What to Do if You Suspect Your Spouse is Cheating

1. Keep Your Mouth Shut. “Are you having an affair?” How stupid is that question! They are going to deny it, then start destroying evidence to cover up the affair. And any advantage that you may have gained has just been flushed down the toilet. You want your spouse to act as if you don’t know anything.

2. Act Like Nothing Has Changed. Maintain your same schedule, habits and demeanor. Don’t do anything to indicate you are suspicious. Most cheating spouses have a guilty conscience, and their “feelers” are out trying to determine whether you suspect anything. Acting like nothing has changed is hard, but in the end your efforts in keeping your emotions in check will result in a favorable outcome.

3. Collect Evidence. Look for emails, letters, telephone bills with recurring strange numbers on them, cell phone bills with recurring calls to/from the same numbers at odd hours and for long periods of time, and odd charges on credit card bills. Although hard to do because most cheating spouses are very protective of their cell phones, you need to try and check the text messages on your spouse’s phone. Check emails on the computer, and look at the history on the computer for where your spouse has been browsing. If your spouse has a facebook or myspace page, check the content on their pages and look at their “friends”. These “social networking” tools have become a rich source of evidence. If you see something suspicious, print the screen. Just as easy as it is to search these pages, it’s just that easy to delete the content.

4. Hire A Private Investigator. Meet with a detective and give him all of the evidence you have. Tell him about your spouse’s habits and customs. Tell him your spouse’s work hours, their habits, and places he or she likes to frequent. Give him a picture of your spouse and his or her car and tag number. If you have a suspicion about a particular person, give him a picture of that person, the type of car they drive, and a description of their work hours and habits. A good opportunity to have the private investigator to obtain evidence is while you and your children go out of town overnight or for the weekend. As the old saying goes: "While the cat is away. . ." Coordinate this with the investigator’s schedule so that the investigator can watch your spouse while you are gone.

5. Safeguard Your Finances. This goes hand in hand with looking at credit card statements. If your spouse is changing their spending habits, you may decide you need to cancel a credit card or limit their charging capabilities. Keep a close watch on any joint bank accounts and the activity on those accounts. With the accounts being joint, your spouse could go to the bank and empty that account, leaving the account zeroed out and you still writing checks (and causing NSF charges that amass quickly). Additionally, you should consult with an attorney to determine whether, or when, you should consider moving all or a portion of the money from the joint account to your own separate account.

6. Don’t Have Sex. If you know your spouse is having an affair, do not have sex with them. Doing so could constitute the defense of condonation (the root word is “condone”). This acts as legal forgiveness of the past marital misconduct. Consult with a lawyer once you have evidence of a relationship. Additionally, you do not want to risk contracting a sexually transmitted disease that your spouse may be picking up from their new lover(s).

7. Be Deliberate. The vengeful side of us all leads you to want to confront the offending spouse with your evidence of their adultery. Don’t do it. The information that is most useful is that which the offending spouse does not know you have. If needed, this evidence will come out at the proper time. Because of the hurt you will experience in this situation, you need to rely on the advice of your attorney who can assess the situation from an objective, rational, and non-emotional point of view. At this point in time, you will be incapable of being objective, rational, and non-emotional.

8. Consult with a Lawyer. Tell the lawyer everything – the good and the bad. The only bad information is that information that the lawyer does not have. Anything you tell the lawyer is protected by the attorney client privilege, which requires the lawyer to keep all information a secret between you and your lawyer.

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