How can you tell your spouse is cheating?

They start to distance themselves from you....You can almost feel it deep down...then any trnsparency that was there becomes a solid black wall. Email, phone, etc all password protected....someone is hiding something.

The Internet is full of lists and many of them have many things in common. Some are so common as to be almost universal but typically only appear once an affair is already entrenched. This list might include the phrase "I love you but I'm not in love with you." So many have heard this that it is often abbreviated and even those who just recently discovered that they were being cheated on recognize this as an indication of infidelity.

There are others that seem to appear in most lists however and they typically include:

1) Sudden change in any long standing habits. Hobbies get pushed aside or a new one starts that takes hours away from home and the spouse. They might leave for work 30 minutes earlier or change to a later bus or train for the trip home. They might suddenly seem to enjoy a type of food that was never even on the menu until recently.

2) The cell phone becomes less of a tool and more of an appendage. It never leaves the cheater's side and is usually in hand whenever they are with the spouse.

3) Email and other computer use becomes a hidden activity often with windows being suddenly closed or minimized the instant you walk into the room.

4) Unreasonable outbursts of anger over mundane things related to "space" or "privacy" or "time alone." This usually appears when you inadvertently turn up at an unexpected time or enter a room while the telephone is being used. The rage does not fit the event and is often a sign that something was being discussed that the spouse wants to keep hidden from you.

5) An escalation of computer use at odd times or only at times when you are not home.

6) Changes in grooming and appearance that appeared suddenly. Better clothes, a weight loss, change in hair style, shaving more often, dressing better for the girls or guys night out than for that company Christmas party last year, all can be signs of trying to become or remain desirable to someone new.

8) Friends that seem to be nameless. Dinner with the girls, guys or girls nights out on multiple nights of the week, and phrases like "Hanging out with the guys" or "Stopping off with some people from work for a drink before catching the train home" can indicate a secret set of friends with a desire to prevent accountability or investigation as to true whereabouts.

9) Chat logs, browsing history and other computer tracking stuff are routinely erased. Email accounts that once had 150 messages in the inbox suddenly only contain a handful of daily SPAM and other drivel unrelated to personal life.

10) Sudden trips to the office, the store, the gas station or to drop something off to a friend at strange hours. This is especially recognizable as a pattern when it follows closely on the heels of a cell phone call, text message or the checking of email.

11) Wrong numbers that call more than once over a space of several days or weeks. This is usually combined with the caller ID list being wiped out sometimes after remaining as it was for many months at a time.

12) Phone calls that require being in a separate room to be taken. They will sit right beside you to talk to Mom, Dad, brother or sister, the guy from the softball team or their boss, but suddenly they don't want to disturb your television program, which might have been their favorite show before now.

13) Resistance to everything, especially talk of the future. Suggest dinner at their favorite restaurant, they would rather order a pizza. If you say almost anything, they find something at fault with it. If you have plans for the weekend, they don't like that you didn't ask them first but if you have no plans, they do and those plans are things you can't be a part of.

14) Sex is different in some way. Frequency might decrease or increase. The cheater will often be open to trying new things, some that were your idea but they had no interest in. But sex can also change more subtly as well, such as wanting to have "just a quickie" tonight instead of more intimate love making that would last longer. There are really so many changes that can fit this category they would be a rather long list by themselves.

15) False transparency. A cheater will often go to great lengths to establish an alibi for meeting the affair partner. An out of town business trip scheduled for early December might first be mentioned in September even though travel for work occurs every couple of weeks routinely. Or they might go out of the way to explain to you why they were ten minutes late, what they did on the who they bumped into at lunch or expressing some long hidden dream or goal for the future that does not directly concern you.

Lots more can be found on various sites but these seem to be pretty common.

Mark

Those are good ones, Mark.

One big red flag for a female is buying nice intimate wear - either shes cheating or watching the goddess thread.

Also change in music tastes. I see that a lot. Someone who only liked classical music suddenly likes Rap.

Yeah WF started listening to the Christian rock station OW turned him on to...They also attended the christian rock festival spirit west coast.....as if listening would absolve them of sins or something.

Bad thing is he would leave the station on in my car. I can't listen to that station now it's such a huge trigger for me.

The music thing appears on a lot of lists too. It doesn't even have to be a new genre of music for the wayward, just something they never took interest in before.

A person who had three CDs, 6 cassettes and 4 8 tracks in their music collection and suddenly has a preferred customer card with the local music store and can sing along with everything the country music stations are playing is probably experiencing a shared passion with someone.

As for the sexy/intimate underwear, if a bunch of this stuff turns up in the hamper and the husband had never seen it before, even the dog knows it's a red flag.

But the same can be said for outer clothing as well. If the entire wardrobe till now was Lee Jeans or Dickies from Walmart and Carhartts from Tractor Supply and suddenly his nights out with the boys include a shirt with real buttons, shoes that don't lace up above the ankle with steel toes and his pants are a new pair of Dockers, you might want to have him followed.

It can also apply to a wife who wears nothing but jeans, sneakers, and an old sweatshirt when you take her out to eat and one day starts wearing a short skirt from Berman's Leather with a low cut top from Fredericks and 4 inch heels; the signs are there if the husband can get past his own hormones long enough to realize it isn't her normal way of dressing.

A new tattoo can be a sign, especially if it is where nobody will ever see it unless you count her OBGYN. So can new jewelry, especially if it is more than costume jewelry and it didn't come out of the family budget. Somebody paid for it.

Just about anything that is out of character or completely different than what has been the norm for years can be a sign. Any one of them by itself might be benign, but if a bunch of things change, seemingly overnight, it might be a good idea to start looking.

Y'know something there were no signs at all that I was cheating. None whatsoever. I knew myself that something was different but those around me didn't. I was drinking too much and lost a lot of weight but everyone, and I mean everyone, put it down to stress at work. I didn't change the way I dressed, I didn't change my habits. The interesting thing is that I had changed my habits when I turned 40 and started a new job. Long before the A. My new habit was always staying for after work drinks but, here's the thing, my H always joined me at my work for the drinks. He liked the people I worked with and we were having fun again after some very trying years with our son.

One of the reasons for my new habits was that my kids were growing up (late teenagers) and I felt freer than I had for years.

To me the biggest sign of all is when the WS starts sleeping on the edge of the bed almost to the point of falling out of bed. It's a dead giveaway. Another sign is a lot of looking off into space. I did none of the things like look after my cellphone or spend time on the computer, the A was completely during work hours and not with a work colleague.

Edited to add: The new underwear is also a complete giveaway.

Thanks for that Jen. I know the looking out into space look well.

I always think/thought that the subtle signs were much more of a giveaway.

Y'know my H first felt suspicious (he told me later) when I talked about a couple at work having an A that I'd NEVER mentioned before. I'd never talked about them purposely because I didn't want to talk about A's. He was surprised that I'd never talked about them before.

I think it's the words they use. Or the subtle things. For me, it was the lack of opening up a door that just made it seem that something was terribly wrong... deep down inside and then of course...

The babble of cr$p they give us...

The signs of the A come from the mothership......WS babble and their eye just wanders constantly......

Most are not 'good liars' so the WS not being able to look you in the eye is a dead give away.

The eyes don't lie.

The need t/b grouchy. For some it's harder to tell. H always leaned towards being grouchy but when he had his A, it was awful. My dad even more so. He would deliberately make things up, just to be mad.

So when you see the signs......what should a BS do? Is it too early to ask or should we start another thread?

L.

I was totally blindsided by my H's A. I hadn't suspected an A at all. He was the very last person I thought was capable. How naive.

Looking back though the things I had noticed were that we stopped going to bed at the same time. He either complained how tired he was and went to bed way earlier than normal or said he wasn't tired at all and stayed up way later. He was just avoiding the potential for intimacy between us.

Also, he found fault in every little thing I did. I swear I could have been perfection in every way possible in those 2 months and he would have found reason to criticise me or find me lacking in some way.

I put it down to the stress of his career at the time. I suppose he was stressed but it certainly wasn't work stress.

Those and the obvious one that now seems universal of the peculiar attachment to his mobile phone. Oh and him changing from a ringtone to silent and vibrate so that I wouldn't notice how often he was using it.

Wayturds. :mad:

Very fitting description.... I like the name. LOL!!!

L.

Well, I had picked up on his "stress" and had offered my support and encouraged him to share with me what in particular he was so stressed about. I even asked at one point "is it me, do you still love me?".

Looking back, I was too easily fobbed off. He shrugged off my requests for talking time between us and wouldn't be drawn on any specifics of why he was acting strange. I wish I hadn't accepted him brushing me off so easily. I wasn't satisfied with his explanation but I didn't push him and maybe I could have.

So if you think something is up, then opening up real dialogue betwwen the two of you is a must and if you feel you are being brushed off then you probably are, so snoop.

My #13 on my list was really related to this grouchiness aspect. Nothing is good enough. Nothing makes them happy. Nothing is anything that makes them want to be here right now.

They long to be in another place and with their true love ...

This is a list from Dr. Robert Huizenga. Some of them are tongue in cheek, others are tell-tale. He says it's not copyrighted so pass it on...

1) You find birth-control pills in her medicine cabinet, and you've had a vasectomy.

2) Mutual friends start acting strangely toward you. (They either know about the cheating or have been told stories about what a horrible wife or girlfriend you are.)

3) Your cheating husband or wife stops confiding in you and seeking advice from you.

4) Sets up a new e-mail account and doesn't tell you about it.

5) He leaves the house in the morning smelling like Irish Spring and returns in the evening smelling like Safeguard.

6) She joins the gym and begins a rigorous workout program.

7) She buys a cell phone and doesn't let you know.

8) He sets up a separate cell phone account that is billed to his office.

9) The cheating husband carries condoms, and you are on the pill.

10) Begins to delete all incoming phone calls from the caller ID.

11) Deletes all incoming e-mails when they used to accumulate.

12) He becomes "accusatory," asking if you are being true to him, usually out of guilt.

13) Raises hypothetical questions such as, "Do you think it's possible to love more than one person at a time?"

14) He buys himself new underwear.

15) He insists the child seat, toys, etc., are kept out of his car.

16) The cheating wife stops wearing her wedding ring.

17) Has a sudden desire to be helpful with the laundry.

18) Has unexplained scratches or bruises on his or her neck or back.

19) Suddenly wants to try new love techniques.

20) He/she fairly suddenly stops having sex with you.

21) He/she suddenly wants more sex, more often.

22) Supposedly works a lot of overtime, but it never shows up on the pay stub.

23) Picks fights in order to stomp out of the house.

24) You find out by accident he or she took vacation day or personal time off from work - but supposedly worked on those days.

25) Shows a sudden interest in a different type of music.

26) Spouse's co-workers are uncomfortable in your presence.

27) Has a sudden preoccupation with his or her appearance.

28) Spends an excessive amount of time on the computer, especially after you have gone to bed.

29) He throws up a lot because he just ate at his mistress's house and had to eat the dinner you prepared when he got home.

30) Your spouse is away from home, either nights or on trips, more than previously.

31) His/her clothes smell of an unfamiliar perfume or after-shave. You see lipstick on your husband's shirt.

32) The amount of money being deposited into your checking account drops off.

33) You find items of intimate apparel or other small gift-type items that you did not give your spouse.

34) Your spouse seems less comfortable around you and is "touchy" and easily moved to anger.

35) You get calls where the caller hangs up when he or she hears your voice.

36) He/she loses attention in the activities in the home.

37) Your intuition (gut feeling) tells you that something is not right.

38) He/she has a definite change in attitude towards everyone in the home.

39) She uses a low voice or whisper on the phone or hangs up quickly.

40) She has a "glow" about her.

41) Atypical erratic behavior.

42) He sneaks out of the house.

43) She sleeps with her purse by the bed.

44) She goes to the store for groceries and comes home 5 hours later.

45) He tells you that you can get hold of him at a different telephone number.

46) The telltale sign of a cheating spouse? Having to ask that question in the first place.

To me, this is the most useful point on the list. The PI I hired, when he sadly confirmed what I'd suspected, told me that he had never worked a case where a wife's suspicions weren't confirmed. Another PI said that was true in 97% of the cases his firm took.

The point is: Trust your gut. It's almost never wrong.

I absolutely agree. Where there's smoke, there's fire.

I'm a true believer in trusting your instincts.

This sounds tounge-in-cheek, but I recall a poster at the other board who actually experienced that - he and his wife were not having sex, and she had a box of birth control something-or-other (not pills) with one missing. She managed to convince him that she had to use one to "test" it - and the box did say to test it first.

Flick was a very boring run of the mill WS. I found a list online when I was just still in suspicion mode, that I think was a list of 48 and he was doing nearly all of them.

El Bumpo

My first clue was the knife in my back.

So true, Kimmie!!!

My H was textbook. I remember clearly the "hugging the mattress" way on the other side of our king size bed, the disconnect, the new friends, new preoccupation with his appearance... grouchiness... Oh, but I was "just looking for someone/something to blame other than myself for the way things were" when I dared ask him point blank! Still makes me mad.

Honestly, that's been very hard for me to deal with in recovery: his lying and blaming me during the whole time period he was cheating.

I think though, one of the biggest reasons we are in recovery now and things didn't go on longer than they did was because I didn't shake those signs off. Despite his denial, I knew I couldn't afford to just ignore how it all lined up. Being willing to face that fact helped me garner the strength to be tough rather than sticking my head in the sand.

I think spouses need to trust their intuition a lot more. I had doubts about OW 2 years ago and shook them off because I trusted him. Doubts intensified last summer (I even dreamed that OW came to me and told me she loved my STBXH), but again I decided to trust him. Well, to be totally honest, I decided I WOULD trust him because I was terrified that if I asked he'd tell me he had feelings for her and then I'd have to kick him out. I didn't think he actually had feelings, but I was scared enough. If I'd confronted them in July he might not have left. If I'd said something 2 years ago he'd still be home.

HA!