What Kristy & Desmond’s Divorce Is Really Forcing Us to Confront

I was supposed to write this a week ago.

I had the tab open. I had the headline drafted. I could feel that familiar urgency writers get when a story feels timely enough to matter. But every time I tried to start, something in me hesitated. I knew exactly what I wanted to say, but I wasn’t ready to say it responsibly. I couldn't figure out exactly how to get beyond my own bias.

When the news broke that Kristy Sarah and Desmond Scott were divorcing, my first reaction was simple and human: sadness. Not devastation or outrage. Just that tiny ping of disappointment you feel when something you hoped was the exception ended up following the pattern of the norm.

I hadn’t been a consistent viewer of their content for a while. That part doesn’t really matter. What mattered was what they seemed to represent to a lot of people: a couple who married young, built a family, built wealth, grew publicly, and still appeared to like each other through it.

In a cultural moment where longevity feels rare and relationships feel disposable, they symbolized something hopeful. Something people want to believe is still possible even though all the evidence suggests otherwise.

So the divorce itself wasn’t shocking. Very few things are anymore. People end marriages every day. What stopped me short was the reason.

Infidelity.

That word has a way of collapsing complexity. The moment it enters the conversation, everything else gets pushed to the side. Context disappears. Nuance becomes irrelevant. The story narrows until there’s only room for one role: the betrayer and the betrayed.

And normally, I’m fine with that.

I’ve been cheated on before. More than once. I don’t romanticize betrayal. I don’t excuse it. And I definitely don't soften around it. Cheating isn’t a misunderstanding or a lapse in judgment. It’s a choice that permanently alters whatever it touches. Once it happens, something sacred is contaminated. Even when couples stay together, that contamination never fully disappears.

So I expected my reaction to be predictable. I expected anger. I expected condemnation. I expected to feel the familiar urge to write something sharp and definitive about why cheating is unforgivable and why men continue to do it even when they have everything.

That’s not what happened.

Instead, I found myself unsettled. Because WHY does this keep happening? Is the system broken? How is it that a couple can be so strong when they have nothing and then it all falls apart once they have it all? I felt the need to look beyond the surface, hoping to locate the answer to something that brought me major discomfort. Because as much as I wanted to, I couldn't demonize someone for wanting something different (though I still feel there is absolutely NO excuse for his actions).

And the longer I sat with that feeling, the more I realized it wasn’t about excusing what Desmond did. It was about refusing to lie to myself about what this situation actually looks like.

Because once his statement came out, the story stopped feeling like one person detonating a perfectly functional marriage. It started feeling like something else entirely.

It felt like an ending that had already happened emotionally was handled badly.

According to his own words, there were conversations. There was a request for separation. There was an acknowledgment that something wasn’t working. And then there was cheating anyway.

That doesn’t make it acceptable but it gave the situation more context. Because there is a difference between a man who tries to keep his wife while sneaking around and a man who is clearly just... done.

Cheating is often framed as a desire for more: more sex, more excitement, more validation. But just as often, it’s a desire for out. A way to force an ending when someone doesn’t have the courage, clarity, or integrity to end it cleanly.

That’s the part people avoid talking about.

Sometimes the person who cheats isn’t chasing pleasure. They’re trying to escape a life that no longer fits them. Sometimes the betrayal is less about passion and more about self-sabotage. About blowing up a situation they feel trapped inside. About making the ending undeniable when words haven’t worked.

And sometimes (the part that makes people uncomfortable) both people in the relationship are already unhappy long before anyone steps outside of it.

That doesn’t distribute blame equally. Responsibility for cheating stays exactly where it belongs (with the CHEATER, duh), but it does complicate the narrative that one person was thriving while the other destroyed everything out of nowhere.

I think that’s why this story hit me sideways.

Because it doesn’t feel like a fairy tale ruined by one bad decision. It feels like two people who had reached the end of what they could be for each other—and only one of them crossed a line that made the ending irreversible.

To be clear, I'm not defending anything. I'm only observing to get to a root cause. That's the only way to even attempt to stop things like this from happening before they spiral into a much bigger issue.

Because diving in deep opens a door to conversations we rarely have honestly.

Conversations about the partner who doesn’t cheat, not because they’re fulfilled, but because their values won’t let them leave the “right” way or the “wrong” way. About the partner who stays silent while resentment builds because admitting they want something different feels like failure. About the strange, conflicting emotions that come when betrayal finally gives someone permission to leave a situation that had already become heavy, unhappy, or burdensome.

Cheating doesn’t just hurt. It also clarifies a lot about a relationship.

It clarifies what people were too afraid to say out loud.

It makes things final. And that finality is what I want to talk about... not to assign villains or saints, but to speak to the people watching this unfold and recognizing pieces of themselves in it.

The ones who were cheated on and feel both devastated and strangely relieved.

The ones who cheated and don’t want to ever become that person again.

And the ones who didn’t cheat—but know, deep down, that they no longer want the life they’re still standing inside.

We need to talk about that.

We’ll do that next.

When Cheating Becomes the Ending No One Was Brave Enough to Choose

One of the reasons infidelity devastates people the way it does is because it does more than just break trust. It also rewrites your history.

Suddenly, every memory is suspect. Every moment of intimacy feels retroactively contaminated. Every argument becomes evidence. The person who was cheated on isn’t just grieving the relationship as it is now. They are also forced to grieve the version of it they thought they were living inside. The version that they now know is a complete lie.

That’s why the pain feels disorienting. It’s not only about what happened. It’s about realizing how long something may have been dying without your consent.

And yet, for as much as cheating explodes a relationship, it rarely begins the collapse. More often, it exposes one that’s already been quietly unraveling.

Because in many cases, the person who cheats has already left emotionally. They’re no longer invested in repair. They’re no longer imagining a future that includes the work required to stay. They’re done but unwilling, or unable, to end things in a way that preserves anyone’s dignity.

So they choose a path that forces the ending.

Cheating becomes the action that says what they couldn’t say out loud: I don’t want this life anymore.

That truth is hard to sit with, especially if you’re the one who was faithful. Because fidelity often becomes proof of love in our minds. If we didn’t cheat, we assume we were still committed. Still trying. Still choosing the relationship.

But not cheating doesn’t always mean being present.

Sometimes it means being stuck.

Sometimes it means staying out of fear: fear of starting over, fear of judgment, fear of admitting that what once felt right no longer does. Sometimes it means staying because you believe leaving would make you the bad person, even though staying is slowly hollowing you out.

That’s why this conversation isn’t just about people who cheat. It’s also about people who don’t, but are deeply unhappy anyway.

And that distinction matters.

For the Person Who Was Cheated On

If you’ve been cheated on, there’s a particular kind of emotional whiplash that comes with it.

You’re hurt. You’re angry. You’re grieving. And underneath all of that, you might feel something you don’t want to admit out loud: relief.

Relief that the tension you’d been carrying finally has a name. Relief that the unspoken dissatisfaction is no longer yours to hold alone. Relief that something you couldn’t justify ending now has a clear rupture. Relief that now you've been given the power to end something that you wanted to end anyways.

When betrayal happens, it’s easy to collapse into a single story: I was wronged, therefore I have no responsibility to look inward. That story can feel protective. And in the immediate aftermath, protection matters.

Long-term, though, refusing to examine the relationship honestly can keep you stuck in the same dynamic with a different face.

Being cheated on doesn’t mean you caused it. But it does invite a deeper question when you’re ready: What was I tolerating that I don’t want to tolerate again?

You have to examine this because even though you didn't deserve the betrayal, you do deserve clarity. Clarity about what you need emotionally. About what you ignored. About what you compromised that slowly drained you. About what kind of partnership actually fits the life you want now, not the one you committed to years ago under different circumstances.

This kind of reflection gives you agency and the power to actually choose someone who is aligned with the person you are now.

Because if cheating forced an ending, you still get to decide what the next beginning looks like.

For the Person Who Cheated

There’s a group of people who rarely get spoken to directly in conversations like this, except to be condemned.

If you’re someone who cheated, or came close to it, and you don’t want to live in that space again, the work isn’t about just promising yourself you’ll “never do that again.”

The work is about telling yourself the truth sooner.

Cheating starts way before sex happens and it usually starts with silence.

It starts with the moment you realize you want something different but don’t know how to ask for it without blowing up your life. It starts with the moment you feel unseen, unnecessary, confined, or unfulfilled and decide to manage that discomfort privately instead of addressing it openly.

Sometimes people cheat because they lack integrity. And sometimes people cheat because they lack courage.

Both are problems. Only one is regularly examined.

If you know you’re capable of betrayal under pressure, that’s information. It tells you that when you feel trapped, you default to escape instead of honesty.

That means the solution isn’t just fidelity. It’s boundaries.

You need to establish boundaries with yourself about what kind of life you’re willing to live. About how long you’ll stay unhappy. About whether you’re brave enough to end something cleanly instead of destroying it quietly.

Learning to walk away before you compromise your values is a skill. One many people never develop because staying looks more respectable than leaving—until it doesn’t.

For the Person Who Won’t Cheat—But Doesn’t Want the Relationship Anymore

This might be the hardest position to occupy, and it’s one we don’t talk about nearly enough.

You’re loyal. You’re principled. You’re committed to doing things “the right way.” And you’re also deeply aware that the relationship you’re in no longer aligns with who you are or what you want.

So you stay.

You stay because leaving feels selfish. Because people will ask questions you don’t want to answer. Because the relationship still looks good from the outside. Because you’ve invested time, energy, identity, and history.

You stay because you believe wanting something different means something is wrong with you.

But here’s the quiet truth: staying when you no longer want to be there doesn’t make you noble. It makes you miserable and absent. And those things can be felt.

Sometimes the partner who cheats senses that absence long before anyone names it. They feel unwanted, unchosen, tolerated rather than desired. And instead of addressing that truth directly, they act out against it.

That doesn’t excuse the betrayal, but it explains the emotional environment it grows in.

Which is why pretending that only one person was unhappy often does more harm than good. When something is wrong, it doesn't need to be ignored. It has to be managed and discussed or else it will build up into an even bigger issue.

The Damage That Never Fully Leaves

I've written many books where someone cheated, but in Bad Boys Love Good Girls, it was different because I literally used the pages to live out my own experience in real time. To validate my emotions and feelings in a way I couldn't say out loud. I wrote the way I did is because I didn’t want to lie about this part.

Bad Boys Love Good Girls: The Return of the Outlaw (Bad Boys Do It Better Book

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Outlaw cheated. Janelle forgave him. They stayed together. They built a life.

But the scar never disappeared.

Years later—decades later—that wound could still be reopened. Not because she hadn’t forgiven him, but because betrayal changes how safety is stored in the body. It changes how trust responds to stress. It leaves a quiet vigilance behind.

In the Miseducation of a Bad Boy, Bone’s return in the story isn’t about temptation as much as it is about memory. About what happens when old pain recognizes a familiar shape.

The Miseducation of a Bad Boy (Bad Boys Do It Better Book 10)

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Janelle and Outlaw survived his mistake. They found happiness again. But the marriage was never untouched again. Sure, they stayed together and had a happily ever after ending, but that's because it's fiction. And I write romance.

In real life, the sacred part of marriage that cheating contaminates doesn’t come back. People can forgive. They can stay. They can choose to move forward. But betrayal is never forgotten.

You’ll always feel wary about trusting the person who once stabbed you in the back.

That doesn’t mean people can’t build something meaningful afterward. It means they build it on altered ground.

And that’s why cheating matters, not just because it hurts, but because it permanently reshapes what’s possible afterward.

What people don’t always articulate (because it’s too humiliating to say out loud) is that cheating doesn’t just hurt because someone stepped outside the relationship.

It hurts because it reveals how they did it.

Most people don’t cheat loudly. They cheat quietly. Strategically. While still coming home. While still accepting care, loyalty, emotional labor, patience. While still letting you believe you’re both struggling through the same dissatisfaction together.

But you weren’t.

Because when someone cheats, they aren’t just unhappy. They’re allowing someone to audition to be you.

They’re testing a replacement while keeping the original intact. They’re measuring pleasure, attention, excitement, affirmation, ease. They’re asking a question you didn’t agree to participate in: Is this better than what I already have?

And the part that cuts the deepest is this: you know, without ambiguity, that if the new thing had been better in every way, they would have left.

They didn’t cheat because they were confused about you.They cheated because they were willing to replace you if the opportunity proved worthy.

That’s the wound that lingers.

For the person who stayed unhappy out of commitment, morality, fear, or hope, that realization is devastating. Because you weren’t just enduring discomfort for the sake of the relationship... you were doing it alone.

You were compromising, adjusting, waiting... Talking yourself into patience. Convincing yourself that love meant sacrifice.

And while you were settling into less, they were shopping for more.

That’s where resentment is born.

Not simply from the sex. Not even from the lie. But from the imbalance of values.

You were willing to live with unmet needs to preserve the relationship.They were willing to risk destroying it to escape theirs.

That asymmetry changes everything.

It makes you feel foolish for your loyalty. It makes you angry at yourself for staying. It makes you bitter—not just toward them, but toward the version of you who believed endurance was proof of love.

And that’s why cheating fractures you r identity even more than trust. Because now you’re left holding questions no one prepared you for:

Was I ever really chosen, or just convenient? Was I loved, or tolerated until something better came along? Was my loyalty honored, or exploited?

These are not small questions. They don’t resolve with apologies. And they don’t disappear just because someone says, “It didn’t mean anything.”

In many cases, that’s what makes it worse. Because if it didn’t mean anything, then what did you mean?

This is where the conversation gets uncomfortable, but necessary.

Some relationships don’t end because people stop loving each other. They end because one person decides they’re no longer willing to live with dissatisfaction, while the other still is.

Cheating is often the moment that difference becomes undeniable.

It’s the forced ending no one had the courage to initiate cleanly.

And while the person who cheats is responsible for the harm they cause—fully, without exception—the relationship itself was often already heavy, misaligned, or quietly dying.

That truth doesn’t absolve betrayal. But it does explain why it happens in places people swear “came out of nowhere.”

What’s Coming Next

All of this—this moment in culture, this pattern in relationships, this unwillingness to tell the full truth about endings—sparked a new story for me.

The working title is Let Me Heal You.

It centers on a woman named Nala who comes out of a very public breakup carrying more than heartbreak. She’s carrying resentment, not only because she was wronged, but because she chose dignity and silence while her ex weaponized implication and victimhood.

She took the higher road. She swallowed the truth. She held herself together.

And then she meets Truth Knox: a boxer with charm, confidence, and a line that feels like a key turning in a long-locked door.

Let me heal you.

Only this time, Nala isn’t naïve. She isn’t desperate. And she isn’t interested in being anyone’s redemption arc.

Because she’s already learned what betrayal teaches the hard way: that healing isn’t about who you choose next. It’s about who you refuse to become again.

And when Truth shows signs that he might bring smoke into her life, Nala doesn’t flinch.

She’s not here to be a victim.She’s here to finish the story differently.

I’ll be sharing more about this book soon, including the cover and full synopsis, but for now, consider this an invitation.

An invitation to stop simplifying endings.To stop romanticizing loyalty without honesty.To stop pretending betrayal is random instead of relational.

And most importantly, to stop believing that cheating is the worst thing that can happen in a relationship.

Sometimes, the worst thing is staying long after the truth has already arrived.