20 Signs That Your Partner is Cheating

10 min read
cheating partner
Table of Contents
  1. Signs of Cheating
  2. Conclusion
  3. FAQ

How do you tell if your partner is cheating? If you’re asking this question, then most likely, you already have a foundation to suspect that your partner already has or may be looking for an affair. At the very least, your relationship is experiencing turbulence due to the deterioration of trust and the sneaking feeling that you’ve been cheated on.

Just thinking that your partner may be cheating or thinking about someone else at this very moment can lead to growing stress, sleeping issues and erode your mental health. But what if you’re just making it all up in your head?

Let’s look at some statistics before we start. Around 35-40% of Americans cheat on their partners, based on a 2021 survey. That’s right. One in 3 people has admitted to cheating on their partner at least once in their lifetime.

The most common reasons for cheating are:

  • Emotional negligence
  • Falling out of love
  • Sexual discontent
  • Boredom or need for variety
  • Low self-esteem

We have compiled a list of signs that your partner is cheating and how cheaters hide their tracks. Keep reading to find out if you should trust your gut feeling or stop worrying about your partner’s infidelity.

Signs of Cheating

You may not always be able to tell directly that your partner is cheating until you confront them and they confess. After all, there may be valid reasons for them acting differently. It is those subtle changes in behavior that only a close partner can sense that typically lead up to the confrontation.

Using these 20 signs, you can build up the necessary list of facts that can be used during your conversation with the partner that hopefully will shed light on their faithfulness. While these signs do not necessarily mean that your partner is cheating on you, one or more ticks in this checklist should encourage you to be on the lookout.

1. Changes in Body Language

Your partner will fear being discovered or feel guilty doing something wrong unless you’re in a relationship with a psychopath, narcissist, or sociopath who doesn’t empathize with others. This means that their body language will indicate what they are feeling inside, and these non-verbal signals cannot be controlled.

A big red flag should be raised if you see any of the following:

  • They start looking after themselves better. Suppose they start showering more often, wearing more perfume, getting a new haircut, and wearing new clothes. When someone cheats, they tend to go into dating mode.
  • They suddenly avoid physical contact with you. If your partner stops expressing their physical affection abruptly (like kissing, cuddling, caressing, any tactile contact), then that is a sign that something has changed.
  • They avoid serious conversations. If they switch to their phone, start fiddling with objects on the table, smile, and change the subject, it is a sure sign that they are uncomfortable.
  • They express negative body language. If they cross their arms when you are near, move away from you when you get closer, or face away from your direct line of sight. These are signs that your partner is avoiding you.
  • They suddenly feel more confident and happy. This is a very big sign that they enjoy the newly found confidence they’re expressing.
  • They start rocking back and forth. If they can’t seem to stay in one place or rock back and forth, they are most likely nervous around you.
  • They hide their phone. If your partner is always on their phone, conscious about its whereabouts, and takes it away when going to the bathroom at a restaurant, then most likely they have something to hide.
  • They get more creative in bed. If your partner suddenly proposes new positions or demands something you’ve never tried before, it signals that they have gained sexual confidence.
  • They become more stressed. Bearing the weight of a big secret can make a person constantly nervous and stressed. They may feel tired, aggressive, and withdrawn.

2. Staying Off Big Commitments

Joint purchases like buying a car or a new house together demonstrate that people plan to stay together in the long term. If your partner hesitates to make significant commitments together with you, this may signal that they are planning their way to back out of your relationship. It is much easier to pull out of the relationship quickly if you are not bonded by obligations.

Of course, your partner may just have financial concerns unrelated to cheating. You have to approach them to discuss the issue first, and if it’s not related to money and their answer is fumbled and unclear - something is wrong.

3. Flying Under The Radar

If your partner is cheating on you, they will most likely not answer your messages or calls during that time. This means there will be a high increase in periods when they are unreachable through any means of communication and have prepared some excuse for this.

Common excuses include working late nights, business trips, dead phone batteries, traffic jams, loss of signal, meetings with friends you’ve never heard of, working out longer in the gym, or simply that they didn’t see you calling.

People that cheat almost always have someplace else to be. A person guilty of cheating will repeatedly try to find spare time in their day to spend on their affair. Any sudden changes in a person’s schedule may signal that they are trying to free up more time for something (or someone) else.

4. Phone & Computer Passwords

If your partner's phone or computer suddenly started requiring a password, then most likely, that’s not a good sign. While you should respect your partner’s personal space - besides a birthday gift or a surprise romantic dinner for you two, there should be nothing that needs to be hidden on a phone or a laptop.

Suppose you see that your partner has started deleting text messages, starting secret chats, turning off notifications, or deleting their browsing history more frequently than before. In that case, you may have a problem.

Cheaters tend to guard their dirty secrets as if their lives depend on it, so if you ask to use their phone or access their computer and they say no, and try to think up some excuse quickly - this is a sure sign that something is wrong. They wouldn’t want you to use their phones or see the inboxes of their social media profiles as they know that messages from the other person could come at any time.

Bonus tip: Do they have any apps that should not be on their phone? Apps like Tinder are designed specifically for hooking up people for romantic relationships. Active dating profiles are sure signs of a cheating wife or husband.

5. Mysterious Expenses

Having an affair is expensive. Things like gifts, dinners at restaurants, hotel rooms, weekend trips, wine & flowers all cost money. So if you see that there are unexplained expenses or suddenly less money on your partner’s bank accounts, then there is a high chance that this money is being spent on a lover.

If you notice purchases from places that you’ve never been together before on the credit card statement or see large cash withdrawals (so as to hide the location of expense), then this may scream infidelity. Let the bank statement help catch a cheating spouse.

Suppose your thrifty partner is driving around in a brand new car or is wearing expensive cologne or jewelry, but their financial situation has not changed. In that case, this can be a clear sign that they are showing off for someone or even received these things as a gift from that person.

6.Friends Seem to Act Different

Friends are the first to know if a person is cheating. You will be the last to find out.

If your husband is a cheater, then he will most likely brag about his new affair to his friends over a beer at the pub. If you have a cheating wife, she will spill the beans on the new romance to her girlfriends over a glass of wine for them to be jealous. Whatever the occasion, close friends are usually the first to know about a person being unfaithful.

While a cheating partner is emotionally prepared to keep this secret, it may become a burden for the friends. This knowledge typically causes common friends to feel uncomfortable around you. This results in them either trying to avoid you entirely or attempting to overcompensate this feeling by being extra nice and polite with you. In any case, asking your friends “Is my wife cheating?” isn’t the best idea.

7. Sharing Too Many Details

Suppose you asked your partner how their day was and got a long detailed answer with a list of the places they have been to and what exactly they did at what time. Nothing wrong with that, right? Wrong. Cheaters usually think through their alibi upfront to make the facts fit together. Liars typically say too much with excess information to make their story more plausible and believable.

So next time you ask how the office party went and get a response with a complete list of guests, what each one of them said, what was served, and a minute-by-minute script of the event - be sure that your partner has something to hide.

8. Sharing Nothing

In contrast to the point above, if you ask how your partner’s day was and get a cold “fine” on a regular basis, then this may mean that you are no longer the center of their life and the most interesting aspects of their day are shared with another person.

This can be more even more crushing than a sexual affair as the intimacy of your partner’s day-to-day life is being given to a new person. All the news, updates, feelings are being shared with someone else, and you no longer deserve more than a simple “fine”.

9. Different Tastes And Interests

Your partner may just be exploring new horizons or looking for new inspiration, but they also may want to impress a new person by matching their hobbies and interests.

If your partner was always into computer games and suddenly takes an interest in horseback riding, or if their taste in music was always jazz and now start going out clubbing “because a cool new DJ is coming to town”, then they may have found someone they want to impress by liking what they like.

They are fascinated with the person they are cheating with and absorb every detail of their character because they are at that stage of a relationship when they are crazy about everything regarding that person.

10. Unusually Good in Bed

You may have noticed that something changed in your sexual life - your partner has picked up some new tricks. Whether it is good foreplay or some techniques and positions that you’ve never heard of, your partner either wants to spice things up in your relationship and did his research or simply is sleeping and experimenting with someone else and is applying newly found sexual knowledge with you also.

11. Treating You Different

When a person is attracted to someone, they get drawn to all the positive characteristics of that person. If your partner fell in love with someone and is constantly thinking about them, this may make you second best in their eyes.

They may suddenly become critical about your looks, behavior, actions, words and react aggressively to anything you do. This can happen when a person starts comparing you to their lover and realizes that their lover wins this comparison.

Husbands that cheat usually compare the looks and body physique of their partner with their affair, while wives that cheat may compare the intellect, influence, and financial position of their partner. These comparisons result in frustration, aggression, and disappointment in their partner.

12. Sudden Bursts of Attention

Couples grow apart, that’s okay. But if your partner is suddenly interested in you after not paying attention to your relationship for a long time, things aren’t that good.

Your partner may feel guilty and try to make up for their inadequate acts behind your back. They can feel ashamed of having an affair and sense the need to make it up to you somehow, such as buying you a gift or spending time with you at a place you both used to like.

If your partner starts calling and texting you more often than usual, then they may actually be checking where you are at the moment so that you don’t run into each other. After all, they wouldn’t want you to catch them cheating accidentally.

13 .Putting The Blame on You

A cheating partner constantly feels the pressure of guilt. To relieve themselves of this guilt and justify their behavior, they push the blame on their partner. They start believing that you don’t look the way you did before, you’re not the person they married, or you don’t appreciate all the great things they do for you. So in their minds, they deserve to have a little pleasure elsewhere.

Often during heated conversations and conflicts, these internal justifications reveal themselves. They accidentally may uncover these hidden beliefs that you are not worthy of them and put less into your relationship than they do. If something like this happens, it could signify that they are trying to justify their affair with someone else.

They may also get frustrated with the little things that never bothered them before. Habits like loud eating noises, not putting the dishes away, leaving clothes on the couch, etc., can start driving your partner crazy as they unconsciously try to find flaws in you to rationalize pulling out of the relationship.

14. Accusations of Cheating

Ok, this is a weird one. But you may be surprised at how many cheaters use this technique. By taking the defensive stance, cheating partners think they can take off any suspicions from themselves. When the focus is shifted from their inconsistent behavior, you concentrate on trying to prove that you are faithful.

You are less likely to speak up about the things that seem strange about your partner as you don’t want to upset them, given that they are already worried that you’re cheating. This also gives them a reason to distance themselves from you for some time away to think (or whatever they may want to be doing away from you).

It could also be a genuine thought of your partner that you could be cheating, since if they could get away with it without you knowing, then so could you.

15. Forgetting What Stories They Told You

If your partner is unsure if you’ve already heard a story that they are telling you or if they repeatedly tell the same story or say the same joke, it may mean that they have multiple listeners.

It is very hard to keep track of what information your partner has shared with each person, especially if they perceive them identically as their partner. They can confuse favorite colors, food, interests, names of relatives, important dates, and stories they’ve told between you and their affair.

16. Hiding You on Social Media

In the digital age, one of the more common ways of finding a lover or an affair is through online channels like social media. Established couples are open and comfortable about sharing their relationship with the public. This means that they post pictures with their partners, tag them on photos, like and comment on their posts.

If you notice that your partner has become secretive about your relationship on social media, hides your mutual photos, does not tag you on posts, hides their comments, or even restricts stories with you on them - they are most likely shopping around for a new fling.

Of course, the fact that your partner doesn’t hide you on social media does not necessarily mean that they are faithful to you - their affair may even know about your existence and that they are the lover. Some people are perfectly fine knowing that they are ruining someone’s relationship. As a side note, most cheaters never use their real profiles but rather create new accounts that they use specifically for cheating.

This brings us to the next point:

17. Multiple Phone Numbers

You may notice that your partner has recently started using a second phone number. They rarely get calls on that number, and it’s used for some “specific business” that your partner started to need. Moreover, this phone is used to send messages from the bathroom or some other lockable area in your home.

Cheaters use separate phone numbers to contact their affairs if they don’t want them to look up their day-to-day phone numbers to find out they have a relationship. They also would want to keep that number with any notifications switched off in case of sudden calls or text messages.

If your partner purchased a prepaid sim card, this might well mean that they have used that number to register social media accounts for the specific purpose of living a secretive double life.

18. Cheating Parents and Family Members

Another common issue is if cheating was accepted in your partner’s family. For example, your partner comes from a family where the mother cheated on the father, and they remained together. If your partner’s parents set such an example in their childhood that cheating could be accepted, the partner is likely to follow this behavior model.

Did you know? Names and Facts provides the ability to get your partner’s complete list of relatives, their addresses, phone numbers, and emails, in case you want to speak with them about this.

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19. They Have Done This Before

Once a cheater - always a cheater. If your relationship started as an affair (with your partner cheating on their ex with you), then no wonder that they will be doing it again. Or perhaps you know of instances when your partner cheated on one of their exes in their previous relationship. Maybe they had a “good reason” for doing so?

If your partner has had the tendency of being unfaithful in the past and did not make proper conclusions about those acts, they could well be doing it again, especially if they got away with it easily.

20. Sexually Transmitted Diseases

If you are showing signs or are diagnosed with an STD, it should be pretty obvious that you obtained it from your partner, who in turn has acquired it from sexual contact with another person. Probably, this is one of the most obvious signs your partner is cheating.

You should speak to your doctor to find out more details about how this disease is transmitted and if there is a chance that one of you had it for some time with symptoms appearing only now (there still is a possibility that one of you acquired this disease a long time ago and shown no signs). This may be one of the only physical signs your wife is cheating or your husband having an affair on the side.

It should be apparent that you need to speak with your partner and confront them at this stage as they are putting your health at risk for the sake of an affair.

Conclusion

cheating husband

There is no one-size-fits-all method of establishing an unfaithful partner when it comes to cheating. Cheaters tend to get creative and do whatever it takes to cover up their secret affairs. While it may be hard to pin down a cheating partner (unless you catch them during the act), there are some common patterns in behavior that all cheaters have, which we have listed in this article.

If you suspect that your partner is cheating after reading the signs above, you should definitely speak to them about your concern, as keeping this growing fear inside you is self-destructive (and will intoxicate your relationship if your partner really is faithful).

We can help you find more information about your suspected partner’s affair. If you know the name of the potential lover of your partner, you can run a background check on Names and Facts to uncover more information about that person.



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FAQ

1. Are there guaranteed signs of cheating?

Guaranteed signs of cheating are a confession or if you caught them red-handed. Everything else would only indirectly indicate your partner’s infidelity. You can try to find out if your partner is cheating online by accessing their private profiles and messages though we strongly do not recommend breaching other peoples’ privacy.

2. Is my boyfriend cheating?

If you’re asking yourself this question, then you probably have read the article and found at least some signs your boyfriend is cheating on you. The only way to find out is to gather enough proof to confront them and have them confess. Want to catch your boyfriend cheating? You may need to hire a private investigator to capture them during the process.

3. Is my girlfriend cheating?

While 23% of male Americans cheat, only 13% of females have ever cheated on their partner. If you have found signs she's cheating, then the only way to confirm your fears is to gather concrete facts about your girlfriend or wife and speak to them directly.

4. Why do people cheat?

People become unfaithful for a number of reasons. Some people have deeply troubled relationships that they avoid facing directly and prefer to engage in romances on the side, some need a boost to their self-esteem, some have the urge to splash out sexual energy and feel awkward approaching their partner with their desires, and some just like “to spice things up”.

5. What do I do if I find out that my partner is cheating on me?

It’s complicated, and it’s really up to you. There are numerous examples of relationships that were saved by a professional psychologist or counselor. You will need to work out an action plan individually as we cannot take the responsibility to dictate what you do with the information that you have uncovered.