Clues He May Be Cheating

Cheaters leave clues. Some are easier to find than others. This article is directed to women who believe their husbands may be cheating. Some tips and clues will be applicable to catching a cheat of either gender. Others clues are specific to catching a man who cheats. As with any and all information provided on this site, use what you can and disregard the rest.

Does he have a post office box for his personal mail? Perhaps the regular bills and general correspondence still come to your regular mailing address but some men need to hide credit card charges and other bills and correspondence that would clue you to an affair. The safest way is to set up separate charge cards in his name only and have the bills go to his private post office box. Does he have a postal key on his keyring? Do you know what it opens? Is there any legitimate reason for him to be receiving mail that you can’t read?

Does he have a cell phone? Do the bills come to the house or to his private post office box? Does the same number appear throughout the working day and during those times that he’s “working late”?

Do an Internet “reverse search” of suspicious phone numbers or call from a pay phone. With caller ID you don’t want to be caught calling his girlfriend so using a pay phone gives you anonymity. You can hang up when someone answers, (this will give you limited information about the person unless the call goes to an answering machine or a business), or you can pretend to have dialed the wrong number and ask for “Susan” or “Tiffany” and hope that the person who answers will say something like “No, this is… (insert HER name).”

Not finding a phone trail doesn’t mean he isn’t making calls. The two of them might be using pre-paid, temporary calling cards that are easy to buy and leave no trace. Even if he uses a disposable calling card to contact the other woman, he may slip and leave a trail you can find and follow.

Does he have a separate bank account with just his name on the checks? If you’ve been married for several years, why does he find it necessary to keep his “single days” bank account active? Even more suspicious is if he makes regular deposits and withdrawals to the account and the bank statements go to his private post office box.

He’s preoccupied with his appearance. He is losing weight, exercising, wearing his hair differently, and has invested in a new wardrobe (particularly new underwear). He doesn’t want your help shopping, he’ll take care of his clothing needs, thank you very much! Add his new look with those late nights, overnights, and weekend “special assignments” and you might just have a man with more than work on his agenda.

You begin noticing shirts and ties in his closet that you haven’t seen before. He says he’s always had them but you’re not so sure. These could be personal gifts from the other woman if you didn’t buy them and he says he didn’t buy them. How about that new leather wallet and the expensive cologne? Lovers exchange gifts. What’s he supposed to do, throw her gifts away? If he was smart, yes, but he is feeling particularly warm and fuzzy about her and he knows you’ll believe whatever he tells you.

He talks in his sleep and is flustered and defensive when you ask him who “sweetheart” or “angelface” is.

He carries condoms in his wallet or his pocket or his vehicle. If you find a condom in his wallet or elsewhere don’t mention it but put a small mark on the wrapper and check it when you can. If the mark disappears you’re probably looking at a new condom. Don’t tip your hand with your suspicions. Continue to mark and check and document the frequency of “usage”.

If you believe he’s being sexually active outside of your bed, it is definitely the time to begin using condoms in your own bedroom. You don’t have to tip your hand with “why” condoms are a necessity (his new sexual exploits and the potential diseases he’s bringing to the marital bed). Buy some of the more exotic condoms and tell him you’d like to use them since you’ve read so much about how good they can make you feel.

You’re having a family night at home. There’s a preview of an upcoming movie, one that has just finished playing in the threaters. He says “Yeah, that was a good one!” and you feel a knot in your stomach because you and he haven’t been to the movies in well over a year. How is it that he has seen a movie that you haven’t? And the type of movie he has never enjoyed before?

Men who cheat don’t just spend time in the other woman’s bedroom. They go on picnics, to movies in the afternoon, or shopping with her in neighboring towns. Check his pockets for incriminating movie stubs or other evidence of twosome entertainment to which you weren’t invited.

Check his roladex, calendar or day planner. If he has a “more than casual” female friend you may find her birthday noted on the appropriate page in his planner. He may have her name, home phone number, work phone number, pager number, cell phone number, and other personal data listed among his business contacts. If he has a need to assemble that much personal contact information for all of his business associates that may not be a clue. If hers is the only “find me anywhere, anytime” information, that’s a big clue.

Get his access code for his business phone and play back his messages. Some men can’t bear to erase their lover’s messages no matter how incriminating they might be.

When you catch him in a lie, he immediately changes his story and keeps changing it until he thinks he has covered his tracks. He’s evasive about virtually everything. His cover-up has gotten so complex that he doesn’t want to carry on a conversation with you because he is having a difficult time remembering what you should know and what you don’t know about his activities.

He comes home and begins immediately chatting about his day with a full account of the time spent throughout the day. This is not suspicious if he has always done this. It could be suspicious if other clues are pointing to adultery.

You and he are visiting with friends when you catch his story of something that happened recently in a recreational setting or in a location you’ve never been and you weren’t aware that he’d ever visited. A big tipoff is if he tries to cover his slip-up with yet another story when he realizes what he’s said.

Your best friend calls to get your husband’s advice which usually means long phone calls in low tones in a separate room. You notice that they smile at each other quite often, particularly when they think no one is watching. If there is an occasion to hug, they hug longer and more enthusiastically than you’d like.

He says you’re imagining things when you ask if there’s something going on between the two of them. Your friend is either more involved in your life or is occupied elsewhere most of the time. One woman suspected her best friend of being the other woman when her husband and she were always unavailable at the same time. Her suspicions turned out to be right on.

If he eats lunch out, does he go to local restaurants or to out-of-the-way spots? Why would a man to drive to an interstate restaurant with notoriously bad food when he could have a nice lunch close to where he works? So he won’t be spotted by friends and co-workers while he has a luncheon date. If he’s careless enough to save his lunch receipts, even if they don’t indicate the number of people having lunch, they will have the restaurant’s name. How many times will you buy the excuse that he and one of his male co-workers wanted to drive 30+ miles to eat at the Denny’s two towns away when there’s a local one a five minute drive from his office?

Could he have even one good reason for scratches on his back that you didn’t put there?

You might suspect that your husband is cheating. You may find enough evidence to prove to yourself that he’s cheating. But what to do with the evidence is another matter.

Protect yourself, devise a plan of action, and don’t confront until you are fully prepared to deal with the consequences. Suspecting that he’s cheating is one thing. Having him confirm those suspicions is much more devastating.

© Pat Gaudette. All rights reserved.

Order Pat’s books from Amazon.com: How to Survive Your Husband’s Midlife Crisis: Strategies and Stories from the Midlife Wives Club and Midnight Confessions: True Stories of Adultery.