Signs to look for ?

[adna89]

Is there a way to tell if your husband might cheat in future? what type of guys/women cheat? are there some "signs"?

[central]

There are some things that MAY indicate someone is cheating or at least thinking about it.

 

However, first ask:

- is your sex life meeting his expectations, or does he have complaints about quality and/or quantity?

- has your sex life recently changed noticeably for the worse?

- are you focusing less attention on each other, or more on something else than you have been?

- are there other issues or problems that either of you have with the relationship, such as chores, time spent with friends, family issues?

 

Any of the above can predispose someone to seek solace elsewhere.

 

As for other signs:

- a recent, unusual interest in working out, starting a diet

- upgrades in grooming and wardrobe

- suddenly working late or having to travel for work when it's not the norm

- hiding web sites, phone use, and messaging, deleting history

- locking their phone so you can't look, and not giving you the password

- an increase in the number of hang-up calls and blocked number calls

- spending more time socializing with friends without you

- significant increase or decrease in your sex life together

- significant increase in critical comments - distancing.

 

Also, narcissists may be more prone to cheating, or someone who feels entitled to things without working for them.

[No Limit]

It's impossible to tell if your husband will cheat in the future or not. However, past actions are a good indicator for future behavior. Has he cheated before?

[fellini]

For me this is the most unreliable yardstick to measure with.

 

My WW hadn't cheated during our 17 years of marriage. And I have seen threads that talk about 20, 25 years infidelity free.

 

If past actions are a good indicator that would have to also work both ways: has your spouse been faithful all these years? Yes.

 

Tomorrow: Boom!!! Affair.

 

Sorry OP but you are going to need much more than past history to work with.

 

 

However, past actions are a good indicator for future behavior. Has he cheated before?

[fellini]

Is there a way to tell if your husband might cheat in future? what type of guys/women cheat? are there some "signs"?

 

The signs are simple: S/he meets an available or agreeable person with whom to start an affair.

 

You'd be surprised at how many people suddenly just find themselves in an affair that just so happens to coincide with meeting someone willing to go there with them.

 

Opportunity knocks. Period.

[aliveagain]

The things that really jumped out at me were dressing up for attention. At first I thought it was for me than discovered it was for the attention of others. My validation wasn't enough. The other item was the need to do things on their own or with friends, how do you protect yourself if you can no longer trust them to protect you? Do not believe them when they tell you that your concerns are foolish, they will make you think your crazy. Your not crazy. Trust your gut.

[goodyblue]

For me this is the most unreliable yardstick to measure with.

 

My WW hadn't cheated during our 17 years of marriage. And I have seen threads that talk about 20, 25 years infidelity free.

 

If past actions are a good indicator that would have to also work both ways: has your spouse been faithful all these years? Yes.

 

Tomorrow: Boom!!! Affair.

 

Sorry OP but you are going to need much more than past history to work with.

 

My guy had been in his marriage 29 years and been faithful. We began our affair and his marriage was over before their 30th anniversary.

 

No way to tell if someone will cheat, unless they are a serial cheater, then count on it.

[PegNosePete]

I would say a history of cheating is a good positive indicator but not necessarily a good negative one.

 

As in... if he has cheated before, there's a good chance he will again. But just because he hasn't, doesn't mean he won't.

 

If there's no history of cheating then there's no way to tell unless you have a crystal ball. In which case what are next week's lottery numbers?

[Hope Shimmers]

I think it takes a person with a special kind of character to be able to cheat on the person they promised their life and heart to. And I don't think that character changes. Maybe there are exceptions, but not as a general rule.

 

You can be attracted to someone who is not your spouse or partner and choose not to act on it. Those are the kind of people who don't do it the first time. The people who do, have shown that they don't have that character trait, and are more likely to do it again. My opinion. I don't think it should have to be a "wake-up call" that something like that would devastate a spouse.

 

People like that tend to be self-absorbed. Or narcissistic to some degree.

[minimariah]

No way to tell if someone will cheat, unless they are a serial cheater, then count on it.

 

this.

 

no one knows what the future brings.

[Michelle ma Belle]

Is there a way to tell if your husband might cheat in future? what type of guys/women cheat? are there some "signs"?

 

Stop looking into a magic ball for what might be and spend more time working on your relationship and making it a priority NOW.

 

Then again, if you were foolish enough to marry someone with a track record of having had various indiscretions then all bets are off.

[VeryBrokenMan]

I think men and women are totally different so I cannot draw on experience but from what I've read some of the common traits that male or female cheaters have is selfishness, entitlement and narcissism. That said I think that men are primarily driven by sex initially and may get emotionally involved later. And women are primarily driven emotionally and may have sexual feelings later. So your husband would probably be driven by a desire for sex with someone else, but the thing is you could be giving him everything he needed and he would still cheat.

 

The one thing that I've read over and over is that unless you are dealing with a serial cheater affairs are often just the presentation of an opportunity. Apparently the brain chemicals that are released at the start of an affair feel so good that before the conscious decision is made to stop it you are already in too deep to stop it. That is why setting personal boundary's in opposite sex relationships is so important. So you cannot really tell who will cheat and who will not because it's based on situations and opportunity to a large extent, then character and commitment come into play.

 

Knowing what I know now, every couple should discuss all aspects of affairs and how they deal with opposite sex friends and attention before an affair ever happens. If you've not had that discussion with your husband I would start having it now.

Edited April 15, 2015 by VeryBrokenMan

[dichotomy]

The signs are simple: S/he meets an available or agreeable person with whom to start an affair.

 

You'd be surprised at how many people suddenly just find themselves in an affair that just so happens to coincide with meeting someone willing to go there with them.

 

Opportunity knocks. Period.

 

 

I think I have read that cheating (for some cheaters and particularly some men) is about clear opportunity - I mean they might not chase some woman for an affair - but turning down something offered, or repeatedly clearly offered, is a different issue . I think there was some TV show or something - where suspicious wives would send some hot woman actor or detective - to flirt or proposition their husbands to see what they would say or do. The results were not always nice.

Edited April 15, 2015 by dichotomy

[Friskyone4u]

I think men and women are totally different so I cannot draw on experience but from what I've read some of the common traits that male or female cheaters have is selfishness, entitlement and narcissism. That said I think that men are primarily driven by sex initially and may get emotionally involved later. And women are primarily driven emotionally and may have sexual feelings later. So your husband would probably be driven by a desire for sex with someone else, but the thing is you could be giving him everything he needed and he would still cheat.

 

The one thing that I've read over and over is that unless you are dealing with a serial cheater affairs are often just the presentation of an opportunity. Apparently the brain chemicals that are released at the start of an affair feel so good that before the conscious decision is made to stop it you are already in too deep to stop it. That is why setting personal boundary's in opposite sex relationships is so important. So you cannot really tell who will cheat and who will not because it's based on situations and opportunity to a large extent.

 

Knowing what I know now, every couple should discuss all aspects of affairs and how they deal with opposite sex friends and attention before an affair ever happens. If you've not had that discussion with your husband I would start having it now.

 

Everything I have read is pretty much contained in the post above. In the book "Not Just Friends", it specifically states that ONE of the reasons that marriages are more likely to survive when the man cheats is because for men it is mostly about the sex. it states that women in a lot of cases are generally emotionally connected before the sex starts and that the sex is normally not the primary reason for entering in the affair but it the price the woman pays for the emotional needs being met. You do not see a lot of threads where men continue to be in the "fog" once they are CONVINCED there is no more sex. but we read here a lot of threads where women cannot detach and still demand to be "friends" or can't keep NC.

 

Now i am sure on a forum this large there are women who just wanted the sex and men that were emotionally more involved so lets not go crazy. All I am saying is i agree with what I have read in what are considered to be pretty good books by reputable authors on the subject of infidelity.

[fellini]

I agree with the nuance that (based on reading and what my WW told me)

 

Women desire to be emotionally connected with the men they have sex with.

 

Men do not need the emotional connection to have sex, but rather, create their emotional connection through sex.

 

So I do NOT believe it is women at one end of the spectrum and men at the other.

 

I believe that generally each uses, or moves through both but from different ends.

 

Men have learned that women need emotional connection before they will have sex. So they play their part, they seduce.

 

From my own thinking back through my wild oats youth I would put it this way for men:

 

Obligatory flirting and emotional availabilty (mental foreplay) to GET to the BED and if I decide I want more of that I begin to actually emotionally open up to her.

 

This explains why in my experience woman feel "dumped" when after a couple of dates with some sex, that men don't call them back. For men, the decision to connect or not was during the sex, or evaluating if it's worth getting emotionally involved based on the sex one gets; for woman, it began with the seduction.

 

 

 

I think men and women are totally different so I cannot draw on experience but from what I've read some of the common traits that male or female cheaters have is selfishness, entitlement and narcissism. That said I think that men are primarily driven by sex initially and may get emotionally involved later. And women are primarily driven emotionally and may have sexual feelings later. So your husband would probably be driven by a desire for sex with someone else, but the thing is you could be giving him everything he needed and he would still cheat.

 

The one thing that I've read over and over is that unless you are dealing with a serial cheater affairs are often just the presentation of an opportunity. Apparently the brain chemicals that are released at the start of an affair feel so good that before the conscious decision is made to stop it you are already in too deep to stop it. That is why setting personal boundary's in opposite sex relationships is so important. So you cannot really tell who will cheat and who will not because it's based on situations and opportunity to a large extent.

 

Knowing what I know now, every couple should discuss all aspects of affairs and how they deal with opposite sex friends and attention before an affair ever happens. If you've not had that discussion with your husband I would start having it now.

 

Everything I have read is pretty much contained in the post above. In the book "Not Just Friends", it specifically states that ONE of the reasons that marriages are more likely to survive when the man cheats is because for men it is mostly about the sex. it states that women in a lot of cases are generally emotionally connected before the sex starts and that the sex is normally not the primary reason for entering in the affair but it the price the woman pays for the emotional needs being met. You do not see a lot of threads where men continue to be in the "fog" once they are CONVINCED there is no more sex. but we read here a lot of threads where women cannot detach and still demand to be "friends" or can't keep NC.

 

Now i am sure on a forum this large there are women who just wanted the sex and men that were emotionally more involved so lets not go crazy. All I am saying is i agree with what I have read in what are considered to be pretty good books by reputable authors on the subject of infidelity.

Edited April 15, 2015 by fellini

[elaine567]

The statistics make bad reading, statistics vary but approx 50% of men and 50% of women have cheated at least once in their marriage.

Toss a coin.

[nightmare01]

Anyone and everyone can become unfaithful. There is no "safe bet" when it comes to selecting a life partner.

[Hope Shimmers]

Women desire to be emotionally connected with the men they have sex with.

 

Men do not need the emotional connection to have sex, but rather, create their emotional connection through sex.

 

Not meaning to pick on you fellini (really not) - but these two statements jumped out at me and I wondered if I could clarify the first one a little (I'm missing a penis so I'm not qualified to comment on the second one).

 

You said 'women desire to be emotionally connected with the men they have sex with.' I would reword that to say 'when the emotional connection is there, then sex goes to an entirely different level for women.'

 

I'm not splitting hairs, and the distinction matters because you said that men and women come at it from different ends of the spectrum. I think that it is somewhere in the middle.

 

I have had sex before just for the sake of sex, as have many women I'm sure, and in terms of enjoyable sex it was great (well sometimes it was great, but you get my drift). But - in a very selected few instances, and I mean VERY few, the emotional connection was there on BOTH ends already - his and mine - and that is the kind of sex that women find mind-blowing. It is also what drives women to fall harder emotionally for a man IMO.

 

So, no man could 'seduce' me into believing an emotional connection was there when it wasn't. If seduction were just part of a means to the end (sex) for the man, and nothing more was there, I would absolutely know it and unless I was on the same page as him - specifically, unless I wanted sex and that's all - I would easily walk away from that.

 

That last line is the important distinction to me as for how it relates to this topic, and I think about it every time someone comments about men 'seducing' women just for affair sex. I just don't get it, honestly. It would be a lot harder to walk away from that very rare mind-blowing sexual/emotional connection, but still a conscious decision, because that kind of thing takes time to develop and there is no such thing as 'the opportunity presented itself' if that makes sense. Whereas if the opportunity truly just suddenly presented itself, that kind of connection just can't be there - easy to walk.

[adna89]

I think men and women are totally different so I cannot draw on experience but from what I've read some of the common traits that male or female cheaters have is selfishness, entitlement and narcissism. That said I think that men are primarily driven by sex initially and may get emotionally involved later. And women are primarily driven emotionally and may have sexual feelings later. So your husband would probably be driven by a desire for sex with someone else, but the thing is you could be giving him everything he needed and he would still cheat.

 

The one thing that I've read over and over is that unless you are dealing with a serial cheater affairs are often just the presentation of an opportunity. Apparently the brain chemicals that are released at the start of an affair feel so good that before the conscious decision is made to stop it you are already in too deep to stop it. That is why setting personal boundary's in opposite sex relationships is so important. So you cannot really tell who will cheat and who will not because it's based on situations and opportunity to a large extent, then character and commitment come into play.

 

Knowing what I know now, every couple should discuss all aspects of affairs and how they deal with opposite sex friends and attention before an affair ever happens. If you've not had that discussion with your husband I would start having it now.

 

What is according to you too much freedom in a marriage? is it ok to go out with guyfriends alone,my husband does that

[fellini]

You said 'women desire to be emotionally connected with the men they have sex with.' I would reword that to say 'when the emotional connection is there, then sex goes to an entirely different level for women.'

 

Sounds accurate enough. What my WW said was that she wanted the sex as an extension and deeper intimacy with him than without it. The important thing was to be around him, preferably naked, preferably making love.

 

 

I just don't get it, honestly. It would be a lot harder to walk away from that very rare mind-blowing sexual/emotional connection, but still a conscious decision, because that kind of thing takes time to develop and there is no such thing as 'the opportunity presented itself' if that makes sense. Whereas if the opportunity truly just suddenly presented itself, that kind of connection just can't be there - easy to walk.

 

I think the phrase "the opportunity presents itself" is a moment, it's a "spark" that can occur. It is the first glimpse of something a WS has, a sudden perspective of somebody they may have known for any lenght of time and suddenly feel something different about them, perhaps because of something that was said over a coffee, even though there have been many coffees, a caresss, a hug, a smile... the same things that happen when people say "love at first sight". The chemistry for some unexplained reason produces an adrenaline that manifests itself in an emotional "cocaine high" reaction.

 

Of course the rest is not "opportunity presents itself". I believe this is what Shirely Glass meant when she said it's often a long way to the first kiss and a short one to sex. In my WW's case, the opportunity presented itself when she suddenly for no explicable reason began to feel attracted to this guy as a direct result of that unsolicited physical touching.

 

EVERYTHING she did from that point on was a deliberate attempt to get him closer to her and to enter into an affair with him. It took over a year to get to the first kiss, maybe about 8 months for him to clue in she was open to an affair, and about another 3 before the sexual tension was so high that co-workers were beginning to notice.

[DKT3]

I think after being with the spouse for some time, we all know if they are the "type". Yet that doesn't mean that they will. Looking at in thru the rear veiw mirror, I saw signs almost from the start that she had it in her.

 

I simply don't think cheating is an isolated event, rather the peak of the road travelled. Built on other smaller betrayals. Reading so many stories of both BS and WW that theory seems to hold true.

 

Yet in some cases, one simply meets a person that truly feels like a soulmate (I don't believe in such a thing), and everything is so easy and falls into place. Does that mean that one has no choice? Of course not.

 

We are all products of the decisions we've made in life, those who have a history of making decision that are "me first" based are those more likely to enter into an affair. I think you should know if your married to that person.

 

Those of us that are BS's can revisit the past and find many cases where the WS has been the "me first" person in the relationship.

[Mr. Lucky]

As for other signs:

- a recent, unusual interest in working out, starting a diet

- upgrades in grooming and wardrobe

- suddenly working late or having to travel for work when it's not the norm

- hiding web sites, phone use, and messaging, deleting history

- locking their phone so you can't look, and not giving you the password

- an increase in the number of hang-up calls and blocked number calls

- spending more time socializing with friends without you

- significant increase or decrease in your sex life together

- significant increase in critical comments - distancing.

 

Many of the above are also signs of a normal marriage BTW.

 

Since cheating is the ultimate selfish act, I'd ask myself if selfishness was a character trait your spouse indicated in interactions with you and other family members. For my xWS, the answer was a resounding "yes"...

 

Mr. Lucky

[Furious]

Is there a way to tell if your husband might cheat in future? what type of guys/women cheat? are there some "signs"?

 

 

Look more closely at someone's actions compared to their words. Also, being nice compared to being kind shows their true character. It's easy to appear nice but being kind in general is deeper.

 

Also, look for hypocrisy, in the sense that most cheaters have a double standard.

Most cheaters like to play the martyr, it's a usually a person who is passive aggressive and is a afraid to be alone without an exit partner.

 

Look out for those who who speak with an "I" on how they relate when they communicate in general.

 

A huge thing is recognizing if someone lacks empathy. Empathy is being able to put yourself in someone else's shoes and is intellectually and emotionally cognitive.

 

Hope this helped.

[VeryBrokenMan]

What is according to you too much freedom in a marriage? is it ok to go out with guyfriends alone,my husband does that

 

Of course it is. There is nothing wrong with husbands and wives having girls night out or guys night out, PRIOR TO AN AFFAIR. As long as they are not doing it to the detriment of the marriage. After an affair happens the cheater has to surrender to their sposues wishes on this at least for a time because that is part of rebuilding trust. My fWW has had a couple of GNO since her affair with my approval but the difference is that before the affair she did whatever she desired, now we need to agree on who she is going with and where. I've told her that she can never have a GNO if guys will be there, and she cannot go to bars or dancing, etc and she fully understands those limitations. Someday maybe the trust will be there and I can feel comfortable with those situations again.

 

One thing that I remember reading prior to DDay is that if your gut is telling you there is an affair going on you need to trust yourself and at least check things out. If you're worried about him going out without you then you need to be talking to him more. Don't accuse him but set your expectations, talk about boundaries, talk about transparency of his phone, facebook and email accounts. Something I never realized is that couples are SUPPOSED to share all their passwords according to therapists. There really cannot be any secrets in a marriage.

[VeryBrokenMan]

I think after being with the spouse for some time, we all know if they are the "type". Yet that doesn't mean that they will. Looking at in thru the rear veiw mirror, I saw signs almost from the start that she had it in her.

 

I simply don't think cheating is an isolated event, rather the peak of the road travelled. Built on other smaller betrayals. Reading so many stories of both BS and WW that theory seems to hold true.

 

Yet in some cases, one simply meets a person that truly feels like a soulmate (I don't believe in such a thing), and everything is so easy and falls into place. Does that mean that one has no choice? Of course not.

 

We are all products of the decisions we've made in life, those who have a history of making decision that are "me first" based are those more likely to enter into an affair. I think you should know if your married to that person.

 

Those of us that are BS's can revisit the past and find many cases where the WS has been the "me first" person in the relationship.

 

I think you hit the nail on the head here. "Me first" is a clear sign, but the problem is the spouse that is getting the brunt of that in the relationship cannot see it until the affair happens. Looking back "Me first" describes my wife perfectly yet had you told me about 7 months ago that she was selfish I would have told you you were crazy.

 

That's part of the problem, when you are happily married you are not "looking" for problems, you just accept who they are and move on. I guess to be fair I knew she was "me first" but it never rose to a level of being a problem. Until it was.

 

I also thought my wife was always capable but I never believed that she would.

Edited April 15, 2015 by VeryBrokenMan