Infidelity rarely announces itself with a dramatic confession. It begins much more quietly, with a small, unsettling shift in the rhythm of a relationship. It’s a tiny, nagging gut feeling, a change in routine you can’t quite put your finger on, or a new phrase they suddenly start using.
An online community asked people who have been cheated on to share the moment the seed of suspicion was planted. The responses are a heartbreaking catalog of red flags that are easy to dismiss in the moment but glaringly obvious in hindsight.
More info: Reddit
#1
Our shared doctor encouraged me to get STD testing because “you never know people all the way.” She stood there and said several times that she couldn’t violate confidentiality but she recommended the tests. And my dumb a*s was mad at her for thinking he was that kind of person. It hit me a year later, after I’d caught him with someone else while I was pregnant.
It’s been over a decade and let me tell you, hurt fades, anger fades, but feeling dumb? That sticks.
Image source: never214, freepik
#2
They start accusing you of cheating.
Image source: justtypos, Drazen Zigic
#3
When he suddenly got “too busy” for everything. couldn’t text, couldn’t call, but somehow always had energy for everyone else. it’s never about being busy, it’s about priorities.
Image source: ScarlettBarbiexDoll, Marvin Meyer
#4
That man got mean as hell to me 🤣.
Image source: Major-Force1821, MrDm
#5
Everything I said seemed to annoy her for some reason. I felt like she just didn’t like hearing the sound of my voice but it was really just she was moving on because she knew something I didn’t.
Image source: fr0z3nf1r3, SkelDry
#6
Texting at a weird angle … (body language).
Image source: OkViolinist5554, jet-po
#7
My then-boyfriend and i were watching a movie and laughing and as he stood up to go to the bathroom, i held up his phone for the face id unlock and told him i was going to look up the cast cause i thought i recognized one of the actors. even though we’d been relaxed and goofing a split second prior, he immediately got incredibly antsy and was leering over my shoulder the whole time reaching over and fidgeting like i was a loose cat walking on the nuclear launch keypad. i’ve never felt the urge or need to look through any of my partners’ phones, even after this incident, and he’d never hesitated to do the hold up for face id thing to me before, so i found it extremely weird. sure enough come to find out a few months later he had accounts on multiple dating apps and had been cheating on me.
Image source: kennapringles, freestocks
#8
On her phone 24/7, her face would light up with happiness every time her phone went off, after about 3 days of this I asked if I could use her Facebook Marketplace to put an item up for sale. She refused, she told me to email everything to her and she would do it. We are standing here together and she is saying no I cant use her Facebook and to email it to her and that mixed with the several days prior of the weirdness on the phone I just said it, are you cheating on me. And she said yes. Now are are divorcing.
Image source: RemarkableDonut2676, Terrillo Walls
#9
She went from treating me like her obsession to obsessively talking about the other guy. And she would anxiously wait for texts from him and get upset when he didn’t text back quickly, like you expect a significant other to do. She also started looking at me like a roommate and finding every chance to make “business” meetings to go see him. They are now married. She even wore a nice dress to go see him once and asked me if she looked pretty.
It was easy to see her eyes fully go off of me and onto him.
Image source: One_Studio5711, Vitaly Gariev
#10
When their patterns began to change. Didn’t like drinking, now going out to happy hours after work. Suddenly very motivated to workout. Putting extra effort into their looks. Suddenly planning hangouts with “new friends”.
#11
Being very protective of their phone.
Image source: Lux_Owl, Ambreen
#12
She had joined a book club, but I’d never seen her read.
I didn’t notice it as a sign when it first happened, I only realized after the fact.
Image source: RealBowsHaveRecurves, Christin Hume
#13
He started being very vague about people’s gender when talking about who he was spending time with. “My friend and I went….They did this …. We went here …They bought that…” And when I pointed it out he would gaslight me and try to tell me he wasn’t being vague, that I was making a big deal and being controlling. It was because he was hanging out with women and being very careful not to say that.
This, and retroactively another sign that should have been obvious was that he would get upset with me and stop talking to me for days at a time. Found out later he was using this time to cheat, he would arrange a fight so he would have an excuse to not talk to me for a while so he could talk to her. And he did the same to her so he could talk to me. .
Image source: Cutmeinhalfpleasesir, Vitaly Gariev
#14
Texting in the middle of the night.
Image source: agentkramr, Inspa Makers
#15
When “goodnight” started coming earlier… but their “last seen” stayed online for hours.
Image source: dianadelapaz, Mykyta Kravčenko
#16
I didn’t know at the time, it wasn’t until I found her Google search history. Turns out she shared a Google account with my 11 year old daughter. So everything she searched would be on my daughter’s phone, including Google maps timeline and even photos that were syncing.
Driving to a state park with my daughter I asked her to look up lyrics to a song we were listening to, she got out her phone and I looked over to see ‘mormon soaking’ in past searches under the search bar, I took note of that and after my daughter went to sleep that night I got on her phone and I found a whole plethora of what the actual f**k.
But looking back on it. My dumb jokes didn’t land the same anymore. She was looking for ways to villainize me, loaded questions “what does this mean, who’s hand writing is this?”
Subtle ways she changed her makeup, the way she did her hair. She started listening to different music, was guarded about her phone and even yelled at me for trying to be silly and ask her who she was texting while we were watching a movie together as a family. She started talking about a coworker of hers a lot, then stopped all of a sudden, she even went on a road trip with that coworker to visit an old friend of theirs, I trusted her unquestionably. Walmart plus receipts showed that she bought lube before going on that trip. Also, the van broke down on the way back from the road trip and she had it towed to the town she worked in. She stayed there for 6 days until it was fixed.
I’d make chicken noodle soup from scratch and take pictures of it, proud as f**k with myself, she was working late, her only reply was “is the kitchen a mess?”
Google maps shows she’d get off of work at 8pm. Go to a hotel with a Jacuzzi suite, restaurant, movie theater, some residential house, fastfood, then get home at 3am, all while texting me that she missed our daughter and me and how much she wanted to be home. And when she did get home, she’d sit on the porch smoking w**d while on her phone, daughter and I wouldn’t know she was home for awhile.
She was living a second life, boyfriend and his kids which she was buying things for, Walmart plus receipts showed Snow gear, sleds, toys for a toddler, men’s belts, pants, alcohol, take action pill, I had a vasectomy in 2016, while it left me in chronic pain, it did work. I got it because of how severe the complications were with the birth of our daughter, the midwife and doctor taking me to the side and telling me that we might want to start thinking about which one to save. We moved halfway across the country, I made some friends here not many, I’m socially inept with severe anxiety. After the separation she told everyone that I got the vasectomy to spite her, knowing full well she wanted two more kids. She had a kid with her now husband last January, she had the same complications that she did with our daughter. Anyway, not only did she spread that around but turns out she was running a very effective smear campaign against me 2 years before the separation, everyone turned against me.
Wow, this turned into a rant, my bad, felt kinda good to get out though.
Image source: mygeekeryaccount, Y M
#17
He introduced me to his 6 month old infant.
Image source: Turbulent_Paint_7733, Alex Bodini
#18
Walked in on him with my cousin.
Image source: Holiday-Menu-171, volant
#19
Can someone please give me insight into this. I am really struggling..
I didn’t know he cheated or left me for another girl. He just stopped talking to me.. it was weird. We broke up without ever actually talking about it. It just ended.
Two months later, he reached out saying he couldn’t stop thinking about me and that he loved me. We got back together, and four months later I found i went through his phone and found out he had been with another girl during those two months, basically a full-blown relationship. I even saw their last messages. She wrote, “Ew, how was your slimy sleepover?” when he was literally at my place and he has an “apology call” ending it with her.
After I found out, I told him he was disgusting and kicked him out. For months afterward, he sent handwritten letters to my house, flowers, even got my name tattooed on his ribs. It just doesn’t make sense. He became obsessive, saying he loved me, wanted to marry me, would wait forever. Then I kept finding out even more lies. Eventually, I blocked him on everything and told him to stop messaging me or sending letters.
Yeah… I feel f****d up.
Image source: saggitormented, Eric Ward
#20
The 3rd person instant messages you saying “I’m so and so’s wife/ girlfriend and caught my husband / boyfriend snap chatting and texting your wife. Finally I asked for proof, got it and then caught her in a huge lie. Lawyer was worth the money.
Image source: HugeCalligrapher1283, A. C.
#21
Small stories didn’t line up anymore, she started talking about things she thought we did together (it was the guy she was cheating on me with), accusing me of cheating, and becoming more possessive.
Image source: STiMPUTELLO, Getty Images
#22
Gaslighting and holding onto grudges on things that didn’t matter in the long run while some other dude treats her 20x worse. Losing all her morals and character. preaching values she never adhered to herself which were actually your own which she then gaslights
But yea definitely gaslighting and making weird comments.
Image source: Zestyclose_Olive435, Kelly Sikkema
#23
He got mad when we had plans to do things. That didn’t fit into his and his new lovers schedule. IE: we had a wedding that was RSVPd to months in advance and when I brought it up the week before he got very upset.
Image source: longlostlotrelf, Micah & Sammie Chaffin
#24
I called my friend to see if him and his twin wanted to hang out and he said “im down but Drew can’t come because he’s making out with Sabrina” (my gf at the time)
Thats when I started getting suspicious.
Image source: Jabathewhut, Hassan OUAJBIR
#25
Caught my ex husband on Grindr looking for “bro jobs”.
Image source: AlmightyWitchRitual, Vitaly Gariev
#26
We’re going back to college, but he had a new gal pal from the dorm that he was hanging around. She was in my circle but we weren’t best buddies. He was talking about how good of friends they had become over the winter session. I found red hairs on his pillow and that was it.
To get him to admit it I pretended I was psychic and had a dream that he cheated on me with her and told him that. He bugged out over my supposed psychic powers, and confessed the whole thing. 😂
Then he went out with her for a good long while and I think she punched him out in a bar one time because he cheated on her too. But we’re going back to 1994 style college dorm drama so it may or may not be accurate. 😩
I do know that on a drunken evening years later she approached me to tell me that I handled the news of their cheating really well and she had a lot of respect for me because of that. So that was kind of a clue.
Ahh, gotta love those old cheating stories. 😬.
Image source: Used-Opposite-7363, Fatma Sarıgül
#27
Emotional distance.
Image source: afahrholz, Vitaly Gariev
#28
Randomly following private women’s profiles.
Image source: kyrigama, Getty Images
#29
Became distant, said s****y things to me, lost weight, bought new clothes and started going out with her best friend (who was single) to bars. I confronted her and she admitted it.
Image source: sciaticannot, Nastia Petruk
#30
Your intuition will tell you everything you need to know.
Image source: SlyQueen02, Milles Studio
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