Living With a Serial Cheater

“You’re doing long-distance, too? Up top!” 

Art by Emilie Krone

I happily high-fived Rebecca, one of my seven new freshman suitemates. This was music to my ears, especially since I had already called my boyfriend within the first few hours of moving in, to tell him how much I missed him. We talked about our fears of being apart for so long, but reassured each other that we could do it. 

My suitemates and I didn’t know much about Rebecca’s boyfriend, Jimmy, besides the story of how they met. 

Within a few months, our suite realized Jimmy definitely didn’t trust Rebecca. If she went out to a party, he threatened to break up with her. One time, after she told him we would be out, he called her 30 times and then called the police. It seemed like worry at first, but the texts and voicemails were nasty. “You better not be drinking,” they’d say. “You’re better than that. I’ll break up with you.” 

Maggie, Rebecca’s friend and suitemate, says she remembers thinking Jimmy was toxic. “Her boyfriend was abusive and controlling,” says Maggie. 

So when Rebecca started cheating on Jimmy, we all assumed it was because she was trying to find a way out of a toxic relationship. Honestly, we supported her and hoped the cheating would lead to a new relationship—away from Jimmy’s manipulation. But it became more of a pastime for Rebecca. She even once told us how much she enjoyed manipulating men for attention and a sense of power. 

Social psychologist and Emerson professor Lindsey Beck says Rebecca was “sociosexually unrestricted.” We simply called her a serial cheater.

“If someone has cheated in the past, they are more likely to cheat in the future,” says Beck. “Particularly if they were able to get away with having cheated in the past.” We all saw Rebecca forming these repetitive tendencies, and it caused many of us to become overwhelmed, anxious, and angry living around her.

Veronica, Rebecca’s former roommate, didn’t know what to think about the pattern of cheating. 

“I didn’t really anticipate it being a common occurrence,” says Veronica,  “I was hoping she would break things off with her boyfriend at home.”  

Maggie said she felt like she was constantly being sucked into another one of Rebecca’s boy stories. “It got to a point where we couldn’t talk about anything other than the guys she was seeing.,” says Boyd. “Even if I didn’t want to be emotionally dragged into it, it was like an addictive reality TV show almost, where you felt pulled into the situation.” 

I told my boyfriend everything. And although I’m glad I could talk to him about it, I could sense his fear that maybe I was doing the same thing. “You’re not cheating on me, right?” became a frequent question. 

Suddenly, not telling each other minor things became a major issue. If I didn’t get a text back, I thought he was cheating. If he “liked” another girl’s picture on Instagram, I thought he was cheating. If he didn't send a red heart emoji with his “Goodnight” text, I thought he was cheating. And all the while Rebecca told her boyfriend that she loved him on the phone, only to hang up to hook up with someone else immediately after. 

Maggie, who was in a new relationship at the time, says it made her distrustful of her new girlfriend. “I already deal with some trust issues and vulnerability issues,” says Maggie. “So it definitely contributed to that, just because I was constantly surrounded by distrust and instability.”  

Today Maggie, Veronica and I all live together in a healthier suite environment.  

Veronica now feels like she can talk to her roommate about her relationship without stressing herself out.  “While I could do that last year too, it was a little different, because I wasn’t in a relationship where I was cheating or not happy,” she says. Maggie also feels like her mental health has improved since then.  She said she feels like she has more to contribute to her friends and family now that she lives with people in healthy romantic relationships. 

Monogamy isn’t right for everyone, and I understand that. And all of us still fully support Rebecca’s search for romance. Still, we are thankful to be away from the anxious environment we lived in last year. In the end, although Rebecca never meant to hurt any of us, her sneakiness had a major effect on how we functioned as both friends and romantic partners.

*All names in this story have been changed for privacy reasons