan. Ross blames Susan more than Carol for the affair, partly because Susan often acts like a jerk towards him.
• In the third episode of Girls5eva, the ladies look back on their old songs and realize of problematic they actually are. One of them is about this topic.
  "If my man does cheat, we'll only get real mad at the other girl."
  "It was her fault only."
• The Golden Girls: In the episode "Strange Bedfellows", the girls volunteer for the campaign of a local politician, but when Blanche delivers some paperwork to his house late at night, the press accuses the politician of cheating on his wife with her. The other girls are furious with Blanche for the affair, ignoring her pleas of innocence while treating the politician like an unfortunate victim of Blanche's lust. The public response similarly demonizes Blanche while actually improving the politician's image, since he'd previously been seen as a milquetoast bore who wouldn't take risks.
• House of Anubis: Early in Season 1, during Mick and Amber's "on and off" phase, Amber kissed Alfie on stage in a bid to make Mick jealous. It worked, but it simply made Mick fly into a rage, and he attempted to beat Alfie up before dinner that night... despite the fact that Alfie was just the recipient of the kiss.
• This is common in Magnificent Century:
  • Hürrem puts a corrosive substance in Gülnihal’s fur after she sleeps with the sultan.
  • Mahidevran poisons Hürrem’s dessert when she gets pregnant by sultan.
  • Hürrem arranged for Nurbanu to kill Nazenin after Nazenin gave birth to Raziye.
• Once Upon a Time: When David and Mary Margaret's affair is discovered, she faces far more backlash and ostracization from the townsfolk than David. She even gets the word "tramp" painted on her car and also gets slapped by David's wife Kathryn.
• In the Poirot episode based on Sad Cypress, Elinor is furious and brokenhearted when her fiance Roddy falls in love with their grown-up childhood friend Mary; however, she puts the blame squarely on Mary's shoulders, hating her with a passion. But later Elinor realizes that she and Roddy are too different and he would have left her at some point anyway, and she realizes she no longer resents Mary.
• An episode of Quantum Leap has Sam leap into a bigamist. Throughout the episode Al is convinced that Sam has to choose to stay with one wife. At the end, Sam has the idea to introduce the two wives to each other and confess. Each of the two wives start blaming the other for the situation, though Sam quickly puts a stop to it by forcefully asserting that he is the one to blame.
• Scrubs: Elliot once kisses a man who turned out to have a wife. He ends up confessing the affair to his wife, who gets mad at Elliot and spends the episode hunting her. Eventually, Elliot confronts her and tries to make amends, pointing out that it was her husband who wronged her. The woman doesn't listen and beats up Elliot off camera.
• Two and a Half Men: Subverted. In one episode, Charlie is attacked by the husband of a woman he had been sleeping with. However, the man apologizes afterwards and even gives Charlie some advice about his promiscuous lifestyle. He then says he intends to change the locks on his house, implying he's trying to keep his wife out of their home.
• Victorious: When Tori and Jade meet, they get off on the immediate wrong foot, with Jade bullying Tori during their improv exercise. For revenge, Tori kisses Beck in front of the whole class, knowing that Beck is Jade's boyfriend. This results in Jade considering Tori her enemy for the next several episodes, while still dating Beck for a while afterward.
• The Upshaws: A little over a decade before the start of the show, when Bennie and his wife Regina were "on a break", Bennie got with Tasha. Tasha conceived a son, Kelvin. Kelvin's existence, and periodic presence in Bennie and Regina's family, keeps the incident very much alive in Regina's memory. In episode 2.6, Tasha calls Regina out on how unfair it is to deflect the resentment of the situation onto her.
  Regina: I'm waiting for a damn, "I'm sorry."
  Tasha: Apologize to you for what? Sleeping with some guy who didn't tell me he was married? Getting pregnant? Keeping the kid? Asking the daddy to act like a daddy? Like — where did I go wrong? You gonna have to draw me a map, because I am so lost.

Music

• "Beware of Young Girls" by Dory Previn is a Diss Track blaming Mia Farrow for the breakdown of her marriage to Andre Previn, arguing that Farrow seduced Andre away from her.
• "That Girl" by Jennifer Nettles has the paramour trying to avoid being blamed, calling the girlfriend of the man she slept with to clarify that he pursued her, and she didn't know he was in a relationship until he called her by the wrong name as he was leaving.
• "Face To Face" by Reba McEntire has Reba's character admitting that at first she blamed the other woman her partner was seeing, but after meeting her in person she understands that was wrong. The two women agree that the man who cheated on both of them is really at fault (and agree to both dump him).

Myths & Religion

• Classical Mythology: The women whom Zeus had affairs with were frequently subjected to horrific punishments by Hera (even when the "affairs" were unwilling on the woman's end!), while Zeus himself suffered no consequences. Note that in many cases, the women didn't even know it was Zeus they were sleeping with since he used his Voluntary Shapeshifting powers to disguise himself. Hera would also torment any resulting offspring, as well. However, this was because Zeus was simply too powerful for Hera to directly retaliate against — the one time she did try, it ended poorly for her.

Video Games

• Grand Theft Auto V: When Michael catches his wife Amanda immediately after a tryst with her tennis coach, he levels plenty of anger at Amanda but is willing to outright kill the tennis coach, going so far as to chase him all over Los Santos to an expensive stilt house that he mistakenly believes the coach lives in and gets his revenge by tearing it down Lethal Weapon 2-style. This ends up being the pivotal action that sets the game's entire plot in motion.
• One of the Social Links exclusive to the female protagonist route in Persona 3 Portable is Saori Hasegawa. At one point in the Social Link, Saori is asked out by a male student, accepts it, but it turns out that he's actually cheating on his girlfriend; in the next rank, his girlfriend shows up and takes her anger out on Saori, calling her a skank and even slapping her. The girlfriend claims that Saori was the one who asked him out, even though it's very clear that it was the other way around. Even the protagonist is aware of it and tries to stand up for Saori.
• In the mobile game Popular Girls, one of the conflicts involves the player character's boyfriend cheating on them with another girl. When confronted with this issue, the player character then chooses to throw a tray of food at that other girl, while the boyfriend remains unscathed.
• There are multiple instances in the Puyo Puyo series where Onion Pixie finds that his girlfriend Oniko has fallen for Sig, which makes him angry and starts a Puyo Battle with Sig, who has no idea what is even happening because he can't speak the Onion Pixie language.
• Storyteller: The plot of "Loose End" opens with the Duke secretly witnessing his wife flirting with the King, who is visibly uncomfortable. One way of resolving the story is by having the Duke murder the King despite how he showed no signs of reciprociating the Duchess' interest.

Western Animation

• Dan Vs.: In "New Mexico", Dan and Chris go to a librarian for help getting even with New Mexico. The librarian agrees to do so, under the condition they "take care of" the man his wife is cheating with.
• Hey Arnold!: In "Sixth Grade Girls", the titular girls ask Arnold and Gerald to the dance to make their boyfriends jealous. Said boyfriends are about to beat up Arnold and Gerald (who had no idea what was going on) until their girlfriends showed back up. The boyfriends then apologized, and presumably, the couples stayed together.
• Total Drama: During World Tour, Duncan cheated on Courtney with Gwen, who she'd become close friends with during the season. When Courtney found this out, while she was still angry at Duncan, she focused most of her energy on getting revenge on Gwen. In fact, a majority of characters found Gwen to be the problem, and Duncan's role was only touched upon a few times.

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