Who Actually Ruins a Life? The Fallout of the Sherrone Moore Affair

“You ruined my life,” Sherrone Moore told his former affair partner, Paige Shiver, after breaking into her apartment and threatening suicide.

Some people agree with Moore. They argue that Shiver ruined his life not merely by participating in the affair, but by revealing it. No one exposed the relationship on her behalf—she reported it herself to the University of Michigan. Her reasons remain unknown. But there is little incentive for a woman to voluntarily invite public humiliation unless she feels unsafe, desperate, or believes silence will cost her more than speaking.

Even if Shiver could not be fired, the reputational damage alone should be enough to make her want to seek employment elsewhere. Does she really want to stick around the University of Michigan and always be known as that woman who had an affair with the head coach–the whore who snitched.

Others argue Moore ruined his own life. He was the one with the family, the career, and the institutional power to lose. He chose to risk it all. The affair did not happen to him; he participated in it.

What complicates the narrative are reports that Moore had multiple extramarital encounters, including alleged interactions with an OnlyFans model involving offers of football tickets in exchange for group sex. If true, it strains credibility to believe his wife was entirely unaware. Among wealthy, powerful men, it is not uncommon for marriages to persist with tacit understandings that discretion—not fidelity—is the real contract.

This raises the question: if adultery is so common among powerful men, why is it often treated as a career-ending offense?

The answer has little to do with morality and everything to do with optics. Our President has dozens of felony convictions, including conduct far more serious than infidelity, and not only remained eligible to run for office but won. If Americans can vote for a convicted felon, it is difficult to argue that adultery alone renders someone unfit to coach college football.

Adultery punishments are often framed as protecting wives, but in practice, they most often harm them. When a husband is fired, the household loses income. In the military, adultery can be prosecuted under UCMJ. While over half of military spouses work, most are underemployed, often due to relocations and caregiving responsibilities. A husband’s punishment becomes a wife’s financial instability.

Most wives want accountability. Few want economic devastation.

This exposes the central contradiction: cheating husbands cannot be meaningfully punished in public without collateral damage to their families. Private consequences—divorce settlements, alimony, custody—are more appropriate, but unevenly applied. Some women receive financial security; others receive very little beyond the psychological relief of leaving a dishonest marriage.

With that, the phrase “you ruined my life” reveals its true function. It transfers blame from the person with power to the person with the least protection. It criminalizes the woman who spoke, not the man who acted. It reframes exposure as destruction and silence as virtue.

In reality, lives are rarely ruined by truth. They are ruined by the belief that truth should never be told.