Blaming the Cuckold

Makin' love, dude is weak
Then he fallin' asleep
You on the phone with your old peeps
Dyin' creep between my sheets

— LL Cool J, "Loungin'"

Infidelity is generally seen as one of the worst actions a person can do. Like any act of wrongdoing, some people try to justify cheating in numerous ways. One such way is to blame the one who was cheated on for "making" their partner cheat.

There are a number of "justifications" that people give for why an affair is "actually" the fault of the one who got cheated on, with some reasons being more commonly used against men than women and vice-versa. Some typical excuses include:

• Against men:
  • Money: Since men are typically expected to be breadwinners, some people might claim that a woman cheating with a richer man is the fault of the cheated for not working hard enough to earn a higher income.
    • A variant of this excuse will have a man be blamed for his partner's affair under the logic that he's too stingy with his money.
  • Masculinity: If a woman cheats with a guy considered more "manly" then the guy who was cheated on would be blamed for not being manly enough to keep his wife from leaving him for another man.
• Against women:
  • Ugliness: A woman whose male partner cheats with a prettier woman will be blamed for not taking care of their appearance. Because of Hollywood Beauty Standards, some people's ideas of "ugly" can apply even to beautiful women who don't perfectly fit societal standards of beauty.
  • Femininity: A woman who gets cheated on for a more feminine woman might get blamed for being too masculine or dominant.
• Against any gender:
  • Age: Even though aging is a natural part of human biology, some people use the fact that a person has gotten old as a justification for cheating with a younger person. Due to the Double Standard about men being allowed to be old while women aren't, this excuse is considered more acceptable by men than women.
  • Being Lousy In Bed: Someone might justify cheating by claiming that their partner couldn't or wouldn't satisfy their needs. Due to Double Standards about male and female sexualities, this excuse is more likely to be used for men over women—although you will see it crop up if they consider the woman prudish.
  • Boredom: Being boring is a very popular accusation people like to make against cheated partners. The exact meaning of "boring" can vary, with some common reasons being a lack of spontaneity, not challenging their partner, being too frugal with money, being bland in bed, or a lack of drama in the relationship.
  • Lack of Kindness: A cheater might claim that the person they cheated on was unkind to them which drove them into the bed of another person. Whether or not the narrative agrees with the cheater depends on what exactly they meant by unkindness; sympathetic cheaters will often have to deal with a partner who is genuinely horrible, while unsympathetic cheaters will treat their partner as "abusive" because they stand up for themselves and don't kowtow to their partner's every whim.
  • Loneliness: Cheating due to physical and/or emotional neglect is sometimes seen as the fault of the one who was cheated on, the logic being that having an absent partner would naturally push someone to seek another partner.

Characters who do this could be cheaters trying to deflect blame, the affair partner gloating to their rival, friends, and family of the cheater trying to defend them, or even the one who was cheated on themselves. Netorare works use this trope as a means of further humiliating the cheating victim.

Sub-Trope of Blaming the Victim. Overlaps with Never My Fault and/or Playing the Victim Card if the one doing this is the unfaithful partner or Better Partner Assertion if the one doing this is the affair partner. May overlap with Sympathetic Adulterer if the narrative sides with the unfaithful partner and/or against the one who was cheated on. An Awful Wedded Life may be part of the justification. Compare Why Did You Make Me Hit You?. Compare/Contrast Blame the Paramour, in which the victim of an affair blames their partner's lover.

Note that the term "cuckold" is technically a gendered term exclusively referring to males who have been cheated on and "cuckquean" is its Distaff Counterpart. Nevertheless, this trope is gender-neutral despite its title, despite most of the examples in question being male.

While this does happen in real life, whether or not a person can be at fault for causing the cheating is a very controversial subject, so No Real Life Examples, Please!

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Examples:

Fan Works

• He Can Only Blame Himself: Lila convinces Adrien to cheat on Marinette by claiming his long-time girlfriend has obviously chosen to focus on her career over their relationship. (In reality, Gabriel is a Bad Boss who's been overworking Marinette.) Despite knowing that Lila is a Manipulative Bitch, Adrien confided his fears that Marinette was becoming a workaholic like his father in her, and thinks that he can't be blamed because Lila was there for him.
• Hope Comes to Brockton Bay: As far as Sarah Pelham is concerned, Carol brought her own marriage problems on herself and Mark was basically fair game.
  Sarah: Ever since the Nine, ever since Bonesaw, he's been a different man. When Amelia fixed his brain, she also cured his depression, gave him a new lease on life. But you didn't even notice, did you?
• Synépeies - A Collection Of NTR Consequences: In Fallen Leaves, Kaede, while trying to seduce her ex-boyfriend Yuuichi into helping her after her life goes to crap, thinks to herself that Yuuichi is at fault for her leaving him for Marada, her rapist who she fell in love with, because Marada "pursued and valued her," unlike Yuuichi.

Films — Live-Action

• Hope Floats: Birdee's daughter Bernice is a Daddy's Girl who blames her mother for her father's affair until her father leaves her behind as well.
• In Love and Friendship, the 2016 adaptation of Lady Susan, Alicia Johnson and Sir James Martin quietly agree that Lord Mainwaring's cheating is the hysterical Lady Mainwaring's own fault. Of course, Sir James is entirely oblivious to the fact that Lord Mainwaring's affair partner is Sir James's own wife.
• Network: This is implied, when protagonist Max Schumacher (in his late 50s), explains to his wife that he simply must have an affair with Diana Christensen. The blame is implicit as Diana is both younger and an ambitious and ruthless professional, as contrasted to the supposedly boring and older wife. Again, some Values Dissonance here, as the movie portrays Max as a good guy when he gives an epic "The Reason You Suck" Speech against Diana, kind of glossing over the fact he is a man who coldly explains to his wife he is gonna cheat the hell out on her with someone he likely knew was evil all along.
• The Philadelphia Story: In this one, the cheater is the father of the heroine. He doesn't blame his wife, he infamously blames his daughter for being wilful and frigid, and so causing him to look for the attentions of a younger woman. Needless to say, a massive case of Values Dissonance, since the movie seems to paint both the father's infidelity and the heroine's wilfulness as equally wrong.
• The Shawshank Redemption: Andy Dufresne blames himself for his wife's affair, as he tells Red later in the film.
  Andy: She was beautiful. God I loved her. I just didn't know how to show it, that's all. I killed her, Red. I didn't pull the trigger, but I drove her away. And that's why she died, because of me. The way I am.
• True Lies: After missing his own birthday party because of a Chase Scene, Harry goes by his wife Helen's office to take her to lunch, only to overhear her talking about an affair she's having. When told about it, Gib tells him, "What'd you expect, Harry? She's a flesh-and-blood woman, and you're never there."

Literature

• The Accursed Kings:
  • After two of the three princes of France (Louis and Charles) are discovered to be cuckolds (their wives Marguerite and Blanche taking on squires from their uncle's entourage as their lovers) after a little digging from their sister Isabelle, their father Philip IV takes severe action against the guilty women but makes it clear he holds his sons partly responsible for creating the situation through their lack of character.
    Philip IV: Charles, you were pathetic as a husband, you could at least pretend to be a strong prince.
  • After her trial, Marguerite venomously spits that it was Isabelle's lack of bedroom talent that drove her husband (the all-but-openly homosexual Edward II of England) into the arms of men. Years later, and with Marguerite long dead, Isabelle finally takes on a lover (Roger Mortimer) and guiltily wonders if she'd have been as swift to condemn her sisters-in-law if she'd known what good sex was like.
• Hercule Poirot's Christmas: Simeon Lee's marriage was a disaster, with Simeon constantly having affairs. Several characters, including, rather expectedly, Simeon himself, blame the fact on Mrs. Lee as well, stating she was The Eeyore who constantly sulked and complained rather than stand up to her husband, which he would have preferred.
• A Song of Ice and Fire: Occurs posthumously to Princess Elia, whose husband Prince Rhaegar ran off with Lyanna fourteen years before the beginning of the story. Daenerys wonders if Rhaegar left because Elia treated him poorly since Viserys once said that Rhaegar wouldn't have needed Lyanna if he was happy with Elia. Jon Connington thinks Elia wasn't "worthy" of Rhaegar because of her fragile health. Cersei and Kevan both think Elia wasn't attractive enough to keep Rhaegar's attention and that he would have been faithful to Cersei because of her beauty.
• You Don't Own Me:
  • Daniel believes it's his fault his wife Leigh Ann was unfaithful because he was always working and was stuck in his current position in the state assembly in Albany; Leigh Ann found Albany boring and so stayed in New York, where she began her affair. Leigh Ann agrees that she was bored, lonely, and disappointed in Daniel, though she ended the affair after Daniel was elected to a senate seat in New York, putting their shared ambitions back on track.
  • Martin blamed his wife Kendra's mental health struggles (she had untreated post-partum depression and was grieving for her mother, among other things) for him cheating on her. He didn't explicitly tell her he blamed her, but he made his contempt for her clear while gaslighting her about his affair. Martin did vent about Kendra to his mistress and wanted to divorce Kendra for her. Martin's emotional abuse of Kendra and his lack of support worsened her mental state, but Martin preferred to make himself out to be the victim, claiming Kendra had duped him into marrying her (Kendra more accurately claimed the same about Martin).

Live-Action TV

• The Brittas Empire: "Bye Bye Baby" reveals that Carole's husband Derrick, who had cheated on her and ran off with her best friend, wants to earn her forgiveness and be with her again. Whilst awaiting his return, Carole reveals to Angie that she blames herself for Derrick having an affair, due to the fact that she had refused to have sex with him (since she was heavily pregnant at the time) on the photocopier at a party.
• CSI: Crime Scene Investigation: In the episode that introduced recurring character Lady Heather, a woman who worked as a dominatrix is found dead in a sandbox. It is revealed that she was killed unintentionally by a man who was using her as a surrogate for his wife. When the CSI team says they'll match his epithelials to the straws found with the murdered woman, he suggests they test his infant son's epithelials as well, then pointedly tells his wife that he knows the child is not his, as she hasn't let him be intimate with her in well over a year.
• Frasier: Played With In one episode Frasier comes to believe that Martin had an affair when he was a child, leaving him utterly outraged (especially as he was himself cheated on by his second wife). That is until the end when he discovers it was actually his mother who cheated on Martin. Martin himself explains that whilst he was angry at the time, on reflection he doesn't blame Hester as it was during a particularly bad period for him when he wasn't coping and taking it out on her. Whilst accepting this Frasier does point out it's still a horrible experience to go through that no one deserves.
• Ghosts (UK): Following reflecting further upon his life, Pat comes to blame himself for his wife Carol's affair. Whilst a Nice Guy, he realises his sheer inflexibility and unspontaneity to the point of literally having every single hour of his life scheduled to meticulous detail long in advance and sheer obliviousness to how bored and miserable this was making her led to her seeking excitement elsewhere.
• Il Commissario Montalbano: One episode begins with Montalbano finally seemingly about to marry his girlfriend Livia, only for his good friend and Deputy Mimi to reveal they'd secretly been having an affair behind his back. Everyone there, including the priest, blames Montalbano for driving Livia into his arms by neglecting her all these years. As the whole thing turns out to just be a nightmare Montalbano was having, it's implied to be a representation of his own insecurities.
• The Twilight Zone (1959):
  • "A Piano in the House" seems to have even the narrative of the story itself take the side of Esther for having an affair on her husband Fitzgerald, who was a cruel and petty man, even as she leaves with her paramour as the titular piano forces Fitzgerald to reveal to all present that he is a vindictive manchild who hurts others because he himself is afraid.
  • "A World Of His Own", once again with the narrative taking the viewpoint that the one cheating is justified, Victoria West comes home to spy a beautiful blonde woman talking to her husband, playwright George West, in their living room. However, when she gets to the room, she finds no one else there but her husband, and there is no way anyone could have gotten past her. George reveals that the girl, Mary, was a figment of his imagination that he could conjure up at will simply by describing her into his tape recorder and that he could banish her again by burning the segment of tape. His wife is, understandably, incredulous of these claims, even after he demonstrates several times, once by summoning Mary again, and once by summoning an elephant to bar Victoria's exit. He explains to Victoria that she was "too perfect", and thus he couldn't relate to her. He even shows her an envelope with her name on it and a segment of tape. Still incredulous of his claims, Victoria throws the envelope in the fire, which George tries to retrieve. But it's too late. Victoria vanishes in a puff. George immediately tries to recreate her before realizing that he'd never been happy with her because she was "too perfect", and so he instead describes Mary, only now describing her as "Mary West". Rod Serling then tells us that such things are, of course, ridiculous, and can't actually happen, which George West overhears, and then pulls out a tape with Serling's name on it and tosses it in the fire, telling him "You shouldn't say such things."

Music

• Subverted in Lyin' Eyes by The Eagles; It has the woman the song is about start cheating on her husband because he fails to give her any affection, but ultimately still places the blame squarely on her for being a Gold Digger who married for money rather than love and says that she's just as unfaithful and dishonest to the man she's having an affair with and ultimately pins the blame for all her problems on her.
• Eamon's "Fuck It (I Don't Want You Back)" is an expletive-laden Break-Up Song accusing an unnamed ex-girlfriend of being unfaithful and ungrateful. A female musician named Frankee, claiming to be the ex-girlfriend the song was about^note she wasn't; the whole thing was manufactured by their record company, hit back with an Answer Song entitled "F.U.R.B. (Fuck U Right Back)" in which, among other things, she justifies her infidelity by claiming Eamon was terrible in bed.
  You thought you could
  Really make me moan
  I had better sex all alone
• "Loungin' (Remix)" by LL Cool J is about a Gold Digger who cheats on her current boyfriend with her ex-boyfriend, because her current boyfriend is bad in bed and gives her expensive clothes and jewelry but little real attention. The song is by the ex-boyfriend, so it completely mocks the cuckold, who the woman ultimately dumps.

Theatre

• La Belle Helene: Melenas comes back unannounced from his Snipe Hunt in Crete to find his wife Helen alone with Paris. This warrants an entire number where it's patiently explained to him (by his wife, his brother, and even the other Greek kings) that a husband who comes home early has only himself to blame if he sees things he'd have been happier not knowing.

Visual Novels

• Rules of Engagement: At the start of the story, Katie discovers her fiance Trent is cheating on her. Later, when she gets the chance to become a multimillionaire and he attempts to get back into her good graces, he claims that her behavior drove him to infidelity and she "practically pushed him into Sabrina's arms". Interestingly, players who buy the premium option to view the flashback of Katie and Trent's romance tend to agree, feeling that Katie put little effort into the relationship.

Web Animation

• Etra chan saw it!:
  • When Akane gets caught cheating, she feels no remorse and claims that her affair was partially her husband Kuroki's fault for "not being enough of a man," much to the disgust of her parents, Kuroki, and her own children.
  • Akane claims that it's Yuri's fault that Akamatsu, Yuri's fiancee, was cheating on her with Akane for not giving Akamatsu enough attention. To make matters worse, she says this to Katsura, her own husband.
  • When Hiiragi is caught cheating by his wife Yuri, he claims that his affairs were her fault for not complimenting him enough.
  • Akamatsu blames Yuri for his cheating, claiming that it's her fault for not taking care of her appearance, conveniently forgetting the fact that Yuri doesn't have time to do so because in addition to being a housewife, she was also busy taking care of Akamatsu's parents, and Akamatsu refused to help her.
• Sekai no Fushigi: Uwaki brags about stealing his coworker Itakura's girlfriend, claiming that Itakura was at fault for being a loser who let his girlfriend be taken away. To Uwaki's shock, people are disgusted by him and rightfully blame him for choosing to go after another guy's girlfriend and the girlfriend for choosing to cheat on her boyfriend.
• Trouble Busters:
  • Andy's parents try to hide their son's cheating, but claim that even if their son cheated, it would partially be the fault of Helen for not being a good wife.
  • Kevin blames his wife Helen for his cheating, claiming that he wouldn't need to cheat if Helen didn't "stress him out" and was the perfect wife. Later, when his parents hear his excuses, they don't buy them and rightfully blame him for his cheating.

Web Videos

• Apple Texts: Cheaters will often try to blame their partners for their affair. Men will often claim that their wives/girlfriends are at fault for not taking care of their appearances or getting old, while women claim that their husbands/boyfriends are at fault for being a wimp or for not making enough money. Sometimes the cheating partner's family members or the affair partner will blame the one who was cheated on for not being good enough.
• Viral Texts: Melanie's sister Brianna stole her boyfriend in college and her husband Troy. Brianna claims that both affairs were Melanie's fault for being boring and busy at work.

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