Unfortunately, cheating is one of the biggest problems in relationships today. There are so many reasons why it happens but that doesn’t make it okay. When there are signs of cheating happening in a relationship, it can damage the trust between two people like never before.
I always say that trust is something that arrives on foot and leaves on horseback. In other words, it takes a long time to build trust and it can be broken in the blink of an eye.
If you’re reading this article today, it means that you’re feeling suspicious about your partner’s behavior. Something isn’t sitting right in your gut and you’re wondering if he or she is messing around behind your back. In the majority of cases, when a person feels like something is off, it’s because there is.
That said, it doesn’t automatically mean that your partner is being unfaithful to you! I wanted to write today’s article to give you a clear idea of what to keep an eye out for if you want to know that the one you love is cheating, and how to determine whether that is the problem or if it is something else.
This is one of the most common topics we encounter in our one on one coaching sessions, so we have been able to pinpoint the concrete signs of cheating. By the time you get to the end of this article, you should have a very clear picture of what is going on in your relationship with the one you love. So, let’s get started!
When someone reaches out to us for help with this topic, they usually don’t have concrete evidence that their partner is cheating, but they can’t shake the feeling that it’s happening. They have an insatiable urge to go through their partner’s phone, emails, or social media in the hopes of finding proof.
I do want to start things off by specifying that in a huge number of these cases, the partner in question isn’t actually cheating! It’s important to give your partner the benefit of the doubt and start our analysis by taking a look at where these suspicions are stemming from.
So, my first question for you is if this is the first time you have been worried that your partner is cheating, or if you have felt like all your partners were cheating in the past? I ask this because very often, suspicions related to cheating, or the search for signs of cheating often stem from something that happened in the past that is now being applied to the current situation.
Sometimes it stems from a personal experience, and sometimes it stems from something you witnessed in someone else’s life. It could be a parent, a family member, or even a close friend. I’d like you to take a moment and consider whether a negative experience like this may have been infused into your ability to trust your partner at this time.
For some people, this will be the case, and for others, there will actually be an issue with cheating taking place in the relationship. The key is to cover your bases as we move forward.
It’s not uncommon to believe the worst because you’ve seen the worst become a reality in the past. No one wants to get hurt, and no one wants to get hurt AGAIN. It is just crucial that you pinpoint where these suspicions are coming from so that you make sure that you avoid sabotaging this relationship.
I’ve seen this happen so many times so I want to make sure that we steer clear of it. If your partner is not cheating, it will be very hard to come back from an accusation that bears this type of weight. If you accuse someone of cheating and it turns out to be wrong, this is another way that trust can be shattered in a relationship.
So, if you do not have a concrete reason to have a doubt, and you do not see the signs I am about to go over in this relationship, don’t create a rift in the trust between you for no reason.
Now, as I said, intuition is very powerful and it should not be ignored. The key to success is reviewing where these feelings are stemming from. Does it stem from insecurities or does it stem from evidence? The moment that the topic of cheating enters the conversation, the dynamic in the relationship changes.
The topic of trust is in question, and chances are that when you’re doubtful of your partner’s faithfulness, you’re going to cling to them a bit more and you’re going to become a bit more controlling. The more suffocated your partner feels, the more they’re going to want to pull away, and the unhappier you both will become. As you can see, this is a very delicate topic and we need to approach it accordingly.
If you really feel like your significant other is cheating, then you deserve to know the answer. With that in mind, let’s take a look at some of the concrete signs of cheating in a relationship.
Now it’s time to dive deeper into this topic so that you can learn how to recognize the biggest signs of cheating in a relationship. After working with couples and individuals over the course of many years, I have noticed an interesting pattern.
Oftentimes, when a person is cheating on their partner, they will actually start to accuse their partner of cheating! It sounds counterintuitive, I know, but it happens because the person who is cheating begins to feel guilty and they use this as a way to try to deflect the guilt. They struggle to process their emotions and insecurities, so they try to find a scapegoat.
So pay attention to how your partner is acting around you and whether or not they need constant reassurance from you that you aren’t cheating.
Do they need to know what you’re doing and who you’re with all the time? Does the presence of members of new people in your pictures on social media make them uncomfortable? Pay attention to this, because it’s a powerful indicator that something isn’t right under the surface.
Another big sign of cheating that I’ve noticed over the years is when your partner starts to act completely differently. Some common examples are hiding their phone, changing their passwords, leaving the room to take calls, hiding their text messages, deleting texts and emails… When people start to drastically change their behaviors, it can be a sign of cheating.
This can also be applied to sudden mood swings where the person suddenly becomes very emotional or aggravated, but they don’t really communicate why they’re feeling upset. If you have picked up on these signs, it’ll be important to open conversation about what is going on.
That said, I am not telling you to sit down and immediately accuse your partner of being unfaithful to you. The best way to navigate this is to try to talk about what has been going on with your partner that has been making them behave in new ways.
Make sure you don’t go into this in attack-mode and I do not recommend trying to spy on them. Instead, open conversation in a loving way and convey the fact that you’re concerned about their well-being, you love them, and you want to make sure that you’re both happy in the relationship.
If you go into this with guns blazing, you’re only going to make your partner go directly into defense-mode and put his or her walls up. As you can imagine, this isn’t going to get you anywhere and it’s going to wind up in a fight. Instead, check in with him or her and say that you want to make sure that you guys are doing okay because you’ve picked up on some shifts that have made you feel a bit uneasy.
Try to open channels of communication in order to learn more about what’s going on and then potentially ease your way into the topic of cheating.
Like I said above, try to make sure that you have solid proof before accusing a person of cheating on you, and be careful to not view a situation through the lens of personal insecurities. To help you through this complex process, we have done our best to create extensive content on the topic. If you go to our YouTube Channel, you will see that there are many videos outlining the most common signs of cheating in a relationship. There are also numerous articles on the subject on this website, and to top it all off, we have combined all of our expertise into a new program designed to help you repair a relationship after infidelity.
If you find that cheating has happened in your relationship, you can repair the damage by implementing the tools and techniques that we have made available to you in the brand new program. To access it, just click the link. You can also always reach out to us for one on one coaching and we can help you to analyze the situation, but we can also give you tools to rectify the situation if it turns out that your significant other has cheated. There are so many cases in which a relationship can bounce back after cheating, and it really all depends on how badly you want to. If you a person can take ownership of their actions and use this situation as an opportunity to grow, then you can turn this painful experience into a transformative one.
I do want to talk a bit about the signs that your partner will cheat again, because you need to be very careful if you pick up on any of these…
What is considered cheating in a relationship and how do you fix it?
Here at Happily Committed, we do believe in forgiveness, but the person who cheated needs to have a sense of guilt and remorse. They need to understand the gravity of their mistake. If they don’t, then there is a high chance that they will do it again. So, the first sign I want to go over with you has to do with how your partner reacted when you found out about the cheating. If he or she denied it fully and completely, and the only reason that they told you was because you found out in some other way, you need to be careful. It means that this person may not carry a sense of accountability that would prevent them from doing it again.
In some cases, the person who cheated continues to deny it even after they’ve been presented with undeniable proof, and this is a huge red flag. In essence, this indicates that he or she isn’t upset because they hurt you or because they shattered the trust in your relationship. They’re upset because you found out. You have to be aware of how likely your partner is to cheat again so that you can assess whether or not this is something that you want to continue working on.
Another sign that you need to keep an eye on is when your partner keeps trying to justify it. You saw the signs of cheating, they turned out to be true, you confronted them about it, AND they keep trying to tell you that it makes sense that they would cheat because of X, Y, and Z, we’ve got a problem. Again, this shows that they don’t feel the remorse that you need to feel to prevent you from cheating again. If the person doesn’t see that their actions deeply hurt the relationship and has seriously damaged its likelihood of success, it’s not a good sign.
People make solid, long-term changes because they’re inspired to change. It’s not because they have no choice. A person isn’t going to stop cheating if it makes you feel unhappy; they’ll stop because it makes THEM feel unhappy. This is why it’s so important to take a good look at your partner’s feelings about the cheating.
In addition to this, if your partner cheated and doesn’t acknowledge how much this hurts you, it’s not a good sign. If he or she isn’t shocked and embarrassed by how much they hurt you, it means that they’re to showing empathy. Empathy, as you can imagine, is a key ingredient to bouncing back after infidelity. Your partner needs to fundamentally understand how important it is to treat you well, and if they can’t see that their actions directly impact your experience in this relationship, then there is a serious disconnect, and a serious problem. They’re not considering your perspective and how it makes you feel. Without knowing or caring about how you feel, they won’t be as motivated to change the behavior. Empathy is such an important part of what it means to be connected to your partner in a relationship. Without it, it’s incredibly hard to foster a solid relationship where you grow and operate as a team. You need to learn how both of you are experiencing the relationship, because it is an enormous component of what a relationship is.
Being able to keep an eye on the other person’s experience in the relationship is essential. And I’m not just talking about cheating here. This is something that extends into the little things like cleaning up after yourself in the home you share, and thinking about how that affects your partner’s experience. If you don’t factor in how they feel and how your actions affect them, it will be very challenging to develop a healthy relationship. A big part of what love is is paying attention to one another and thinking about what you can do to lift your partner higher. So, if your partner is denying the fact that they cheated, if they aren’t showing remorse, if they’re justifying their actions and if they aren’t acknowledging your pain, it is important to note that he or she is likely to cheat again.
If you see these signs, then you need to analyze what that means for you. Do you want to continue to invest in this relationship knowing that there’s a risk of cheating happening again? Do you feel that if you were to approach the issue in a different way, that he or she would see things more clearly and change their attitude? You have to think about the variables that are in your control and the variables that are not in your control. I say this because the ones I just went over with here are not really in your control. Your partner’s ability to develop empathy is a very personal thing for him or her and has very little to do with you.
So you’ve got to think about what you can do on your end to make the relationship better, and you must keep your eyes open regarding what your partner can do and what your partner is WILLING to do. If he or she is not capable of feeling guilt or remorse, then you have to realize that that is their issue and not yours. The thing that is in your control is whether you stay or whether you go, and this is a choice that you must make wisely.
If you read this section and you don’t see these red flags in your partner, then I want you to know that it is highly likely that you’ll be able to work together to repair the damage. If that’s the case, let’s take a look at how to put the pieces back together in a relationship.
As you know, I don’t like to sugarcoat things, so I will tell you right off the bat that it will not be easy to heal a relationship after cheating. That said, it IS possible. Your relationship is not doomed, but you both need to be willing to put in the work. That is why remorse and empathy are so important. Without them, your partner is not going to be able to meet you halfway. In addition to this, you must also realize that this isn’t something that gets fixed overnight.
When it comes to putting a relationship back together and fixing it after a person cheated, the person who cheated has to take accountability. This isn’t going to work if they do not do this. You need accountability, honesty, and transparency. This makes it possible to dive into the most important question of all: What motivated the cheating? There is always a reason behind it, and part of the healing process requires that you both take an honest look at what that is. if you don’t know the root of the problem, how are you going to fix it? The truth is that cheating is typically a symptom of a deeper problem. Yes, it’s a serious issue, but it is not the main issue, and this is something that many people don’t realize.
One of the most common causes of cheating is an emotional disconnect. Sometimes a person will cheat because they stopped feeling special to their significant other, and so they make the mistake of seeking attention, affection, and validation elsewhere. Think about what kinds of emotional elements could be at play here, and how you can work as a team to overcome them. You can think about activities that help you two to get closer together and feel more connected. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us for one on one coaching so that we can ask you targeted questions that help us assess the situation and subsequently identify the right solutions. To work with me or a member of my team, just click here.
It is so important to stay ahead of these issues so that you can keep something like cheating from happening, but I don’t want you to think that it’s too late now. The simple fact that you’re reading this article right now is an indicator that you are willing to make an effort to make it work. When a person just throws in the towel and gives up, it means it’s over. But if you are actively going out of your way to see what you can do and how to fix your relationship post cheating, you’re on the right path.
Every situation is unique, so I cannot give you a one size fits all solution in this article, but I can tell you the solution to the problem lies in analyzing the root of the problem. Work with your partner to identify why the cheating took place, and then you can start to make long-term changes.
So, to summarize what we went over in today’s article, if you are suspicious of your partner cheating, you have to keep an eye out for:
Then, if it turns out that your partner was in fact cheating, you’re going to need to pay attention to the signs that they’ll cheat again:
If you don’t see these signs, the chances of you two being able to repair this relationship are quite high! We are here to help you every step of the way, so please don’t hesitate to contact us.
I sincerely wish you all the very best in life and love,
Your coach when you’re looking for signs of cheating
No spam, notifications only about news, events and updates.
“How long before moving in together?” This is a question I’ve been asked time and time again throughout my coaching sessions, and it’s no surprise!
A long time ago, he made a mistake that hurt you deeply. Your relationship was rocked by infidelity, but you put in the work to
Is your man dragging his feet when it comes to popping the question? In your mind, your relationship has long been ready for marriage, but
During my time as a love and relationship expert here at Happily Committed, I’ve seen every kind of relationship you can imagine. Everyone who comes
