Getting a hunch that it is no longer just you two in a relationship is a gut-wrenching feeling that can crush you under its weight if left unattended. A passive stance will end in a downward spiral of self-deprecation and guilt, so you must act, albeit reasonably – if there’s an ugly truth lurking in between, know how to catch it off guard.
What’s an Affair
The terminology can be loose here, but definitions are crucial for the article, as we shall only focus on one type of infidelity. Thus, let us agree that cheating, as opposed to a platonic or sexual affair, implies a one-off instance of infidelity. To be qualified as an affair, the relationship has to be consciously planned rather than sporadic and unfold over time.
How Do Our Partners or Spouses Have an Affair?
Most often, infidelity is born out of discontent – and a serious one since most people have moral restraints preventing them from cheating on a whim. Attempting an affair will usually be preceded by long brooding and doesn’t always end up in a side romance. Remove discontent from the equation at this tipping point of doubt, and the couple can live happily ever after.
Having an Affair with Married Man 🧑
Believe it or not, but your wife having affair with another family man is a less likely scenario than the other way round – at least, as far as the available statistics go. However, such infidelity is more likely to have drastic consequences, ultimately leading to a permanent breakup.
Having an Affair with a Married Woman 👩
While men do cheat more often on average, they also tend to act with more repentance on the whole matter and have a lower chance of turning into chronic cheaters. Generally, mending a relationship damaged by a cheating husband depends on the wife and her readiness to carry on rather than other factors.
The Most Accurate Signs of an Affair
We can't possibly know the individual traits of your spouse, but as unique as we humans are, the history of infidelity has unfortunately been running too long to ignore, and all the affair stories are similar to a certain extent. Use the following signs as a checklist or a starting point for investigation, and build up on it by applying your personal knowledge of the person.
1. Emotional Detachment
While alienation unmistakably hints your marriage has taken a wrong turn, it doesn’t belong to surefire signs of affair. For the time being, respect your spouse’s longing for detachment – it may be temporary, after all. At the same time, stay vigilant for other telltale signals.
2. Acting All Secretive with Their Phone
Some people are extremely protective of their personal space, and it usually becomes clear during the first months of a budding relationship – their partner can either accept it or move on. However, if slanting the phone to break the line of sight or keeping it anywhere other than on the bedside table is a newly-acquired habit, make no mistake – they want you out of it for a reason.
3. Thinking About Having an Affair
Occasional jokes about finding an affair are a long-running tradition for some couples, and they tend to form longer and healthier relationships by keeping that mutual flirty vibe. Sadly, the joke’s on you when your partner is openly admiring someone who might qualify as your competition. Behind such behavior, there’s often a challenge – ‘be more like that person or lose me’.
4. Secrets and Reticence
There may be a lot going on in the mind of a spouse who gets reclusive, but it isn’t always about the state of your relationship. Definitely take note when such behavior sets in, but don’t risk arriving at hasty conclusions until you get supporting evidence from multiple sources.
5. Paying for Accounts on Dating Sites
Tinder, Badoo, and similar resources are indeed a perfect place to find potential affair partners, so if you see a premium account purchase on your monthly family bank statement, this can only mean one thing – your spouse is trusting a digital algorithm to build them a better tomorrow without you.
6. Having a History of Affairs
No matter how much remorse they have shown after the first side bout, partners with a history of cheating are likely to do that again whenever an opportunity arises. This goes without saying, but too many people still buy into the regret stories concocted by their unfaithful spouses, only to get cheated again.
7. The Daily Cost of a Business Lunch Increases Significantly
One of the less obvious signs husband is having an affair is how his budget for eating out during working hours doubles or triples out of the blue. This is not that easy to notice unless you run the family finances, but it can be the missing piece of the puzzle that will give it all away.
8. Lying Even in Little Things
Let’s face it – some people find it okay to deal in falsehoods, often justifying it by calling them ‘white lies for the greater good’. It’s not that you can’t build a meaningful relationship with a chronic liar, but the trust factor in such a couple will always remain open to doubt. With a little effort and observation, pulling on a little lie will unfurl a whole tapestry of deceit.
9. The Spouse Has a Separate Account in a New Bank
Reluctance to disclose money endeavors on a greater scale can be good evidence of the affair. A newly opened account may be a part of the safety cushion plan to promote a side romance to the main relationship effort with the minimum financial inconvenience.
10. You Are Accused of Cheating
Gaslighting and defensive reversal are the favorite tactics of people with a guilty conscience, and this, sadly, applies to cheating. If you happen to become an innocent victim of such accusations, do not give in and try to see through them – when occupied with emotional blaming, people often spill out what they intended to conceal.
11. Unexpected Interest in a New Sport
An affair in marriage is regularly accompanied by radical shifts in habits that remained unchanged for years. No one would argue that taking up sports to keep fit is a laudable initiative, but doing so spontaneously (at least, so it seems to the spouse) might indeed translate to preparing a better version of oneself for a new interest.
12. Changing the Style of Clothing
A person’s style (or lack thereof) is a prominent individual trait, and the older we get, the less malleable our tastes become – such is the biological toll we pay for wisdom that comes with age. Combined with other factors, a fortuitous urge to experiment with one’s wardrobe can be interpreted as the symptom of someone spurring your spouse’s curiosity.
13. You Receive an Anonymous Call or Message
Are you so familiar with your spouse’s acquaintances that you freely pick up their phone when they’re taking a shower? For many couples, this is a part of the routine, so when a married affair creeps into your abode, it may get manifested through an awkward ‘ahem’ on the other side of the line, coming from an unknown number, or someone wittily named ‘Ben N. Syder’ in their Contacts.
14. Decreased Interest in Family Holidays
‘Who likes them anyway?’, you may ask, but family get-togethers are, nevertheless, a secondary indicator of the overall relationship condition that is worth considering. A one-time skipping of uncle Bob’s birthday doesn’t mean much, but ignoring such events systematically needs at least an honest talk.
15. The Emergence of Bad Habits and Even Addictions
Remember how you took up smoking in college to blend in with the cool kids? The same adaptive psychology remains our primary socializing mechanism for years to come, so it doesn’t come off as a surprise when two married people having an affair start exchanging their less healthy routines while courting.
16. New Unknown Smells
Those blissfully ignorant to the pains of infidelity often laugh off the soap opera trope of ‘you smell like another woman’, but this is actually serious business. An alien smell at home, especially originating from a fragrance, can tell quite a story – especially if you subject its bearer to cross-examination.
How to Get and Show Evidence of the Affair?
Conveniently, we all carry around a device that has most of our personal life recorded in text and media. If your anxiety has already overpowered your firm belief in the sanctity of personal space, get a hold of their phone for ten minutes, and this will get most of your questions answered.
Is It Possible to Leave a Marriage for an Affair Partner?
The person who dares to start an affair relationship often ends up in the limbo of their own creation – some things hold them back from breaking up with the permanent partner, and the uncertainties of a new romance prevent a rapid transition. Leaving a marriage is certainly a possibility, but it's an option that many simply chicken out of.
Which Is Worse: Cheating vs. Affair
If we stand by the definitions of the two, as formulated at the beginning of the article, then an affair definitely boasts more dire consequences, as it often implies the resolution to depart from you for good. Cheating, on the other hand, shouldn’t be underestimated either – you let it slide once, and it becomes a habit fast.
How to Stop an Affair
As always, there’s a hard way and an easy way. The latter implies that you let go of someone who didn’t appreciate having you around enough. The former is a thorny path of trade-offs, accusations, scandals, and the like – you decide what matters more in the long run, swallowing your pride or kicking them out for that coworker affair.
FAQ
Below you’ll find the answers to the questions that we get asked most:
Can A Wife Leave A Marriage For An Affair Partner? 💁
A short answer – yes, she can. A long answer requires us to dig into the statistics. On average, a wife having an affair signs has a 30% lower probability of starting a new life than a cheating husband – women dare to divorce after finding a new partner in 17% of cases (22% probability for men).
What Are The Signs That An Affair Is Getting Serious? 👌
There’s a very thin line between a casual flirt and a serious affair, and you shouldn’t hope to discover it just in time. In most cases, the cheated partner is either too early or too late. In both scenarios, you’d better prepare to deal with consequences rather than gauge the severity.
How Can My Husband Love Me And Have An Affair? 🐻
We can already hear the ‘It’s a man thing, you won’t understand’ shouts. No, it’s not. The polyamory phenomenon applies to both sexes, and it's your choice to accept it or walk by – that is, if your husband has the courtesy to inform you, he is prone to that.
Do Affair Relationships Last? 😍
Born of infidelity and distrust, an affair at work or other similar scenarios have serious inherent flaws that contribute to a high breakup probability. Few of them ever get past the initial courtship rituals, and fewer still survive long enough to evolve into a lasting relationship – around 5 to 7%, according to the available data.
Is It Illegal To Have An Affair? 📙
No secular country has laws that limit an individual’s freedom to choose a partner, even if already in a relationship. However, most such states have complicated divorce procedures that are predominantly biased in favor of women – that’s why you often hear stories of a cheating wife departing from a family with a hefty settlement paycheck clutched in her fist.
How To Hide An Affair? 🙈
People have been exceptionally imaginative when it comes to the secrecy of their intimate life, and the hi-tech means we have today contribute greatly to the pool of available options. Fake accounts, proxy networks, self-destructing messages – you name it. This, however, also implies that you can spy on your spouse in an equally well-equipped manner – just check out the spyware market, and you’ll be genuinely stunned by the options at hand.
How Can Someone Go Through With An Affair? 🌫️
Whatever you choose as a coping mechanism, make sure you have an outlet for emotions – handling this on your own almost always leads to harrowing outcomes. Some make do with friends and (remaining) family, while others find solace in cheating support groups.
How To Get Away With An Affair? 😒👉
A long-distance relationship is a cheater’s dream come true – never marry a railroad man, as they say. When it comes to inevitable daily contact, most cheaters will adopt a plethora of defensive and offensive psychological tricks to move the burden of guilt around and get onto the high moral ground, as opposed to the shaky premises of betrayal.
Why Did My Husband Have An Affair? 💛
Too many possible reasons to mention here – he may be a narcissist who felt his ego was getting malnourished without a daily portion of praise, or he has simply found someone he genuinely felt more attracted to. Whatever the reason, don’t hasten to put the blame on yourself – each case of cheating requires that you put emotions aside and look into the matter with a level head.
