“He Did His Best To Look Single”: 30 People Who Got Cheated On Share What Gave It Away

Here's a lesson learned:

If they cheated *with* you, then they will absolutely cheat *on* you.

Asking for an open relationship. It's either already happened, or it's going to happen.

Projecting. Many years back I dated someone who was extremely jealous of other women, constantly wanted to go through my phone, constantly checked up on me, regularly accusing me of cheating on her, etc and turns out she was doing all of that herself the entire time.

Also have to add: my first indication was this one time I took his vehicle to take the dogs to the park… One of them is a notorious crotch sniffer. She was overly interested in the front passenger seat. Knowing her inclination for a good crotch sniff, my mind immediately went to questioning who’s smelly c*but was sitting in that seat.

Turns out he was having sex with the side chick in the front passenger seat.

Dogs know.

Sudden interest in losing weight, distance, unwarranted anger at me, work trips away with late flights home, lack of interest in me or my family, lack of interest in sex (with me anyway). Looking back they add up but at the time it can be hard to put your finger on and in my instance I thought he was depressed (lol).

We had a 15 year marriage. About 7/8 years in, I found men's underwear beneath the headboard. There were 2 pairs and I thought it was very strange as I'd never seen them before, but she assured me that they were mine from ages ago. I always found this odd but never had any other indication of cheating.


12 years in, the exact same thing happens. I find a pair of socks that definitely isn't mine. I would never buy them, they were of some show I'd never seen. She said they were a secret santa gift from a co-worker and I believed it.


I still don't know for sure about the first two times, but 3 years ago almost to the day I walked in on her having sex with our neighbour.

Whatever trace of my presence I left in his apartment (e.g. a sticker, a hairpin, a note), it made him upset coz he considered it “possessive”. The truth is, he just wanted his crib to pass for a bachelor pad, so that no other woman would suspect he was in a relationship.

Also, he did his best to look single when attending any parties together with me under the pretext “I hate clinginess in public”. Ya know, just in case he’d run into someone he was interested in.

With hindsight, I should never had ignored those signs or found excuses.

They suddenly stop caring/become mean

I used to think cheaters were the hot and arrogant 'Brads' so I stopped dating the popular kids when I was a teenager, and went for the cute geek gamer type. Turns out he cheated on me; which was the most pain I felt when I was 27 because the thought never crossed my mind that someone I loved so much and someone I thought was so kind would be able to hurt me that bad.

There is no type :(

Look out for over explanation of simple things. When the dinner with her friend has a tv script attached to it you know something’s up Guess this is more for ongoing cheating but still applicable I guess

Starting fights, being defensive / projecting. He would start fights over nothing to try to get me to leave or him leave. He would literally start fights when he was about to cheat on me or after to make himself feel less guilty I guess?


I would say being secretive of their phone is a big one, but mine was overly NOT secretive of his phone. I’m almost positive he had a burner somewhere, but I also had never looked through his phone in the decade that we were together so he didn’t really need to be super secretive. But one day I got a gut feeling (we were about to buy a house). Gave in to my gut feeling and went through his phone when he fell asleep and that was it - years and years of cheating and so much more lol.

So GUT INSTINCT is the biggest one for me. May not be an early sign, but is a sign you should not ignore. I was suppressing my gut instincts for so long because of trauma that I assumed I was just overreacting or had anxiety. But no…I wish I had trusted it sooner.

He started being mean for no reason and when we’d go out drinking he’d ask why I was so nice to him.

It was a weird combination of mean for no reason and constantly telling me how nice and kind I was & that he didn’t deserve it..

Then one day while scrolling on someones dog rescue page I heard some older lady passively say “if your dog starts snapping at you, somebody else is feeding it!!”

It’s like a lightbulb went off and everything connected!!

I always find it unusual when i just start getting accused of cheating or an unusual amount of fabricated fights cos i immediately recognise a guilty conscience.

I feel some of these comments are missing that the question asked for signs before the cheater ever cheated.

Before my ex ever started suddenly having to work late and early (because he was seeing his AP before and after work) I should have known he would cheat because of his poor boundaries around other women. He would claim he was naturally flirty but it didn't mean anything. He'd always have girl 'besties' that he was too close to. He was too affectionate to other women, like he'd want to play with their hair and ask them to play with his. Basically he was welcoming opportunities for feelings to grow. I don't think he ever made the first move but he encouraged. I know for a fact there were at least two different girls he cheated with. But I suspect one or two others.

I have to coparent with him. He got himself a new girlfriend that's 10 years younger and he's doing the same exact thing with her. It's only a matter of time. This girl seems jealous of me for some reason when she needs to direct her energy to her best friend / his current "bestie".

I was very young and naive, and he was my first love. I eventually found solid proof of cheating (multiple times), but here were some good warning signs:

- “disappearing” at the end of the night / unreachable until the next morning
- secretive with phone & deleted all text messages
- kept me away from friends and family
- would not include me on “guys night out” even though the other guys brought their girlfriends
- very reluctant to declare our relationship “official”; avoided claiming me as his “girlfriend”

He checked out other women. Not just a bit, but in obvious ways. I’m also here to say that people that chase after that exciting feeling of love are, in my opinion, much more likely to cheat. They’ll always be searching for that feeling and you can’t give them that forever. They also give themselves away in small ways like saying all men cheat or that they’re “not a good person”. They’ll even say these in a joking way, but actually they’re telling on themselves. Also just a little extra note, stay away from men that disrespect older women or older people in general. It was a big sign that he wanted to cling onto his youth. People like that will usually cheat on you with someone younger someday because they hate growing old. Hope that helps! 

It wasn’t hard to figure out because my husband was a teacher and so was his affair partner. Two things.

1. His car was in the shop. I went to the school to pick him and walked towards his classroom. It was almost Christmas and his affair partner met me in the hallway to greet me and said she had a present for my son. I accepted but thought it was weird.

2. My husband rolled over in bed and I noticed that his phone was on, so I picked it up and it went directly to the Facebook page of the woman I had met just days earlier.

He and she first had sex on Mother’s Day.

I’m not bitter at all.

When they started using their phone in "secret agent mode" and suddenly had an inexplicable interest in “getting really fit” with someone who wasn’t you, those were the signs. It’s like watching a poorly disguised heist movie where you’re the last to know.

He became meaner and colder towards me and was way more secretive with his phone. I don’t know if he physically cheated but he absolutely planned to and was having some kind of emotional affair. It’s so so obvious looking back and I kind of knew at the time but didn’t want to believe it as I’m pregnant and I couldn’t imagine him ever hurting me that badly. We’ve been broken up 2 months now.

Building the narrative that he was the victim and I was the villain. Eventually to make it sound like the idea of him cheating was ‘another crazy accusation’. He started doing things like leaving the back door unlocked when he would go out. So that I would mention it when he came home - then he would deny it. Or he would move things, like take things out of our living room and put them in the garage - and when I couldn’t find them he would say he didn’t know what I was talking about. And I would then find them and accuse him of moving them - which he of course denies. Double book stuff then make out I never told him of original plans, and having to cancel was me being insecure. And then just doing other s****y things so that I would have a go at him. He would take the lunch I made for work and then tell me I never made it and he would never just take it. Like I really didn’t realise at first what was going on. But he was painting the picture that I was both going crazy and making stuff up and that I was always having a go/making accusations. And that he was constantly having to deal with me making accusations or being horrible. I picked up on it when he started telling his parents and friends about how much I had a go at him and blamed him for stuff that he ‘honestly’ had know idea about.
He was doing a great job at laying out the narrative that I was paranoid and insecure and making stuff up. So that when his cheating became less careful I just sounded to everyone like I was having a go at him again and being insecure and wanting an excuse for an argument.