How to Find out if Your Partner Is Cheating

It's devastating to feel that your partner is cheating on you. The suspicion comes with an uneasy feeling that never goes away until the truth is revealed. At the same time, you must be discreet and make an iron-clad case before confronting anyone.

Technology aids many budding romances these days, regardless of whether they're cheaters or eligible singles. Using technology also leaves traces behind, such as records of calls, texts, photos, locations, and email records. It's frequently possible to legally use that information to determine if a partner is cheating, such as through phone number lookup tools and username logs.

Cheating Definition

It's clearly cheating when one partner breaks a solemn promise to be physically and emotionally faithful to the other. However, cheating comes in many forms, including:

• Sexting. This is sharing intimate selfies with another person.
• Making plans to leave their partner for another person.
• Office romances. These can involve physical intimacy or emotional infidelity, or both.
• Emotional infidelity. This strong emotional attachment makes a person fantasize about leaving their current partner for someone else.
• Cyber affairs. Technology such as live video calling allows people to have virtual affairs that include everything but actual physical intimacy.

The couple in the relationship sets the definitions of fidelity and cheating. Some may explicitly allow relationships with other partners, and others may look the other way when their partner flirts or rekindles an old relationship over text messages. 

Most traditional relationships still cleave to old-fashioned roles and norms. If you are concerned that your partner is cheating, it is essential to discuss what constitutes fidelity for you. That allows your partner an opportunity to change before the situation becomes a confrontation. Before looking for evidence of an actual affair, brace yourself for the repercussions. Seek counseling to discuss the situation with a disinterested third party and consider your options. Infidelity destroys many relationships, but it can be approached and handled in many ways.

Signs That a Partner Is Cheating

When a partner suddenly becomes secretive about their online accounts phone privacy or begins taking calls in isolation, it is reasonable to conclude that they are cheating. Other signs of cheating include:

• Changing shared account passwords without notice.
• Deleting browser history on devices.
• Not accounting for time spent away from home and work.
• Changes in appearance, including renewed interest in looking attractive.
• Paranoia when questioned about their whereabouts.

How to Find Out if Your Partner is Cheating

If you're unable to find out how often your partner is using social media to share messages with a secret love interest, there may be ways around logging in with their password. These include:

• If you can access your partner's phone, check Settings to learn how much time they have been using different apps. Some apps appear to be one thing but disguise ways to send secret messages. One is called Calculator+.
• Check the phone's call history to see the most-used numbers. Run a reverse phone lookup tool to identify the owners of the numbers.
• Look for evidence of photo vaults that secretly save shared files like videos and photos. These may be PIN protected. Amazon Prime memberships also come with free vault services.
• Check the trash. A person trying to hide an affair is likely to periodically trash messages and images that might be incriminating. Still, unless their device's trash has specific settings, it may be possible to review items. Those who are tech-savvy may also be able to search a device's trash to restore deleted files and photos.
• If you think you know that your partner is on dating or hookup sites you can always make your own account and search for them by name, age, location, or interest.
• GPS is a giveaway. Most phones have GPS trackers that divulge the user's most frequently visited locations. Review the data by checking the device's location history. GPS searches, such as those used in Google maps, may also be reviewed to show places the device owner has visited.
• Phone cameras attach data to photos that reveal the photo's location. This information is found by right clicking on the image. Some social media apps like Facebook strip the data from photos uploaded to a user's account. In this case, a reverse image search online using a service like www.tineye.com can reveal potential matches for the site where the photo was taken. Reverse image searches can also cross-reference social media images with dating site profile photos.
• If none of the above methods work, you can hire a cheating spouse private investigator to conduct all necessary research to determine whether your husband or wife is cheating.

Beware that installing keyloggers or surveillance apps on your partner's phone or computer without their consent is illegal, regardless of what the app makers suggest.

Beyond the above steps, finding username records in the digital archives of social media and dating sites is another possible way to determine if your partner is cheating. Using your partner's phone, iPad, or computer, go to known dating and hookup sites like Tinder, Grindr, Match, and Adult Friend Finder. Using each letter of the alphabet in succession, see if a username automatically fills in. The password may be saved on the browser, but if you don't get the password, the username will suffice. Go to a site like ScrapersNBots.com to run a search for username records. The results will tell you how often a person with that username was on the site. Just confirm that your partner uses that name by taking the extra step to verify the username with their profile photo.

Conclusion

Cheating isn't always the end of a relationship but is undoubtedly a challenging phase. Not all partners cheat, but many will consider it if there are gaps in a relationship that provide the opportunity. Technology makes cheating much easier, but it can also provide clues that can be used to uncover infidelity.

Gathering evidence of infidelity is vital because an unsupported accusation can ruin a partnership as easily as cheating. If there's hard evidence that one partner is cheating, there is a basis for careful conversation and potential reconciliation. Unsupported accusations without evidence will only ignite an unconstructive fight.