How Do You Catch a Cheater?

Mobile dating apps like Tinder and Bumble and social media platforms, have made it easier than ever to meet and connect with new people. It’s also easier than ever for our significant others to cheat—you can chat with a potential lover just as quickly as you can order a pizza for delivery.

Even as technology makes cheating easier, it also enables you to do more “research” and catch a cheater in the act. In many situations, it’s best to give your significant other the chance to explain themselves if you think that they are cheating. However, if you believe that they’re lying it may be time to take matters into your own hands. Here are a few tips on how to catch a cheater red-handed.

Monitor their phone use

Phones are one of the most common ways that a spouse or partner will communicate with the person they’re cheating on you with. This means that keeping track of their phone use can be a great way to notice any suspicious behavior. If your significant other seems to be taking trips outside to answer phone calls or they’ve been hiding their phone while texting, it may mean that they are cheating. Any time you can take a look at their phone and scan through their messages and call history, you may be able to find evidence of their bad behavior.

View social media interactions

Social media is another popular way for your significant other to connect with a cheater, and social media can also leave a trail of communication. If you go to someone's Instagram or Facebook profile, you can view recent activity, including new friends and followers. If you see your significant other liking and commenting on someone's profile that you've never heard of before or have no mutual friends with, it may be a sign that they are cheating.

Double-check suspicious contacts

If you want to find more information about someone who you've uncovered by paying closer attention to your partner's social media and phone usage, it may be worth running a background search on the individual online. An online service like Go Look Up performs deep searches and can even do reverse searches based on phone number or email address. This can be very useful if your significant other is trying to hide the identity of the person they're communicating with by changing their name to something innocuous in their contacts list. Running the phone number or name through a reverse lookup can help verify the identity of the contact. This information, combined with incriminating texts or messages, can be exactly what you need to call out a cheater.

Dig through the trash

If you've just arrived home from an out of town trip and suspect that your spouse may have been up to something while you were gone, digging through the bedroom or bathroom trash may turn up some incriminating evidence. Whether it's a wrapper from a different brand of condoms or an empty champagne bottle, finding out of place trash in your garbage can be clear evidence that your partner is up to no good. Once you have hard evidence like this it's easy to confront a cheater.

Nobody wants to think that their partner is cheating on them. That being said, there are plenty of times when suspicious behavior needs to be further explored. Technology enables you to do this much more easily, allowing you to fact-check phone contacts and recognize new friendships online that might be more than just a typical relationship with a coworker. Online databases of public records make this an even simpler task, offering you the chance to get detailed information on an individual with just a few, simple details.