Part 2 in the Sisters of Resistance “How to Tell if Your Man is Cheating” Series focuses on a number of common tells in the behaviour of the cheaters we have encountered, especially in the ways they act around available women, and in many of their social patterns and communication habits. We present our growing list of findings here below for the benefit of women who may use them, along with their own judgment, to assess overall behaviours and avoid cheating men.
PART 2: BEHAVIOURAL PATTERNS AND OTHER EVIDENCE
A. Behaviour Around Women
SoR have noted in our extensive field research that men who cheat treat women in a similar manner. So if you want to know how he’s going to act with new women to whom he is attracted, think back to how he operated with you when you first met. This may be indicative of his typical behaviour patterns.
If he had a girlfriend when you first met and he still got down with you, he is a cheater. It is unlikely that he made an exception for you. Do not ignore this evidence.
If he tried to get to know your body before your brain, this is most likely the way he operates with other women. A guy who will move to you the first time you two are alone has done this before, and will do it again.
If he ramps up the intensity of the relationship in the early days with pet names, affectionate texts/calls that seem too early or otherwise out of place, he is working to get you hooked on him. This is typical of the Player type (for more, see 5 Types of Men to Avoid: The Player).
If over time he is unable to sustain this level of affectionate interaction with you, he may be working on hooking someone new.
Ask him about past relationships. Surprisingly, men who cheat will often be honest about cheating on past girlfriends. This does not mean he has changed and this does not mean he will not cheat on you. (NB: If you are dealing with a Player, he will not admit this information.) Be especially cautious if he tells you that he is “working on changing” or “trying to be better.”
If he blatantly checks out other girls when you are with him, be on your guard. This also applies if you are speaking with him on the phone and he will not say your name. You are likely dealing with a cheater, and not an especially skilled one, either.
B. Social Patterns
If he has a group of male friends who often cheat, it is highly likely that he also cheats. Ask him what kind of relationships with women his male friends have and listen very closely to the reply.
If the amount of time he spends with you decreases dramatically and/or the amount of attention he pays to you increases dramatically for no apparent reason, he is most likely cheating. The likelihood of his cheating increases if these two tells are seen at the same time.
If he develops a new hobby out-of-the-blue or suddenly starts going to the gym / caring more about his looks/clothing, he could be trying to attract / impress someone new.
If he is too quick to offer explanations/alibis re: where he was, what he was doing, or who he was with (especially if you haven’t asked), he has been preparing to deceive you. If this explanation seems sudden, outlandish or strangely unbelievable (see: Exceptional Circumstance Lies), you can be certain he has been cheating.
Be very wary of men who spend a lot time flirting or “getting to know” women online, by text, for “business purposes,” via BlackBerry messenger/whatsapp/anyother messenger service. Men who are very flirtatious with the women in their lives may extend this ego-boosting behaviour to cheating.
C. Other Evidence (See Also Part I: LIES)
Facebook
Random Facebook “likes” or comments from females
New female “friends” on FB regularly
Heavy chatting activity (flirting on FB all the time in front of you – some cheaters have no shame)
Very guarded with FB usage (never on FB in front of you, never leaves himself logged in)
E-Mails/Other Internet Usage
Never checks email in front of you
Closes any website/window as soon as you walk into the room (one-off or habitually, it’s suspicious).
Texts/Messengers/Mobile Phone Usage (See also Part 1: Mobile-Phone-Based Lies)
Furtive or secretive texting or phone calls
Always takes his calls out of the room or out of your earshot
Often “misses” calls on purpose when around you (may be accompanied by a covering statement to lead you astray: “It’s my cousin. I’ll call him back later”).
If he does answer, says “I’m with a friend” or something similar, never mentioning your name.
Doesn’t answer phone all night. When approached the next day he says he was asleep, phone was dead/on vibrate, or he left it somewhere.
Many men are skilled at leading women on or maintaining contact for potential cheating via text or BBM and are quick to cover their tracks by deleting messages they send. If you see flirtatious texts from other women, do not assume the conversation is one way.
Physical Evidence
Earrings that are not yours, found in his home or car. He may even call you to ask if a pair of earrings are yours, and when you say they are not, backtrack to say they may be guys’ earrings anyway.
Empty condom wrappers that he did not use with you in a bag that belongs to him.
A hotel receipt in a bag that belongs to him, for a hotel stay at which you were not present.
A cinema ticket for a film you didn’t see with him.
When confronted with this type of physical evidence, he may come up with an impromptu lie, e.g. “It’s not mine, it’s my friend’s.” These lies may be more complex depending upon how desperate he is to disguise the cheating (See also: Lies Upon Being Found Out).
Do you know men who cheat?
We are soliciting other examples of behaviour, social patterns or other evidence you’ve seen in men who cheat to help us expand this article and provide additional examples for women to use to assess their own situations. Leave them in the comments and we’ll add them to the list.
Tags: affair, behavior, behaviour, breaking up, cheat, cheating, divorce, excuses, exes, feminism, husband, infidelity, language, lies, male-female dynamics, men, men to avoid, mobile phones, patterns, Player, solidarity, truth, wife, women
do yall have any insight from a lgbtq perspective? your articles aim to address and challenge patriarchy, but are also extremely heteronormative at the same time. i find it a bit counter-productive to go after one oppression but promote another.
Thank you for your response. As you have noted, in the month in which this blog has been live, we have posted a few articles addressed to women who have intimate/romantic relationships with men. However, our articles are not intended for solely hetero women, nor are they written by them. While it may seem to some readers that any discussion of some male-female relationship dynamics, such as those we describe in the “How to Tell if Your Man is Cheating” Series (the title of which was intentionally selected to enable us to intervene in heteronormative discourse) and “5 Men to Avoid,” is inherently heteronormative, it appears to us that this view is reductionist, as it does not consider that the female-identifying audience it addresses may also, like us, be sexually oriented to more than just men. We believe that by employing a radical critique of the hetero-norms of patriarchy and sexism as well as the concept of “standing by your man” if/when he cheats or otherwise displays sexist misogyny and abuse, our work is actively challenging the vastly more common and hetero-normative advice to women regarding how to “catch” and “keep” a man.
As bisexual women, we make it a point in the About section of our blog to explicitly state that we “can envision a world in which all of earth’s inhabitants, women, men, trans, intersex and gender non-specific people of all colours, sexual orientations, religions, abilities and creeds, all humans and all other species, are free to live in non-hierarchical harmony with each other.” We have also compiled an extensive list of resources to which people may refer for more detailed radical information, in which Gender and Sexuality is the first section: http://sistersofresistance.wordpress.com/resources/#gendersex (The opening video is about homophobia in hip-hop and includes filmmaker Byron Hurt confronting some of the biggest names in hip-hop about their homophobic attitudes). We welcome your suggestions for additions to this list.
While a resource list does not do enough on its own to centralise queer issues, we hope that our intentional inclusion of LGBTQII-specific topics, and our accompanying bisexual perspectives, will become more apparent over time as the content library grows. Included among these are plans for upcoming articles on polyamory and other non-traditional relationships and family structures, as well as “Women We Admire” articles featuring prominent lesbian authors and theorists. Due to the inherent intersections and linkages among different types of oppression, we are not and would never commit to offering a single-issue blog; however, some articles may be more focused than others on certain topic areas. We acknowledge both this directed focus as well as more visibly intersectional pieces as necessary components of our struggle against all oppression in all its forms.
Once again, we welcome your suggestions for additional revolutionary/radical LGBTQII links, videos, books for our resources page, blogs for our blogroll, or article topics for us to consider. And thank you for voicing your curiosity, not only for your own sake, but for the sake of others who may be thinking the same.
Radically yours,
Sisters of Resistance
When hes out with another woman doesnt answer phone all nite. When approached next day he says he was sleep, phone was dead/or on vibrate, or he left it somewhere.
Real talk. Thanks for adding in.
All the best
SoR
I have a great example. I have been dating a man for eight months who lives out of town. I had known him for 2 years when he lived in my city. He paid me to fly out to Vail twice a month, called and text many times daily. He had been a Boyscout leader and avid volunteer and such a good guy. We agreed that we would tell if each other if we started to date and agreed not to have sex with any one else (several times). I’ll spare you the details but he made me feel so special and that what we had was so special I was falling in love with him. He had already stated he loved me several times. The passion was off the charts. He introduced me as his girlfriend to many people in this town where everyone knows everyone else. I started to pick up vibes from these people in the last two weeks and one flat out said “Watch Out!” While in the van to go back to the airport the last time, I was telling the driver why I was in Vail. He said “I’ve heard that exact same story from another woman who said she was in a committed relationship with a guy that works at the same place and is originally from the city you are from.” Exposed! I found out that he not only had been seeing her the whole time, there was a third woman. All of us lived out of town. The angels must have been in the van with me that day. What are the chances that I’d be in that van with that driver and strike up that conversation. Saved! He is very angry of course that I found out. I just wish I could let the other women know, they are a emotional and physical risk.
I wish you were my parent…You would have saved me from a lot of b.s. back in high school.Now,I’m currently living with the cheater/abuser and suffer from developed depression.
This WHOLE article is describing my kids father down to a T and a lot the information given here have been just theories of mine.Now I know for sure I’m not crazy after-all!
It’s sad that I’m so isolated and it seems like none of my ‘friends” really understand what I’ve been having to deal with for the last five years…
And it’s kind of scary the girl he cheated on me with repeatedly,she knew about us,is now studying psychology.And she is one of the reasons why I suffer with insecurities daily!I swear if she becomes licensed my hope for humanity will come to a complete halt.I would put her name (_____)here,but that will just give publicity she doesn’t deserve.lol*
Love every bit of this article, in fact, I’ll write somethign about it in my blog.
Keep them comming, cheaters have to be stopped, even if I’m a man, i’ll say this loud and clear: Don’t hurt others, if you don’t like whose with you, face him and let her be free, no one needs to suffer because of cheating.
Uhm OK so my bf ain’t got no cell so he call me off his house he left on Wednesday. Saying he wass going over his guy crib but he still ain’t come home yet n he haven’t called me ( he had lived with this gf well his ex now Fah 2 years they broke up like 3 months ago n he has some stuff over there now we had got into it like last week cause he called me thinking he was calling her) you think hes cheating on me with her?
Sorry to say this but yes. He has given you no reason to trust him and every reason to suspect him. Dump him already; he’s not worth your time, love, energy or attention. You deserve better.
Wishing you the best,
SoR
Okayy thanks i have another question my friend needs help she was talking to this boy she realy liked him me her n my other friend went to chill with him n his guys he was cool at first until he got drunk n he disrespected her n us he even tried talking to my other friend infront of her but when we went home my other friend wanted his brothers number so she asked him for her n he thought that she wanted it so he started calling her a strag n other names n deleted her off fb so ny friend decided to talk to his other brother is she making a bad decision?
My fiance definitely has a history of being a player type. I have this terrible feeling that he’s cheating on me, but no physical evidence. We’ve only been having sex about 1x per week (because I am not a very sexual person) and he constantly complains and is angry with me and telsl me how hard it is for him to only have sex that often. He used to be a big party guy, and worked out constantly but stopped going out to bars and working out awhile after we started dating. The past few weeks he has been going out to bars a lot with his friends, dressing up when he goes out, and working out like crazy. We barely talk anymore and he rarely initiate saying “I love you” anymore. In addition to this, he has a trip coming up with a lot of his single friends. He originally told me he was going with his little brother and then I found out he was going with 1 friend from work and recently found out he was going with a GROUP of single guy friends. I do not know how to confront him because I have no physical evidence and when I’ve confronted him about other lies he’s told me about things besides cheating in the past, he tends to be the kind of guy that will have an excuse for EVERYTHING, even if you have the evidence in his face. To make matters worse, we live together and he has no where else to go, what should I do?
I’m sorry hun. It does sound like he is cheating on you. The whole going out to the bar/working out all of a sudden thing is a huge red flag. He has no reason to start caring about his appearance like that if he is in a relationship with you and you are fine with the way he looks. The trip with all the single guys is a definite deal-breaker. He lied about it for one thing, so you already know there’s something shady going on. As your FIANCE, he should respect you enough to say, “hey guys, I’m sorry but I’m in a committed relationship and I just don’t do that anymore. I’ll catch up with you guys when you get back and you can tell me about it.” You deserve way better than that and there are guys out there who would be respectful of your feelings and not do those things to you. Get rid of this guy!
My bf & i was coming home from dinner last nite we were having a conversation about how the weather been strange that day. he says hey did u see the size of the sleet when i was talkn to u on the phone. i said no i didnt i didnt talk to u on the phone today. he said oh i must thought u did. he said he was just confused on what day he talked to me. is he cheating
My boyfrend would give me all hiss passwords up until he bought a blackberry, he then put a password on the fone and would not tell it me I found this suspicious because all his male frends had the password. If I asked him to let me look at his pictures or music so I could send some to my phone he would make the excuse up that he had deleted them. But he was always setting new pictures as his display picture on bbm, and often played his music with uptodate songs. He new the password to my phone and constantly checked it to see who I was talking to and what the conversation was about. Also, he used to tell me he loved me evry night he told me he loved me then all of a sudden he said he diddnt like to keep telling me he loved me because his excuse was he told me too often.
I have a question. If my husband tells me he does not feel like being intimate or avoids all together, should I be worried?