Do you suspect your spouse is having an extramarital affair? It is challenging to prove it. Anyway, when your spouse is unfaithful to you, he/she unavoidably leaves a trail of clues as long as you know what to look for. And the more signs you find, the more likely you are to make a correct judgment.
Here are some suspicious and subtle signs your spouse is having an affair:
(1) Your spouse is paying special attention to his/her appearance:
Maybe you have been married for years; in your impression, he/she has already outgrown his/her interest in fashion and makeup. But if you suddenly find your spouse is getting fond of showing up in all kinds of fashionable styles, it is very likely a sign that he/she is trying to attract other people’s attention. Especially if you are sure that his/her change in how he/she looks does not sit well with you, it is very likely that something sinister is going on; anyway, to figure out whether your spouse is having an affair, it is necessary to observe how he/she gets ready and how he/she dresses differently. For example, a cheating spouse may try to make himself/herself look pretty/handsome when he/she is getting ready to hang around outside, but after he/she comes back home, he/she looks exhausted, and he/she may spend a ridiculous length of time in the bath.
(2) He/she starts to attack you for inconsequential things:
If your spouse is cheating on you, he/she may want you to give him/her more space; and once this need is not fulfilled in the relationship, he/she may start to berate you for all kinds of things that he/she may have never cared about before. For example, he/she may yell and scream at you just because he/she thinks that you don’t clean up your room; even though you just do things in a normal way, he/she may still try to trip you up deliberately; and in your mind, there is no need for him/her to yell and scream about those trivial matters.
(3) Now you are not sure what your spouse is up to regularly:
You have lived with your spouse for a long time, and you think that you have known him/her very well. However, you have recently started to realize that he/she has turned into a completely different person. For example, you used to know with whom he/she likes to play and where he/she likes to hang out, and you used to know where he/she usually goes after work, but now you often feel puzzled about what he will do and where he will go; for example, your spouse may tell you that he/she will go to one place, but you are surprised to notice that he/she went to another unknown place. When you ask him/her why his/her schedules change, or when you ask him/her why he/she is absent or late, it seems that he could invariably find a lot of excuses, such as flat tires, traffic jams, spending extra time at the office, dead batteries, and so on.
As explained above, when you are not sure what your spouse is up to regularly, there must be an underlying problem that he/she doesn’t want to tell you, and hence, you should pay attention to whether it is about an extramarital affair or not.
(4) Your spouse is losing interest in you:
If your spouse is cheating on you, probably he/she is always thinking about the new date, and he/she tends to lose interest in you. As a result, you can sense that he/she acts strangely and that he/she is trying to keep his/her distance from you, and you can feel distant, removed, alienated from him/her in your married life, especially when you are sleeping with him/her in the bedroom; typically, he/she may feel reluctant to kiss or cuddle you. Of course, sometimes your spouse may be too tired or stressed to have sex. However, it is also quite common that a cheating spouse turns the other one down in bed when he/she has someone else in his/her mind.
In a nutshell, sometimes married couples need to learn to grow through dry spells; however, if your spouse has not shown any interest in you for a period and you are sure that nothing major has happened, cheating may be a reason for lack of intimacy in your married life.
(5) Your spouse becomes nervous and angry around you:
Probably, you still remember that your spouse was so kind to you; but now, it is often the case that he/she gets frustrated and angry with you suddenly. In such a situation, probably this does not mean his/her true feelings for you; instead, maybe he/she is just projecting his/her insecurity and fear on you.
Surely, it is true that everyone suffers stress or mood swings from time to time, even sometimes we are suddenly moody without explanation. However, if your spouse has been easy to get angry at you about things that just don’t make sense, most likely it is a cover-up – a cheating spouse may grieve at the bad relationship status, he/she may lay the blame on you and hold a grudge against you, he/she may show his/her emotions without talking about what causes him/her to feel angry. By the way, if you wonder how to deal with your spouse’s anger, you might go on to read the post below:
How to manage anger in marriage – Deal with your & your spouse’s anger
On the other hand, one spouse may feel remorseful and guilty after cheating, and hence he/she may feel nervous in front of the other spouse; so during conversations with your spouse, you might observe whether he/she is rocking back and forth. If he/she often appears nervous in front of you without legitimate reasons being given, he/she must be afraid that you will know something about him/her; hence that should be viewed as one of the suspicious signs your spouse is having an affair.
(6) Emotional intimacy starts to fade:
At the time the two of you were in the honeymoon stage of your marriage, you two were so attached, and you two were so reluctant to part. However, gradually, you two began to understand that a long term relationship could not be so physically intimate all the time. And hence, you focused on securely bonding with each other on a deep emotional level; so when you were apart, you still trusted each other by sharing desires, secrets, and other interesting aspects of each other’s life. You both certainly know the importance of maintaining emotional intimacy for the long-term relationship.
Hence, if your spouse always seems less emotionally intimate and less vulnerable with you and meanwhile it seems that he also doesn’t want you to be emotionally intimate and vulnerable, there is a possibility that his/her focus has shifted to an affair partner.
(7) There are unexplained expenses:
If you find some odd charges on your spouse’s credit cards, or if you notice that you miss a sudden subtraction of money in your or your spouse’s bank accounts, investment accounts, retirement accounts, etc., that may be one of the suspicious signs that your spouse is having an affair. In this case, you might ask your spouse about those specific expenses, probably his/her answer will be brief, evasive, and constrained if he/she is cheating on you; of course, he/she may embezzle the money for a variety of murky purposes; but anyway, extramarital infidelity should not be excluded as a possible motive for his/her doing so. After all, infidelity costs money – he/she has to spend money on gifts, trips, hotel rooms, dinners, etc.
Furthermore, the cost of cheating can quickly add up. So, if there are large cash withdrawals or hard evidence of his/her purchases from places you never or rarely frequent, the likelihood of cheating on you increases.
(8) He/she suddenly asks for much privacy:
It is natural and normal for everyone to preserve some privacy. And as regards how much privacy a person needs in a relationship, it can vary from person to person. For example, some people may think it is OK to share the passwords of their emails and social media accounts with their partners, however, some people don’t think so.
And the point here is that if your spouse used to hold a consistent attitude towards his/her privacy, but now changes dramatically without any good reason, then his/her fidelity is open to doubt. For example, if he/she used to keep his/her phone unlocked and throw it carelessly, but now it seems that he/she pays particular attention to check whether his/her phone is locked when he/she is putting it aside, or maybe he/she used to leave his/her social media accounts open when he/she walked away from his/her computer, but now he/she always signs out those accounts before walking away; when you ask him/her why he/she does that way, he/she may insist that it is the right of his/her privacy.
In short, a sudden, unexpected privacy demand is probably a red flag of his/her infidelity.
(9) Your spouse is not accountable for his/her highly irregular behavior:
If your spouse is having an affair, he may refuse to be accountable for his/her infidelity. Instead, he/she may respond defensively without a moment’s thought unless you catch him/her red-handed; for example, he/she may ask you about what you do when he/she is away from home. He/she may also blame you and accuse you of not trusting him/her; he/she may continue to spend little time with you, and he/she may still be away from home often; anyway, he/she refuses to tell you why he/she is distancing himself/herself from you, no matter how sincerely you want him to open up to you. In a word, being not accountable for his/her highly irregular behavior may be one of the subtle signs your spouse is having an affair.
(10) There are noticeable changes in his/her day-to-day behavior:
A cheating spouse is sure to make some changes in his/her day-to-day behavior. For example, a cheating spouse often looks impatient when he/she has to do stay at home to do extra household chores; and to hang out with the third-party regularly, he/she may state that he/she has been working overtime recently, or that he/she has to go out to talk about business; if you attempt to pump him/her for details on what he/she needs to do outside, he/she may become particularly evasive or decline to be specific; however, in your impression, he/she used to be excited to share every day’s events; or even though it seems that he/she still provide details as many as possible when you ask him/her what he/she did outside, ultimately you find that some details that accompany his/her statements were inconsistent.
A big number of cheating spouses are aware that an extramarital affair can deliver a devastating blow to their marriages; however, they do not want to divorce, and meanwhile, they also want to maintain their affairs; and hence they manage to hide their affairs in front of their spouses. Changes in their daily routines seem to be a good excuse for them.
To tell whether your spouse is cheating, don’t ignore your gut feelings：
We all have a natural ability to sense the feelings of the people around us. Sometimes your spouse goes through difficult times and needs some alone space and time, and it is still disconcerting for you to feel that your spouse is pulling away from you, but fortunately, it turns out that you are worried about nothing; but many times, when there is something wrong with our relationships, we can discern some subtle signs, and our gut feelings are right.
It is undeniable that infidelity can happen to a marriage, whether the marriage is happy or unhappy. Whether or not your spouse is cheating on you is certainly a topic that you dislike to talk about, but you can’t avoid this eternal topic throughout your married life; and when you hold a serious doubt about whether your spouse is cheating, it may also not be wrong to listen to your gut feelings; unfortunately, a huge number of people choose to ignore their gut feelings and simply rely on their logical reasoning, therefore they miss a lot of subtle signs, and eventually, they miss the chance of salvaging their relationships.
The final word:
When you suspect your spouse is cheating, as a faithful spouse, you need to utilize common sense; and if you always sense something is wrong with the relationship, you do not have to deny yourself, and don’t deceive yourself into thinking that nothing is wrong. Whether your suspicion is correct or not eventually, it probably indicates that your marriage is hitting a rough patch, and you need to take action to repair the failing relationship.
For more marriage-saving tips, you might go on to watch the video below to follow the comprehensive guidance that is offered by Brad Browning, a marriage coach with 12+ years of experience:
Maybe you are also interested in the related posts below:
6 tips on preventing extramarital affairs – Protect your marriage.
How to deal with a spouse’s emotional affair – Save the marriage.
What to do when your spouse wants to leave you – Save your marriage.
6 tips on how to survive in an unhappy marriage without divorce.
How to deal with resentment in your marriage – Reduce resentment.
Don’t miss these subtle signs you are in a loveless marriage.
Unhappy marriage signs – How to know if you are in an unhappy marriage.
4 basic tips on how to get through a rough patch in a marriage.