4 Signs Your Spouse Is Cheating On You
There are always signs. You just don't always know where to look.
Looking back, things are always so much clearer.
You can see the missteps. The failures. The lies and red flags.
Things are always so much clearer when not looking through the veil of love. Love has a way of distorting what you see. What you feel. And yet, looking back, it’s obvious relationship problems were closer than they appeared.
If you weren’t in love with the person you probably would have seen the warning signs. You could have avoided the accident. The pain and suffering that came with it.
Maybe I didn’t want to believe my wife could cheat. Could take business trips with secret lovers. Could arrange for the other man to meet her on long drives or on family vacations.
Whatever I wanted to believe then, I now see the warning signs as clear as day. And maybe you can now too.
1. Everything is Perfectly Explained
I worked at home. I’ve worked from home for well over a decade. And so, while we were together, I would await the arrival of my wife from work.
One day, she arrived late. I didn’t think much of it. Work happens. Traffic happens. Things happen.
And then the next day she arrived home late.
And the next day.
And the next.
The pattern grew into an everyday routine. Every day came with an excuse. A perfectly detailed explanation. Every single time. Down to the smallest detail. Work needed her to file a very specific form, then the next day that very exact form needed to be altered. An accident, with a sporty silver two-door car with an old pickup, the bumper rusted, a woman was crying while a family paced.
So many details. Exact details. Details to prevent any kind of questioning, because how could she be doing anything other than what she was saying when offering up those kinds of details?
I didn’t realize it at the time, but the details were too exact. Too specific. Too concrete. Mapped out down to the second. To the color. To the smell.
But how many exact details do you actually remember about work? About driving home? About anything really. There’s such a thing as too many details. The only people that want to paint a perfect picture of memories are the ones that are hiding something underneath the paint.
After weeks of returning home late, I felt something amiss, and yet the details were so perfect I couldn’t argue.
I should have argued because the details were so perfect.
2. Hurt When Doing Something Nice
A lot can be gleaned from a person’s initial reaction to something. When introducing a sudden change into a conversation or moment in time a person will always react, even if it’s just a subtle facial expression. It says a lot. If only I knew how to read the reactions.
Because I worked from home I liked to, sporadically, pick up flowers, hide them somewhere in the house, and then when she was doing something, like washing dishes after dinner or kicking back with a glass of wine, I’d break them out and present them to her. It wouldn’t always be flowers. Sometimes a small token of appreciation. Something she had eyed at the store months earlier. A little item to put a smile on her face.
And they always did put a smile on her face. Until they didn’t. There came a moment in time when the first reaction to a fist full of roses was sadness. Her eyes would droop, her mouth would sink, her shoulders would slump.
But just for a second.
She’d catch herself and the smile and surprise and appreciation would bubble up. But I always saw that first display of sadness. As if doing something thoughtful caused her pain.
I didn’t think much of it. Because if I asked she waved it off or would deflect the question.
Something in my gut said something was off, but I didn’t listen to my gut.
Problem is, outside of occasional indigestion, the gut is rarely wrong.
3. New Sex Moves
When you’ve been with someone for an extended period of time you more or less know the encyclopedia of sex moves they draw from. It might not be a complete Encyclopedia Britannica. There are a few volumes missing, but they’ve used up their moves on you.
Sure, things might be spliced together, they might swap a thumb for a finger or they might change up the rotation, but, in general, after months, if not years, you’ve seen it all.
So when they break out something new, it’s surprising. Maybe as a man, the introduction of new experimentation was enough of a distraction for me to miss out on what was going on behind the scenes. It prevented me from looking into her eyes and seeing the flicking light behind them. Or maybe I simply missed it as a human being, and it’s not a gender-specific thing at all.
We didn’t have an exciting sex life. I’d probably use boring to describe it, but even that feels like I’m using too many letters. She didn’t give blowjobs because it hurt her jaw. She needed to be on her back because otherwise, she felt fat. Butt stuff...well, I don’t even need to talk about that. I won’t even call it vanilla because vanilla is delicious. This was plain, flavorless, and void of personality.
And then, out of nowhere, she got into rimming. And random sexual exploitations behind bars in the middle of the night. Those changes excited me. They proved to be something new. They proved to be nothing but distractions.
I stumbled too close to her secret life, so she took me into a back alley. She used new moves the other man apparently liked. Apparently, she wanted to try me on for size with the additional knowledge.
It’s sometimes difficult to think when blood rushes from the brain to other parts of the body. But even then, I should have seen the signs.
4. Where’s The Proof?
I’ve read so many times of the obvious signs someone is cheating on you. The random showers. The late nights. Tasting differently. I didn’t notice any of these things.
Maybe because I didn’t know to look for them at the time.
Sometimes you fail to taste a new recipe until someone points it out to you. There’s a hint of clove instead of cinnamon. Serrano instead of jalapeno. Lies instead of truths.
In the end, I uncovered enough stones to see the dirty underside of her secret life. I poured all the puzzle pieces onto the table. All I had to do was piece them together.
I assumed I knew what was going on, but even then I didn’t have any concrete proof.
And then it happened.
A text message to my phone on the kitchen table. At least I thought it was my phone. We both had the same early iPhone. They both made the same received text noise. They both had the same unlock screen.
But only her phone had the incoming message from her lover.
A message never meant for my eyes.
I asked her about the man’s name. She looked blankly at me, but I saw the initial emotional reaction. The reaction of fear. Flowers brought about sadness. Questions brought about fear.
She denied knowing the name.
I held up her phone and said he just texted her. I wanted her to come clean. I wanted to give her the chance the open up. To give her peace. I didn’t think I needed to pry.
She refused to give any ground. To admit to anything. I had to read the message out loud. The previous message out loud. And the one before that. I had to keep going until she told me to stop.
She fought until the very end. Whether she was fighting to protect her secret life or fighting to protect me from it I don’t know.
Not that it matters.
Because whenever someone is cheating, there’s always a trail. There’s always debris left behind in the wake of their messy life. Adultery isn’t neat and tidy. There are signs of it. There always have been. There always will be.
You just have to know what to look for.