People who go after others' partners are amongst the most hated on Earth, and not without merit. After all, who'd put up with someone who just swoops in and charms other people's partners into ditching them, or worse, manipulate their partners into ditching them through deceit and slander?
This is where the trope is in effect, and it can happen in the following ways:
- The homewrecker messes with the wrong couple — the person whose partner they stole turns out to be powerful or have connections to powerful people, be they from the government or a criminal organization. The homewrecker ends up in prison or debt hell in the former's case, and forced to work or killed in the latter.
- The homewrecker envies their victims for having rich/attractive/kind partners and steals them out of spite. However, they screw up in their latest conquest as the partner turns out to be quite contrary to what they expected, for they may actually be broke, ugly, or even an abuser/rapist.
- The homewrecker assumes someone (often of the opposite sex) getting close with their prospective victim must be their partner, and ends up snatching the "partner" by mistake or was led on by a counter-scheme planned out by the victim or a friend of theirs.
- If the homewrecker uses deceit and slander to manipulate a mark into dumping their partner for them, they will eventually be exposed and punished, especially when the mark teams up with the homewrecker's former victims.
- The homewrecker is associated with more honorable people like their family, friends, and coworkers. When their behavior gets out, they go through Karmic Shunning. If Family Honor is involved, expect the homewrecker to be disowned.
- The homewrecker is cheated on and dumped by their latest mark, showing that no matter how amazing the affair felt to the mark, they have no reason to be faithful to the homewrecker. This also has the added bonus of shattering the homewrecker's pride if they can't take what they dish out.
Related to Relationship Sabotage. It overlaps with Lust Makes You Dumb if sexual desire plays a part in the homewrecker's antics and Revenge Romance if they steal someone's significant other out of petty revenge. Compare with Blame the Paramour, which is about someone exclusively punishing their significant other's affair partner after being cheated on. Compare with Attempted Homewrecker, in which someone tries to break up a couple only to fail in the process, which also overlaps with this trope if this is the homewrecker's first attempt. See also Serial Homewrecker. Almost always related to Downfall by Sex, and at its extreme, Sex Signals Death. The Scourge of God might be involved. This is also how a Plot-Inciting Infidelity is concluded if the story is idealistic enough.
A Deadly Affair is the Logical Extreme of this trope if the homewrecker, their affair partner, or both are maimed/killed, or if the cuckold gets maimed/killed as a result of the affair and the cheating parties get punished.
While this is Truth in Television, this trope involves sex and morality, so real-life examples are forbidden in this page.
Examples:
- Played for laughs in episode 7 of Kaginado, a comedic crossover of Key/Visual Arts works. This episode has every set of siblings competing in a baseball tournament where the older sibling tries to hit a home run off their younger sibling's pitch. The previous episode also called out Kyou and Kanata for using the Twin Switch to steal their game's protagonist from their sisters. During the baseball tournament, Kyou and Kanata are the batters while their sisters Ryou and Haruka are pitching. Thus, when their sisters are up to pitch for them, they throw the baseball at their stomach while yelling "Homewrecker".
- My-Otome: Shizuru and Natsuki are involved. Tomoe is well aware of this. So when Tomoe sides with Duke Nagi in taking over Garderobe Academy, she lies to Shizuru that Natsuki was captured but would be well-treated if Shizuru cooperated. However, Shizuru was well aware due to a smuggled letter that Natsuki was safe. Shizuru turns the tables on Tomoe by using their "fling" to steal the key to her own cell, ply Tomoe for information, and then, to make sure Tomoe knows she's rejected, make a big show of returning to Natsuki's arms when Natsuki leads the attack to retake the Academy. Tomoe, believing for some reason that Shizuru had genuinely loved her, decides to take out both her and Natsuki, but her powers are rendered moot at the time, and she plummets hundreds of feet to a rooftop, where she only survives due to the nanomachines enhancing her body.
- An unfortunate example happens in Archie Comics when an electoral candidate visits Riverdale High in one of his campaigns, because he was an alumnus there and Ms. Grundy was even his old friend and schoolmate. Archie takes a picture of when the candidate had Grundy in his arms, and a sleazy tabloid reporter decides to con Archie out of his camera. The reporter fabricates a story about the two having an affair using the photo as proof, and both Grundy and her friend's reputations are completely destroyed, with Grundy actually getting called a homewrecker around town. Archie realizes what he has done and goes out of his way to prove the reporter's story as completely wrong.
- Synépeies - A Collection Of NTR Consequences: This being an anthology Fix Fic of Netorare doujins created to punish both the cheating woman and her alpha-male lover in them, expect the latter type of antagonist to be put through hell or killed for his homewrecking.
- Prior to The Tournament
, Red Wing was going steady with Bitstream and Hotlink, behind their trinemate Nacelle's back. Nacelle and Red Wing were also matched up in the first round of the tournament, which Nacelle uses to beat the energon out of Red Wing and publicly humiliate his trinemates for trying to replace him.
- Discussed in Scooby-Doo! Stage Fright; Chrissy, a nasty preteen diva, performs a song called "Homewrecker" for Talent Star. The biggest part of the song is her spelling out what kind of violence she'll inflict if said homewrecker doesn't back off. Velma, Daphne, and Fred find the whole thing disturbingly inappropriate, especially given her age.
- Shrek 2: Prince Charming tries to steal Fiona from Shrek so that he can become the king of Fiona’s kingdom, Far Far Away. He and his mother, the Fairy Godmother, deceive Fiona into thinking he’s Shrek in human form, and when she finds Charming obnoxious, they try to coerce her father, King Harold, into using a love potion on her to make her love Charming. After their deception is exposed, Fiona headbutts Charming and briefly knocks him out.
- Strange Magic: Marianne catches her fiancé, Roland, cheating on her with another girl minutes before their wedding. The nameless girl is clearly a homewrecker, because all the fairies knew that Roland was engaged to Marianne, and yet she kisses him in broad daylight. In the end, she is forgotten by Roland, dusted with love potion by the imp, falls for a frog, and is captured by the goblins.
- Contagion: Beth Emhoff's Business Trip Adultery has particularly brutal consequences. She's already the Patient Zero of a highly infectious disease when she takes a layover from Hong Kong to Chicago to hook up with John Neal before going home to Minneapolis. While there, she infects him and they both spread the disease even further, potentially killing thousands (if not millions) more. Beth is at least portrayed somewhat sympathetically, with her mother telling Mitch that Beth did love him. John Neal, on the other hand, is portrayed as an asshole who only had the affair for his own sexual gratification
- The Distinguished Gentleman: Downplayed and played for Black Comedy. Congressman Jeff Johnson dies while having sex with his secretary. When the (unnamed) political party is trying to convince his wife to run in his stead to earn the sympathy vote, the secretary is there as well, saying she can help the late congressman's wife run her campaign. Mrs. Johnson tells the secretary that she doesn't think she'll be able to offer her the same job satisfaction that her late husband did.
- Fatal Attraction: Alex sleeps with the married Dan, claiming to be fine with it. She is, in fact, not fine with it, claims to be pregnant, kidnaps his daughter, murders said daughter's rabbit, and is ultimately shot and killed by Dan's wife Beth.
- In An Ordinary Miracle (1978), the Minister Administrator tries to hit on the beautiful hostess even after she tells him she is married and will complain to her husband, only for her to reveal that her husband is a wizard. Cue an Oh, Crap! reaction and hurried apologies from the minister.
- Bigtime: The Karma Girl story starts when the narrator finds out her fiancé and best friend are not only a superhero and supervillain, respectively, but they have had an affair behind her back. This drives the narrator to dedicate herself to out all supers after exposing the cheating couple of supers that started it all.
- In chapter 35 of the Book of Genesis in The Bible, Reuben ends up sleeping with his father's concubine, Bilhah while they are settled in Bethel. Jacob hears of this, and in chapter 49, he revokes Reuben's birthright, saying "you shall not excel, Because you went up to your father’s bed; Then you defiled it— He went up to my couch."
- Played with in The Snowman of Harry Hole. The killer turns out to be targeting women who have affairs, as he started by murdering his own mother, who was having an affair. He views them all as "whores" who are destroying their family lives, including a woman who was raped and got pregnant.
- American Horror Story: Murder House:
- Hayden, a student of Ben Harmon's, got pregnant via an affair with him, at which point she told him she would have an abortion. However, when Ben left her just before the abortion (because Vivien and Violet had nearly died in a brutal home invasion), she decided not to have the abortion and planned to move out to California to force him to provide for the baby. As she was spelling this out for him, Larry whacked her over the head, killing her and turning her into a vengeful ghost.
- Constance shot her husband Hugo and their maid/Hugo's mistress Moira after she found them together. She doesn't much seem to care that Hugo was actually trying to rape Moira at the time, either.
- Violet finds a way to accept Tate even after she learns that he perpetrated a school shooting. When she finds out that he raped her mother and got her pregnant, Violet banishes Tate for what he's done to her family, forcing him to stay outside with Hayden.
- Desperate Housewives:
- Edie Britt was notorious for hooking up with or hitting up married or "taken" men. For example, she slept with Susan's first husband Karl, now married to someone else. This often moved into Divorce Is Temporary levels, in the case of her relationship with Gaby's husband Carlos (Gaby and Carlos are separated at the time). That led to her first true "wrecking", as Carlos ultimately went back to Gaby over Edie. She also kisses Bree's husband Orson in Season 4. This leads to her second "wrecking", when the housewives throw her off the lane and freeze her out until she leaves. In Season 5, Edie then returns to the lane married to Dave Williams. While this seems like a victory, it ultimately turns out that Dave is the Big Bad of Season 5 and was still in love with his first wife, who died along with their daughter in a car accident caused by Susan. Dave targeted Edie and married her to get to Wisteria Lane and ingratiate himself in Mike and Susan's lives.
- Nora Huntington got pregnant with Kayla via a one-night stand with Tom Scavo before Tom married Lynette. When Kayla comes back into Tom's life, Tom and Lynette attempt to co-parent civilly with Nora. Nora then makes a pass at Tom and makes it clear she wants him to leave Lynette for her, causing Lynette and Tom to sue for custody. When Carolyn Bigsby goes after her husband Harvey and plans to kill him for cheating on her with a younger model, Lynette and Nora get into a fight at the supermarket. Nora tells Carolyn that Lynette tried to take Kayla away from her. Lynette responds by telling Carolyn that Nora made a pass at Tom. Carolyn is especially triggered by this and shoots Nora, killing her.
- It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: Sweet Dee has an affair with her high-school crush Bill Ponderosa. The fling itself is pretty grotesque (Bill's become an overweight, repulsive jerk, which Dee overlooks because he's rich and she's a terrible person), and only gets worse when Bill's wife catches him, cuts off his money, and he becomes The Thing That Would Not Leave in Dee's apartment. On top of THAT, Bill's attempt to kidnap his own kids results in the wife repossessing the car he gave Dee. All of this is played for Black Comedy, by the way.
- Nautilus: Turan ended up imprisoned at Kalpani after sleeping with a married woman whose aggrieved husband was apparently influential enough to call in a favor from the Company.
- Sons of Anarchy: Porn star Ima Tite sets her sights on Jax, openly planning to steal him from his girlfriend Tara. Approximately nothing goes right for Ima after that, from Tara and Gemma shooting up her car, to Jax sleeping with her to push Tara away then kicking her to the curb, to finally having her face smashed by Jax after she pulls a gun on Tara.
- You: Enforced by Love, who is a very strong example of Love Forgives All but Lust. While Joe is also a Serial Killer, adultery is less of a Berserk Button for him. Love, on the other hand, brutally axes Natalie to death after finding out that Joe has a burgeoning obsession with her (though Natalie herself is portrayed as cold and manipulative). Joe makes it clear that Love would kill Marienne if she found out about their relationship, and she ultimately tries to kill Joe instead after she finds out about it.
- Classical Mythology: Minthe was a nymph of the river Cocytus, and Hades' former paramour before he met Persephone. After she learned of Hades' marriage, she boasted of a plan to seduce Hades so that he would abandon Persephone and take her back. Unfortunately for Minthe, Persephone found out about this and, before Minthe could get far in this scheme, either turned her into a mint plant and squashed her, or squashed her and then turned her into a mint plant.
- Flower Knight Girl: Garden Croton, a shameless homewrecker who loves to flirt/mess with taken men and break apart relationships, ends up pushing her luck back then when she messed around with the lover of Scotchbroom's grandmother, a powerful and famous witch, who subjected her to an unusual curse after the fact. The afflicted curse has haunted Garden Croton all the way up to her debut event, making her change from her usual shameless demeanor to having her embarrassment peak, especially in her usual outfit in front of many people, whenever she's made to sneeze.
- Gossip City:
- "My sister asked me for some money… But then…"
: Sachika succeeds in seducing Akio into divorcing her older sister Haruka and remarries him. Little did she know that Akio was actually a dope fiend, and got beaten to the point of disfigurement. After Inuzuka deals with Akio, the Uwasa Group promptly sends the cheaters to work at the mines.
- "This new girl at work thinks she can get away with anything if she seduces the men"
: Ryoka, the new employee, used her pretty looks to sleep with her bosses at work into giving her special treatment and harass those she doesn't like, such as veteran employee Asuka. However, Ryoka's reign of terror ends when Yujiro takes over the company, fires both her and her bosses for their trouble, and exposes the whole thing to the bosses' wives, resulting in Ryoka getting drowned in lawsuits.
- "My sister was having an "affair" with my husband, who was already dead...."
: Kaori schemed to seduce Kazuyuki away from her older sister Alisa despite having wished for his death earlier on. When it seems she succeeded and calls Alisa to gloat about the deed at a love hotel, her supposed victim reveals that she's at his funeral, and switches to videocall before showing Kazuyuki's casket, which scared the crap out of Kaori and sent her streaking out of the love hotel, thinking the "Kazuyuki" she bedded —actually his delinquent twin brother— was his ghost. As a result, Kaori is arrested for public indecency and became a shut-in afterward.
- "My sister asked me for some money… But then…"
- Manga Soprano: A common subplot in stories revolving around a female main character involves her having an evil sister who seeks to ruin her happiness by stealing her boyfriend/fiancé/husband. If she already did it before the start of the story, the FMC's kids from the previous marriage will trick the evil sister into going after a different man, who may be a stalker or a rapist.
- "My twin sister, whom I had insulated, pretended to be me and did evil things."
[sic]: Ram's estranged twin sister, Rui, came over to apologize for having stolen the former's husband before the start of the story. However, it was all an act to keep messing with Ram and ruin her happiness once again, but her supposed victim's daughter, Haru, sees right through the Evil Twin's facade and tricks her into eloping with Ram's stalker, a man named Masato.
- "The day after my fiancée proposed to me, I got a call saying my sister had stolen my fiancée"
: Anna schemed to seduce Casino away from her older sister Karin on her wedding day, but the latter's daughter Mikan tricks her into bedding her mom's stalker, Kenji, instead. While Karin herself fell for it, Casino shows up in time while Anna is about to be raped by Kenji and unable to contact her sister for a while as she goes through with the wedding. After getting hold of Anna's location, Karin calls the cops on the bastard before he could have his way with her.
- "My sister plundered my fiancé! Now my arranged marriage partner is also plundered"
: Ram was set up for an Arranged Marriage with the wealthy Ikki-san, but her younger sister Nonoka, who has been stealing her boyfriends early in the story, seduced the man into marrying her instead of Ram. Much to her surprise, Ram conceded defeat and gave her blessing as well. However, the homewrecking little sister ends up regretting it years later when it turns out Ikki-san was a misogynistic asshole who trapped her in the home and constantly cheated on her while subjecting her to domestic and financial abuse to the point of degrading her cute appearance. Moreover, no one wanted to help her — her parents were traditionalists and told her to endure it as they were bribed into agreeing to the marriage in the first place and Ikki himself bribed any lawyer she contacted into looking the other way. When she turned to Ram for help, the latter turned her away for her earlier homewrecking antics after revealing the truth to her.
- "My sister has reported to me that she has plundered my husband→That man was not my husband."
[sic]: Mai seduces her sister Ai's fiancé, Yuki, away from her, and becomes pregnant with his child. When she calls Ai to gloat, Ai reveals that Yuki died and she's at his funeral. Mai thought she was bluffing until Ai shows Yuki's casket through videocall — the "Yuki" she snatched was actually his delinquent twin brother Koki, who robbed her after doing the deed.
- "My twin sister, whom I had insulated, pretended to be me and did evil things."
- Manga-Waido:
- "My girlfriend falls onto the ground with a red arm as a lady screams at her!"
[sic]: When Fuyuki goes with his girlfriend Aya on a trip to the beach, a waitress attacks and chews her out for stealing her older sister's husband. When Fuyuki comes to her defense, the waitress plays a recording of Aya gloating about the deed, causing him to break up with her. While Aya kept her job and seduced her boss into bullying Fuyuki, she ends up quitting when someone uploads a recording of the beach-café incident to the Internet, which went viral to the point that everyone around Aya started up rumors about her being a homewrecker, driving her parents to disown her.
- The girl who stole my ex-BF came to my wedding to stir things up…
: Saho steals Ayumi's boyfriend, Sora, by doctoring a photo of her cheating with another man before sending her victim a doctored photo of herself sleeping with Sora. However, Ayumi finds love again and is engaged to Mr. Suzuki years later, with Saho going to the bride's dressing room to gloat about the deed and becoming pregnant with Sora's baby only to be secretly recorded and exposed, which ended in Sora chewing out, divorcing, and suing Saho upon finding out the baby wasn't his.
- "My girlfriend falls onto the ground with a red arm as a lady screams at her!"
- MoniRobo:
- "My sister looks down on me and even tries to steal my fiancé"
: While Kyoko's spoiled older sister Eriko got married to a rich yet fat CEO named Masamitsu Asahara, it's rendered moot years later when Masamitsu gets fatter and his company loses steam while Kyoko is engaged to an even richer and more handsome CEO named Tatsuma Ukigaya, driving her to try and steal him from her. While Eriko seems to succeed in her goal as Tatsuma agrees to meet with her at a café, in the end, it was all a set-up to expose her to Masamitsu, who promptly divorces her before selling his company to Tatsuma. To add insult to injury, Masamitsu signed a prenup, which means Eriko won't get money from the divorce.
- "A girl I hated in school invited me to her wedding and asked me to give a speech"
: Akemi was notorious back in high school for stealing other girls' boyfriends despite having her own, with Charako being one of her victims. The last straw was years later when Akemi invited her to her wedding while gloating about her past deeds, which drove Charako to no-show at the wedding and exposing the homewrecking bride to her groom, Junya Takagi, when he called her. As a result, Junya calls off the wedding and sues Akemi for cancellation fees, with her parents hightailing it to a faraway location to avoid paying it for her.
- "My sister looks down on me and even tries to steal my fiancé"
- Panic Collection:
- "My friend stole my husband and family, but then…"
: Kendra, who had a reputation for stealing other girls' boyfriends back in high school, took advantage of Pam's kindness to seduce the latter's husband, Karson, into divorcing her. However, her life turns into hell the moment she marries him, as he was a womanizer, his mother a textbook monster-in-law, and his daughter Amaya a Spoiled Brat.
- "Crazy Sister Steals My Fiance And Invites Me To Their Wedding → But When She Saw My Husband…!"
: Lucy seduced Paige's fiancé Ethan away from her and marries him. However, her homewrecking is rendered pointless when Paige marries a wealthy foreigner named Lucas and attends the lovebirds' wedding to roast them. This drove Lucy to make the harebrained mistake of stalking Lucas right after she married Ethan. As a result, Lucy ends up divorced and kicked out of his family home after getting the cops called on her.
- "My friend stole my husband and family, but then…"
- Revenge Films:
- "My sister slept with my husband…"
: Ali's adulterous older sister ends up in trouble after having her and her son kicked out following having stolen Ali's husband — Ali sues for a high settlement fee and alimony, which they struggled to pay because, as explained in the original Japanese version
, the sister's reckless lifestyle left both her family and new husband broke, on top of having cheated on the man. The latter comes back to bite her even harder as her lovers' wives banded together to sue her. By the time she came back crawling to Bob, her ex-husband, three years later, he already remarried Ali and called the cops on both the sister and her parents.
- "This girl told me she was pregnant with my husband's child, but I'm not married..."
: Sadie, having stolen Kristi's boyfriend back in high school, decides to do the same by sleeping with a man named John Knock, who claimed himself Kristi's husband. The next day, when Sadie called her supposed victim to gloat about becoming pregnant with his child and chastise her for sending a compensation demand, Kristi not only reveals that she's engaged with a man named John Witwicky, while Knock was known for knocking up his conquests and leaving. Moreover, the "Kristie Knock" who sent the demand was the Keith Gang's heiress, and obviously wouldn't take kindly to having her husband stolen. Fearing for her life, Sadie turned to her parents for help, but she was instead given $50K and disowned, leaving her no choice but to work as a hostess. Even then, she didn't learn her lesson and dated a married man for his money, which resulted in his wife snapping and stabbing her, causing the homewrecker to miscarry and lay depressed at the hospital until the debt collectors took her away.
- "My sister stole all of my boyfriends and I was really hurt but then"
: Erin used her pretty looks to steal boyfriends from her plain older sister Ariel, causing her no end of grief. However, when she tried to steal her latest boyfriend Sean, he rebuffs Erin's advances and accuses her of being an easy girl who uses her status as an influencer to charm men. Even then, Erin refused to back down and posted a TikTok stating she was in a relationship with Sean but got dumped. This backfired on her big time — not only did Sean's agency debunk the homewrecking sister's lies, but her fans unfollowed and turned on her to the point of posting revenge porn upon learning she was dating five men simultaneously. As a result, Erin was committed to a mental institution, but she felt relieved to be out of the public eye and voluntarily stayed in the institution to recover.
- "My sister slept with my husband…"
- SparkTales: Female antagonists who seek to ruin Lisa's happiness do it by stealing her husband. If said husband isn't Noah, the homewrecker du jour will always succeed, but it will be rendered moot when it turns out the man she just stole from Lisa is unemployed, a cheating Lothario, or in the case she baby-trapped him, her pregnancy exposed to be from another man or fake. To add insult to injury, if Lisa remarries Noah and the homewrecker tries to steal him, he'll firmly reject her advances while defending Lisa.
- Trouble Busters:
- "My fiancé cheated on me with my sister so I taught them both an unforgettable lesson!"
: Helen's older sister, Nancy, always stole boyfriends from her to feel better about not excelling at studies like her. While she also got away with seducing Helen's latest fiancé, John, and then invited her to the wedding to twist the knife, Helen attends to show off her new fiancé, a Korean entertainment-industry CEO named Lee. Determined to ruin Helen's relationship, Nancy makes the harebrained mistake of trying to seduce him right in front of the groom, which earned her a beating from him and a lawsuit from Helen.
- "My parents favored my sister over me and she turned out to be a devil"
: Helen's younger sister, Lina, feigned sickness to get her in trouble with their parents. Even in adulthood, Lina kept faking her illness even when Helen came over to introduce her fiancé, Alan, so that he would marry her instead. While Alan seems to oblige, he reveals to Helen that it's a plan to expose her. Come the wedding day, Alan brings over all of Lina's past lovers, who call her out for having lied to them about being sick. To add insult to injury, some of them were married, which caused Lina and her family to sink into debt to pay them back the money she conned out of them.
- "My fiancé cheated on me with my sister so I taught them both an unforgettable lesson!"
- Viral Texts:
- Taylor
slept with Avril's husband Dan, thinking he was a wealthy CEO, and gloated about becoming pregnant to twist the knife. However, it turns out not only was Dan infertile and Taylor was seeing other guys behind his back, but the man's wife was actually Avril's older sister, Jess, and the real CEO. As a result, Taylor is sued for compensation and ditched by Dan. Afterward, Taylor barged into her other lovers' houses in search of the father, but it worsened her debts as she unwittingly exposed them to their wives, who promptly sued her to oblivion.
- Kasia
slept with her older sister Indigo's husband, Valentino, causing the couple to break up and then invites Indigo herself to their wedding just to twist the knife. Much to Kasia's dismay, it turns out Valentino was a broke moocher rather than the Meal Ticket she thought he was, while Valentino himself was disappointed that Kasia didn't have money to pay his debt. Indigo, on the other hand, moved away to Malaysia and converted to Islam after remarrying a local guy.
- Taylor
