Is Your Spouse Cheating On You?

2. Erasing Physical Traces

Cheating partners rightfully suspect that you would be able to smell traces of an affair (another person) on them. This is why cheaters tend to take showers immediately after meeting their lovers. (It’s also why saying you are working out is a great cover story: who wouldn’t want a shower after a sweaty workout? If your partner is having an affair in a different city or country, it’s also natural for them to take showers after they get off a plane.) Because they may feel awkward letting their affair buddy know that they’re trying to remove all those pheromones, your partner may not shower at the hotel or wherever else they are meeting.

What can you do here? Well, how about see if they’re up for showering together with you? If this is something you do sometimes and they say no, that tells something.

3. No Debriefing For You!

The most spy-like cheaters make sure they never communicate with their partner in crime by phone, email or message; they’ll keep to oral agreements instead. Many, however, are more obvious than that. They’ll delete their emails and messages and/or suddenly (or gradually) become more secretive with their “personal information”. They might think that does the job, but they are actually sending subtle signals that scream: “Check me!”

Maybe their phone and email was always open for you to see before, but now they watch those things like a hawk. Maybe they panic when you rush to answer their phone. Maybe they engage in weird conversations that they pretend are with their best friend, but they’re acting rather nervously. Maybe they’ve changed their e-banking passwords or are suddenly making a lot of cash withdrawals.

You don’t have to find hotel receipts to be suspicious, though you may find those too.

4. The Partner You Knew Has Gone “Missing In Action”

Cheating is wrong. Many cheaters feel guilty, and even those who don’t want to cover their tracks. This tends to result in awkward behavior. They may shower you with gifts, attention, initiate sex more often, or spend more time with your kids to alleviate weird feelings. They may also withdraw, shying away from your touch and being emotionally absent even when they’re not actually out spending time with their lover.

Non-cheating spouses might be depressed, happy, having a midlife crisis or whatever else, but if your intuition is telling you their behavior could point to cheating — probably the case if you are reading this — that in itself tells you something’s up. Weird behavior in combination with cheating suspicions? Those are alarm bells, alright!

READ Why Do Men Cheat? Science Says

5. They’re Hiding Things (Literally)

The “other person” might have been sold the story that your partner is going to dump you and start a new life with them (rarely their actual plan). In what they think is a long-term relationship, the other person might be doing what people in new relationships sometimes do: giving your partner gifts. Finding weird things, whether you’re talking dirty lingerie, books, or other trinkets hidden and then finding your partner gets awkward while trying to explain how they got there is a red flag for sure.

The Bottom Line

Once you start suspecting that your partner is cheating, it is quite likely to come out in some way. At the end of the day, just asking your partner whether they’re sleeping around is a perfectly valid option. They may lie (in which case you may know) or they may break down and tell you the truth. Though your cheating spouse may feel like James Bond, chances are they’re not actually trained in withstanding interrogations and you’ll be able to glean valuable information from simply having a conversation.