I’ve been asked questions like this from various people in recent years. One woman who wrote me recently was pregnant and her husband wasn’t into being with her physically in her condition, and she wanted to know if I thought it was understandable if he go out and have sex with someone else. An old acquaintance of mine asked my advice because his wife approached him about wanting to have an open marriage. Should he be excited about the prospect of being able to date other women after 20 years of marriage? In other words, was open marriage a good idea that would “spice” up the marriage and keep things fresh?

I know there are many people who will have differing opinions on this, but in my experience it’s never a good thing to go outside of your primary relationship for needs that will take your emotional energy away from your relationship. Committed relationships take a lot of effort and management to keep things vibrant and engaging. You can’t take your partner for granted. You can’t just shop around for a newer, shinier model if your old man (or woman) is starting to seem a bit boring and uninspiring to your libido. If you’re bored in your relationship, it’s usually a sign that you’re a boring person who isn’t making an effort to fully live life. Don’t blame your partner. Instead, take up a new hobby, sign up for a class, or quit the job that’s sucking the life out of you. You’d be amazed at how quickly life becomes too busy and interesting to contemplate an affair.

I told my acquaintance that I predicted if he went ahead with the open marriage, he would be filing for divorce in 6 months. He decided he wanted to take the risk, because all he could see were good times ahead when he would finally, after 20 years of marriage, be able to get some new sexual experiences. As it turned out, everything fell apart like I predicted. He and his wife hadn’t altered their paradigm about relationships and what it means to share your partner with others (as many have successfully done in the swinger community). Therefore, the standard feelings of suspicion, dishonesty, jealousy and resentment started rearing their ugly heads. He never did have his fling—he was too busy monitoring his wife, who was screwing around with the handyman and lying about it. They’re divorced now.

I guess he wasn’t as “ok” with his wife having sex with another man as he thought he would be.

As for the pregnant woman with concerns about her “celibate” husband, I would tell her husband, “Suck it up, dude!” There will be many times in your marriage when one or the other person gets ill, gets depressed, is out of town or loses their libido. The attitude of cheating being “understandable” or “OK” under some circumstances, when both partners have an agreement and vow to keeping that sort of intimacy inside the relationship, is simply misguided. It smacks of immaturity, or in this case, makes me wonder if the husband isn’t really into being a father. In any case, there’s a disconnect between what is needed for the relationship to thrive and one person’s individual needs. At the minimum, it tells me this man hasn’t grown up enough to understand adult responsibilities and the need to sacrifice your personal pleasure, even when you don’t want to. Some people want to live a life of perpetual adolescence!

I’ve known plenty of people who engaged in cheating with the idea that it was “saving” their marriage. They excused their behavior by saying that if they couldn’t have this kind of exciting, gratifying outlet, they couldn’t stay married. I say, if that’s what you need to stay married, you shouldn’t be married! You’re with the wrong person. Believe me, when you are with the right person and you work on it, you won’t feel the need to stray.

If you want to have an open marriage—see above. It is a completely different paradigm and lifestyle. It’s not just about getting some new action with a fresh body. There are risks, of falling for someone, of falling for the wrong person, of attracting a mentally imbalanced person who will demand things you aren’t prepared to deliver, of falling out of love with your primary partner. People are notoriously bad at predicting the unintended consequences of their actions. It’s because they fail to ask the right questions.

If you don’t want an open marriage, and you want a true partnership, then cheating is never ok. Whatever your problem, work it out within the relationship. See a therapist. Engage in alternative intimate acts if you can’t have standard intercourse. Talk about it. Masturbate. If you really can’t stand the idea of you (or your partner) going without sex for a long period of time because of whatever reason, then you need to be honest about your relationship and why you’re in it. It may be that the best answer is to part ways rather than traumatize yourself and your partner by dabbling in experimental relationship dynamics.

I think this article took an arbitrary symptom of high hormone levels, such as voice pitch, and used it to make the headline more provocative. Why not say that men who have more chest hair and more pronounced cheek bones and brows (another indicator or high testosterone) are also more prone to cheating? Why not just say that men who are seen as more attractive by the opposite sex are more likely to cheat, simply because they have more opportunity? If a man is attractive, and he’s having relationship troubles, he’s more vulnerable to attention from female co-workers and friends. I’ve known women who were almost laying in wait for a man they knew to start complaining about his relationship, so they could step in and become his shoulder to cry on — and his outlet for his sexual urges.

If a man has low testosterone, and therefore lacks the lower voice, the chiseled features, the hairier body, not only will he not consider sex as important as a man with high testosterone, he will not trigger that sex appeal in women. He’ll look weaker, more effeminate, softer, more like a “buddy” than a potential sexual partner. He’ll be more interested in work and in connecting emotionally with his partner than servicing his carnal needs.

When I think of the men I know who have cheated, I agree that for the most part, their physical features were in the category of more masculine. The men who I thought of as more “geeky” or unattractive were more likely to agonize over their troubled relationships rather than seek comfort in another woman’s arms. But it’s not always true. It’s also a matter of genetics and upbringing and just…well, personal values. It’s a matter of what the man’s personal love history is, and whether he has issues with ego and self-esteem.

In my eBook, “Why Is He Cheating” I explain what factors go into making a man suseptible to cheating, including things like sexual addiction, fantasy, and history.

What do you think? Is a man with a lower voice pitch more prone to cheating? Does your cheating man have a low voice? Does your faithful man have one? Let me know by commenting below.

A man wants to feel appreciated and supported. He wants to feel that you’re his lover, not his mother. He wants to know that he can make you happy and that his efforts in that regard are not in vain. If you find yourself constantly telling him what to do, what to wear, how to behave…it’s bad news for your relationship. Even subtle managing, such as telling a man, “I think you should… why don’t you… If I were you, I’d…” are often seen as managing and mothering.

Tip #2: Don’t Let Your Sex Life Wither

Many women are outraged about this advice. Telling them they should keep their man happy in bed in order to prevent him from straying may sound sexist and like you’re coddling a man who needs to just buck up and grow up. Right? Yes and no. Many men cheat not because they don’t love their wife, but because their wife has lost interest in sex or refuses to sleep with them or perform certain acts (like oral sex). It’s a biological fact that men think about and want sex more often than women do. If you deny your man because you’re tired or ill or just not into it, then you risk the consequences. Take care of yourself and seek medical help if your fatigue is something you can’t seem to resolve on your own.

Tip #3: Communicate in a Way He’ll Listen

Men don’t like nagging, belittling, obsessing women. The best way to communicate in a way that he’ll listen is to tell him how you feel using the words, “I feel…” and then letting him figure out how to respond. Don’t go on and on. Don’t criticize. Just state how you feel and ask him what he thinks. Sometimes it may take him a while to process things and get back to you.

“I feel a little lonely because we haven’t been connecting the way we used to. What do you think?”

Telling a man you suspect he’s cheating or accusing him won’t always get you the results you’re after. Telling him you FEEL worried, anxious, lost or sad may open up the communication in ways you weren’t expecting.

Several years ago, a good friend of mine admitted to me that he had been secretly having an affair for two years. While we were sitting in a bar and he explained how he had known the woman he had just married much longer than he had led everyone to believe. He had actually been seeing her while he was still living with another woman—his ex-girlfriend—and she never suspected a thing the entire time.
He and his current wife used to live thousands of miles apart from each other. Theirs was a secret long-distance relationship. He would make excuses to travel to see her several times a year—telling his live-in girlfriend that he had to visit his parents, attend work conferences, or go to seminars.
I was friends with both him and his girlfriend during the time that he was cheating on her. While they never had a formal commitment sanctioned by the state, they were essentially a common law marriage, having lived together for almost ten years. I never suspected a thing, and apparently—neither did she.
My friend was able to plan his wedding, travel to another state, and go through with the wedding, and the whole time neither his new wife nor his girlfriend knew about the other one. The girlfriend finally found out after he had returned home, packed his belongings while she was at work, and left her a note as he vacated the apartment. It was only then that he admitted that not only was he leaving her, he had married someone else.
I couldn’t believe it! Beyond the moral implications of what he had done, it amazed me how I never would have known if he hadn’t come out and told me.  Certainly, he wasn’t the “cheating type.” I knew several of those kinds of guys at my workplace. They were men who would regularly have one-night stands on business trips. Some of them even went as far as having regular mistresses overseas where they spent a lot of time working.
I don’t know if my place of work was typical or not, but it sure seemed like there was a lot of infidelity going on. Sometimes I felt there must be something wrong with me as a man, because I was never interested in having an affair or cheating on my wife. Sure, there were many attractive women that I would occasionally fantasize about, even some that I gave more than a passing thought. However, these thoughts and fantasies never went any further than that.
From where I stood, the damage that these men were doing to their marriages and relationships was obvious and painful to see. But to my friend with the new wife, everything seemed justifiable, normal, and almost destined. That made me wonder why the things that were apparent to me about these men who were cheating, weren’t so obvious to them.
I wanted to get down to the bottom of it. Call it simple curiosity. Ok, call it a kind of twisted curiosity. I wanted to know what made these men different from me—what it was about their life or relationship that made them vulnerable to cheating, and what was so fascinating to them that they would risk their relationships, marriages, family, or lifestyle just to have a little “something” on the side.
So I started doing research. I read tons of books and talked to a lot of cheaters. I also solicited personal stories through ads I placed on Craigslist, with the promise that identities would remain protected.
As I was learning all the “hows” of cheating and how to know if someone close to you is doing it, the natural next question arose like sunrise: “Why?” Why do people cheat, and more crucially, why do people cheat on loved ones whom they profess to cherish and hold dear to their hearts?
One of my college professors once told me that when you are trying to solve a problem, you can’t just ask why. You have to ask why five times, digging deeper and deeper into the root cause. Why are we going out of business? Because we’re being sued. Why are we being sued? Because an old lady burnt herself drinking our coffee. Why did she burn herself? Because her paper cup fell apart in her lap. Why did it fall apart? Because we bought the cups from company A, not company B. Why? Because company A saved us $2500 last quarter and we needed to show cost cuts for the stockholders.
That’s an overly simple example, but it illustrates how true understanding isn’t possible with just a single “why.”
When I learned that cheaters hold just a few different types of beliefs and attitudes, these revelations begged answers to still more questions:
•    What would make a man claim to love one woman and yet sleep with another one?
•    If a man cheats on his wife, does that mean he secretly doesn’t want to be married any more?
•    How can so many men get away with cheating for so long?
•    Is monogamy not natural for humans, or is the temptation just too great for some people?

The answers I found blew me away, and I can’t wait to share these secrets with you.

You’ve been watching and observing your man, wondering if he’s cheating. Finally, you have  enough evidence and enough of a FEELING that  one night after work you decide to ask him if  he’s up to anything.

What happens next? He gets quiet. Then slowly,  his calm turns to anger. You try reasoning with  him. He turns on you, telling you you’re nuts,  you need help, you need a hobby, you need SOMETHING.

His response leaves you not feeling ANY better about what he’s up to, but now on top of that anxiety, you have a relationship that’s thrust  into crisis mode.

You think: “I was just trying to make things better, I try so hard in this relationship! What should I do now? How do I find out what I need?”

You’re not alone. The world is full of good women who get into this bind every single day. Why is this fight such a common situation?

Well, there’s a couple reasons:

First, if you’re like most women, you are highly intuitive and can tell when something is “off”.

Second, it’s very important for you that you have a good feeling about your marriage (not just keeping the peace).

Women derive more of their personal satisfaction and sense of self from a marital bond compared to a typical man. As a result, they are far more willing to bring difficult stuff up, look at it, and confront it. Does that jive with the way you feel?

On the other hand, men AVOID confrontation and DON’T like feeling cornered. Sure, men would love a “Happily Ever After” scenario just as much as women, but are more willing to settle for something less inspiring.

Men don’t feel the need to have their relationship be perfect all the time. Men tend to prefer peaceful cohabitation and to not “sweat the small stuff” too much. Men don’t look to their woman to fulfill all their desires. They’re quite happy to use other things to fulfill their need for excitement, entertainment, bonding, like their guy friends, hobbies, TV, video games, sports, etc.

So men tend to “compartmentalize” their life.

This means that they’ll separate parts of their life in their mind…  “This is my family life, this is the fun part of my life, this is my work and responsibility part…”

When this happens, you find yourself shut out of parts of his life. He won’t talk to you in detail about what he’s doing at work, or how he feels about his friends or the time they spend “hanging out” together. He’ll stop sharing with you. He’ll kind of get distant, or withdraw.

Men not only want other things in their life, they want to NOT BE ACCOUNTABLE to you for those things. In extreme cases, his attitude resembles a “NO TRESPASSING” sing. Not a very sharing, loving, mature attitude, is it?

Well, no, it isn’t.

Then one day you start feeling suspicious that something is up, and you look for the signs that maybe he’s involved with another woman.

You convince yourself that something’s not right. So you ask him, “Is there something going on with you that you’re not telling me? Is it another woman?”

He’s been compartmentalizing his life because he has certain needs (for friendship or entertainment) that he’s not necessarily getting from you, and that in itself doesn’t

mean he’s cheating. But to you, it certainly SEEMS like something is going on. He may be cheating, he may not be. He denies it, either way.

This is why asking a man outright sometimes goes nowhere and accomplishes nothing.

You get no closer to figuring out what’s going on.  Sure, there are rare cases where a man will just be honest and admit it, but most of the time a man will deny it over and over and over.

But wait, does the fact that he DENIED it count for anything?

In a nutshell, NO. Obviously if he’s “innocent”, he denies it and all this exchange serves to do is annoy both of you. But if he’s “guilty”, well, he’ll deny it. Of course he will! Are you kidding me?

So how do you find out the answer to your question without getting into a huge fight or creating more distance between you (especially important if he’s being honest)?

It’s important to understand a couple of things about what’s playing out between the two of you. Let me explain…

Imagine for a moment that he IS cheating on you with another woman. Now, studies REPEATEDLY show that while some affair relationships do actually take off and work, 3 out of every 4 affair relationships end VERY quickly after they are discovered. Why is that?

The answer is another KEY POINT, but one you can probably intuitively guess: affair relationships aren’t REAL. They don’t have to pass the same kind of tests that REAL relationships do, like paying the bills, keeping the house clean day after day, and all that. Affairs are based in the world of FANTASY. (Of course, if they produce a child together, then I guess the world of reality comes crashing down on the fantasy, doesn’t it?)

This is why affairs get denied time and time again. It’s important not to underestimate the pull of this fantasy realm on your man. It feels good. It feels REALLY good. And he doesn’t want to let it go.

Not only that, your confrontation scene actually drives him DEEPER into this fantasy realm. The childlike part of him looks at this situation and says: “Look, this real world stuff is getting to be a major DRAG. Look at her! She wants to take my fun away! I like this OTHER world, where no one’s on my case about stuff.”

Sound totally selfish and childlike? No argument there.

But, that aside, you need to face facts. You can’t compete with a fantasy, because you’re out here in the real world. You’re not going to lure him out of hiding, so you’re going to have to go smoke him out.

What all this means is that you need to take a deep breath, and as Emeril Lagasse says, “take it up a notch”.

You need to form a game plan and actually go through the process of learning the common signs of cheating, and then actually trying to CATCH him in a lie.

Faced with facts and evidence, most men will eventually stop denying it and come clean (based on how solid your evidence is, of course).

Studies have shown that when an affair gets  revealed, most often it’s the wife who uncovers it. That’s right, it’s up to you. In other words, don’t rely on other people to find out (unless of course you’re hiring them!)

I have a bunch of great little tips in my e-book “Why Is He Cheating?” which can help you find out. A few of them I already shared in my 1st free report you received.

Now, I realize I’m not the only expert on the Internet talking about catching cheaters. If you’ve checked other sites, you know many of my colleagues endorse and encourage you to use  “Spyware”. I don’t.

If you decide to install Spying software on your PCs, be careful! Some are not that good and can be found out, if your man is savvy. Some are way TOO hidden and impossible to remove. The fact is, you don’t know what else the company you’re using is spying on, not just your husband’s extracurricular activities. I know this stuff is all the rage now, but my advice is to consider leaving this one OUT of your toolbox.

Anyway, you don’t need it. There’s other, less invasive ways to catch cheaters.

I think a really good one is a keystroke logger, which will enable you to record every email and IM every sent from your computer. A GPS tracker attached to your man’s car is also a good way to go, though be very careful to hide the paraphernalia and software.

Chapter 2 of the e-book has many, many more ideas for you to try, and I don’t want you to miss out on them: Safe, effective ways to get the information you need to finally, confidently, confront him.

More importantly to you, you’ll also learn the WHYs of cheating. What makes a man cheat? What lured him to this fantasy world in the first place? How do you address the “Whys” so you can keep this from happening again?

“Why Is He Cheating?” was designed to offer an in-depth understanding of marital infidelity in a quick to read, inexpensive package.

You owe it to yourself!

Learn to recognize the signs, then do what  you need to do to get peace of mind, so  you can DEAL with this situation as soon as possible.

It doesn’t seem to make sense, and this fact alone keeps you from totally believing that he is in FACT cheating…

So you go back and forth…

One day, you’re convinced there’s something going on, and the next day he does something sweet or affectionate and you tell yourself you’re imagining things.

This is a common dilemma. I thought about this a few days ago when I was on my way to work. I was passed by a large SUV in the left lane. I stared down at it from my bus seat and saw in the rear window a big red bumper sticker, which read:

“I LOVE MY WIFE”

And I had to smile. Now, don’t get wrong, I applaud this man. If more men could put those stickers on their car, who

knows…maybe the world would be a better place, and more women would be treated well by their spouses. (It wasn’t until later that I found out this is a slogan for the Promise Keepers. Hmmm…)

But what made me smile, was this: Does this man know how many women there are, whose husbands SAY they love them, but later find out they’re being BETRAYED by these same men? It’s very sad, and it’s very true. It’s crazy! And maybe it’s happened to you.

Men can claim that they love you, and still place all that they claim to cherish at total risk. True, there’s a lot of comfort in hearing from your man, “I love you like nothing else in this world”…

It’s like a thick warm fur blanket wrapped around your soul, telling you everything is fine. But maybe your eyes and your intuition are telling you something else. Telling you to worry that maybe it’s colder than you think. It gnaws away at you, if you’re one of these frustrated and bewildered women, sensing your relationship is in crisis and you don’t know why.

It’s a question I’ve been asked as much as any other: “He says he loves me, but if he’s cheating, he must be lying, right?” Because it can’t POSSIBLY be both ways, right?

Wrong.

And this is a really bizarre thing about men that you need to know:

A man can actually love you AND cheat on you at the same time. This may seem ridiculous and hard to believe. But it gets even weirder than that! I’ve studied, read countless books and listened to the stories of cheaters for years. After all that, a really interesting pattern became apparent to me, and it’s a common thread when cheaters still love their wives…And it’s this:

Your man could actually think he’s SAVING his marriage by not being faithful to it.

How in the world does this possibly happen? And what does it mean? To answer that, let’s take another quick peak inside the mind of a man. And let’s start with basics…this amazing scenario can begin innocently when a man decides some worthwhile thing he’s done warrants a reward.

That’s right, he decides to give himself a little present.

But how does he decide what he wants, and how does he to give himself PERMISSION to go get it? You’re probably wondering what all this has to do with YOU. Well, it’s possible is has NOTHING to do with you. It’s about HIM, his mental and emotional state, and the story he tells himself about his life, and what it’s missing. Quite simply, he CRAVES.

Ever craved something? Ever had a hard day at work, and on the way home your car turned itself into the parking lot of a coffee shop, ice cream parlor or chocolatier? That’s a simple example of what I’m talking about, and there’s nothing more human than craving. But have you ever stopped to wonder where does craving come from?

The thing is, most men work HARD, and they take what they do VERY seriously. Not surprisingly, they want other people to notice this, admire it, and appreciate it. This goes especially for those they are in a romantic, intimate relationship with. I guess you could say, the closer you are to him, the more he’s looking for that gratitude. But there’s much more to this: For example, most men, deep, deep down, are deathly afraid of their lives passing them by. Let’s face it, most of us guys are never going to regain the looks, energy and fitness we had when we were 23 or so. And we an feel the downward pull of the years as time passes, and can begin to wonder what happened to the old dreams. But before you start feeling sorry for us guys, realize that we bring this on ourselves.

You see, a typical woman is much more likely to confront the difficult things in her life, to make difficult choices and move on. In contrast, a typical man is FAR more likely to get himself STUCK. So now we’re getting to some nuts and bolts. If you are worried about your man cheating on you, but you think he still loves you, there are two very, VERY key questions you need to think about:

#1: Does you man feel appreciated for what he does? and #2: Does he feel ENTERTAINED AND INTRIGUED by his life, and where it’s heading?

These answers to these two questions contain a wealth of knowledge that can help you understand what could possible motivate a man to risk so much. Also, it’s worth it to stop for a moment, and notice how neither of these questions have ANYTHING to do with his feelings for you. They have much more to do with what your man needs to do to fulfill his perceived needs.

If the answer to both of the questions above is NO, then whether conscious or subconscious, your man will eventually give himself permission to “sneak off” in whatever direction gets him what he craves.

Men do this. In many cases, it can be harmless. In my case, for example, many times on a beautiful summer evening after a hard day’s work, I treat myself by driving to a local pond and enjoying some quiet fishing while the sun sinks behind the mountains nearby. I do this as a reward to myself for my hard work, and because it feeds a part of my soul I can’t feed in the hustle and bustle at home.

But there are other, more dangerous cravings: Acceptance, adoration, adventure, respect, different kinds of sex, are just a few of the myriad things that could be on the mind of your man. Whatever it is he craves, if his married life is denying him of it, it just builds like pressure in a tea kettle. In most cases, it’s not a question of if, but of when.

There’s another, CRUCIAL piece of information you need. This fundamental need of his that’s not being met, whatever it is, it doesn’t even have to be REAL OR TRUE.

It just has to SEEM true, from his perspective. In other words, it just has to exist in his mind. I really can’t overemphasize the importance of this.

If you’re with me this far, you’re probably thinking, “OK, so just what is he being denied that’s so valuable to him, anyway?” That’s the million-dollar question, and it can be a very tough puzzle to solve. Fortunately, you don’t have to figure it out alone!

In my e-book “Why Is He Cheating?” (available for sale here as a PDF or on Amazon in Kindle edition), I present the keys to unlocking your man puzzle.

Here are just a few of them:

- What is your man like when he’s WRONG?

- What did your man’s 1st romantic experience, back in his childhood, teach him about love?

- And what is your man’s #1 WORST fear?

Contained in the answers to these questions is a pile of valuable insights into what makes your man tick, but if you stop here, you miss out on the treasure trove of information in the e-book.

There’s much, much more you need to be thinking about to get a complete picture of what’s going on. In Chapter 4, you and I will do a deep dive into his mind and soul, and you’ll learn a crucial technique that makes it SO much easier to see the world through his eyes.

Why guess what your man is thinking when you can KNOW just minutes after beginning to read? If you know what your man needs, you can make sure he gets it, and in a way that meets your needs too. But if you can’t tell what he craves, you’ll always be guessing what his next moves will be.

But this is just the beginning to what’s in the e-book:

- You’ll learn what other reasons men have for cheating on perfectly good, loving wives

- You’ll learn the different types of cheaters, and how to tell if your man fits one of those types.

- You’ll learn what to DO in each case, to bring happiness back to your home, as quickly as possible.

How can he love you and still cheat? And what does this mean for your marriage? It doesn’t always spell the end. In fact, it can be the beginning of a new chapter in your life and in your relationship.

Let me know how my eBook helps your particular situation.

The most obvious reason I can think of that a woman would be suspicious is if her man suddenly has “plans” for February 14th. He has to work late, go out of town, meet a friend, attend a seminar or workshop, or any variety of excuses as to why he can’t take her out for a romantic dinner or spend time with her. I would imagine this might be common when a man isn’t married and is still dating–perhaps dating more than a couple of women–and he’s decided to either NOT make the day special for any of the women he’s seeing, or spend time with one to the exclusion of all others.

A man being unavailable on Valentine’s Day would make a woman suspicious. I had a female friend who once lamented to me that the man she just started dating was mysteriously “busy” on Valentine’s Day, but later she discovered he actually did have plans—with his long-time girlfriend and they were going to Vegas. She was upset, but perhaps not as upset as she would be if this had been her husband or fiancé. They had only been out a few times. Still, he was already involved…

Another reason a woman may wonder if her boyfriend or husband is cheating is if he usually plans something romantic on Valentine’s and this year, he’s not even mentioning the holiday. As a matter of fact, he’s been withdrawn and moody lately. Does that mean he’s cheating? Not necessarily. He may just be moody or depressed. Maybe he’s preoccupied with work issues. Or he’s burned out. That can make a man withdraw, and it really has nothing to do with YOU.

If you have a comment or story about what you discovered about your man this Valentine’s, please feel free to comment below.

You know the well-worn phrase, “I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy”, right?

Well if you’re like me, that’s how you feel about finding out that your significant other, the person you’ve dedicated YEARS of your life and your SOUL to, is cheating on you.

That’s news so awful, you wouldn’t wish it on your worst enemy.

It turns your whole world completely upside down. And even though it will eventually right itself, it will never look and feel quite the same as it used to, before your trust was betrayed.

But hold on a second – that’s when you KNOW he’s cheated on you. SUSPECTING your man is cheating is no picnic either, is it?

Of course not. NOT knowing brings stress and fear. Anger. It quickly becomes the “800 lb. gorilla in the room” of an otherwise serene life.

Trying to feel relaxed and happy when you think your man is cheating on you is like trying to feel relaxed and happy when you’re camping and a pack of hungry wolves has just surrounded your tent. It’s not going to happen.

And it’s not supposed to. You’re supposed to feel alarmed and anxious. You crave answers. You want your life back again. You want HIM back again. And finally, you get to the point where it’s time to get busy.

But busy doing WHAT?

A lot of the typical things women do when they finally decide to get busy finding out are doomed to failure.

They will quite simply fall flat on their face and accomplish nothing. In fact, some of them can even make a bad situation worse.

Here’s a taste:

You try checking his cell phone for names you don’t recognize.

By all means, go ahead and check. But I’d be very surprised if this got you anywhere. There are two problems.

First, people use cell phones to make all sorts of calls. I practically guarantee you that you’ll find names and numbers you don’t recognize, and every one of them could be benign and meaningless.

Second, if your man is in a significant “other”relationship, you should expect a little more savvy on his part than just leaving 50 calls to a girl named “Brandi” on his phone.

You try asking his friends or coworkers if they know anything.

A noble pursuit, to be sure. Again, there are two problems with this approach: cluelessness and loyalty.

Trust me, it’s not only possible but highly likely even your man’s best friend would have NO CLUE about what he’s really up to. Most times, men simply don’t “go there” with each other when they hang out.

Plus, when men hang out with each other, they aren’t in the habit of flowing over with praise about their wife anyway; so after you ask this friend, or brother, watch as he racks his brain, checking the corners of his mental cupboards for something useful to say.

That’s cluelessness, but expect loyalty as well.

This is because NOBODY wants the job of letting you know what’s going on.

This friend or family member is thinking, “When is he going to fess up to what’s he’s doing? I’M not going to be the one to make her cry. It’s HIS mess. Let him tell her.

Why doesn’t he already?…” And so on.

Believe me, it’s not about any contempt for you that friends and family would let themselves become complicit in the ruse. It’s just human nature.

You slowly stew and get more and more resentful. You quietly “punish” him with this behavior, hoping he’ll snap out of it.

Nothing could be more natural than this response to suspicion of cheating. After all, it hurts, and you don’t deserve this one bit.

If you have any passive-aggressive tendencies at all in your personality, they’ll probably come out here: If you normally do laundry, you’ll let it go several extra days. If you ask him to do something around the house, you’ll have an extra short fuse with him as he takes his sweet time getting it done.

You withhold your true feelings and thoughts from him, getting more business-like. You might doll yourself up a little bit more than usual, but rather than sitting on his lap before work and sharing a joke, it’s a curt “gotta be somewhere” and you’re out the door.

You’re probably thinking, “This’ll teach him, he’s got a good thing going and he better shape up.” But the sad thing is, this usually has the exact OPPOSITE effect from what you intended.

When the mind of a man sees a woman treating him like he’s a total jerk, he doesn’t engage. He DISENGAGES. Unplugs. He thinks to himself, “It’s impossible to make this woman happy! Why even try?”

You try confronting him.

Actually, I’m in favor of this action. By all means, bring it up directly. Where the problem comes in with confrontation is the WAY in which it is almost always done.

You approach your man after he gets home from work, you tell him he’s acting really weird, you want to know if he’s having an affair.

He stares at you for a few seconds in silence before he reacts.

And all you get from him is frustration, rage, incredulousness, and then the attacks:

“You’re insane.

Nosey.

Ridiculous.

If you could only see yourself.

I’ll be at the bar if anyone calls.”

You’ve just been stonewalled. You’re left not knowing anything more than you did an hour ago, but your relationship is now in crisis mode.

You check his car for the proverbial panties.

What the heck, right? Guys like souvenirs, don’t they? Again as before, I don’t necessarily condemn this action. By all means, try.

But consider yourself relatively unique if you actually find anything in the glove compartment, under the seat, stuffed in the arm rest. (While you’re in there, what’s FAR better to look for, by the way, are things like lipsticks, flower petals, pieces of wrapping paper.)

I’m assuming your man is intelligent and thoughtful enough to get rid of truly obvious signs of his adultery.

You go into denial mode.

Frustrated and feeling totally alone, it’s not at all unusual for you to begin to give up at this point. You haven’t really found anything. Maybe he’s not cheating, maybe he’s just a jerk lately.

Or maybe you can’t take the thought of what he’ll call you and think about you the next time he catches you snooping around his stuff. There’s just no good way to find out, short of hiring one of those private investigators you’ve seen on TV.

Anyway, you have lots of friends and family who know your man, surely once one of them witnesses something undeniable, they’ll grab the first phone they see and call you, right?

Think again.

True, it does happen and it may happen for you.

But don’t bet on it. What makes this difficult situation even harder is how alone you truly are. The fact is, most spouses have only one person they can rely on to help them find out the truth:

THEMSELVES.

That’s right. YOU can do this. If you know WHAT TO LOOK FOR, WHAT TO SAY, HOW TO ACT, you can figure out EXACTLY what’s going on.

I have spent the last several years doing research and conducting interviews of not only the betrayed, but the betrayers as well.

I’m a guy, and most of the folks I talked to didn’t know me – I found them through Craigslist and other such venues. What this means is that I got the simple, brutal, unedited truth – the WHATS, HOWS AND WHYS of countless marital affairs.

And believe me, a very clear pattern emerged.

• It became evident that the VAST MAJORITY of all discovered affairs are revealed due to DIRECT INVESTIGATION BY THE BETRAYED SPOUSE.

• There are some HIGHLY INDICATIVE SIGNS OF CHEATING that you can discover with minimal effort.

Here’s a sample of a just few of these low-key ways of discovering he’s cheating:

1. YOUR INTUITION TELLS YOU SOMETHING’S UP.

Yes, the first place to look is inward. It turns out your own feelings are an excellent place to start. In fact, get this: Numerous clinical studies have been done on this, and the results described by psychologists clearly indicate that if you are a betrayed spouse, you may have SUBLIMINAL KNOWLEDGE  of the affair.

In other words, your intuition, or gut, is already telling you something is wrong. In fact, according to these psychologists, in most cases you’ll even guess who the third party is, right off the bat!

This shouldn’t be so surprising in retrospect, since over 50% of the time your cheating man is seeing someone that YOU KNOW TOO.

So definitely give this a try. For this exercise, I suggest you get some “alone time”; maybe a park nearby, maybe taking a drive in the hills or a walk on the beach, or just meditating in a quiet place in your home. First quiet your mind, then listen to it.

2. HE’S LOOKING GOOD LATELY.

Is your man buying new clothes for no particular reason? Have you noticed he’s been upgrading his underwear and socks? Or maybe he’s getting his haircut on a more regular basis and all without any nagging on your part, possibly using gel in his hair all of a sudden. He just bought some new sunglasses. He finally gave up that coat with the tear in it and got himself something really sharp.

Upgrading the daily appearance is definitely a sign that SOMETHING out there in his life has become important to him.

Beyond preening, there’s another biggie giveaway: physical fitness.

Perhaps he’s working out more, dieting and losing pounds. Crucially, if there’s something up, he won’t be telling you he’s dieting, but he’s definitely getting noticeably more tone. True, it could be a kind of modesty on his part, but maybe he’s trying to keep it all on the down-low.

Pay special attention to any purchases you can gain awareness of which are made directly before a business trip. That’s when he’ll want to get that special “seduction” shirt to wear on his “date” with the other woman.

3. HE NO LONGER LIKES BEING SURPRISED AT HOME OR WORK.

This is another potent sign. It’s especially informative if you stop by his place of work sometimes, but not very often. Maybe it’s been a few months. Well, now’s a good time.

Have an excuse, like being in the neighborhood and wanting to take him out for coffee, or wanting to check in on a friend at work who’s been struggling with health problems, be creative and have a real, legitimate reason.

The point isn’t to catch him doing anything so much as to gauge his reaction to you being in his domain.

Alternatively, does your man work from home or telecommute? He may have ample opportunity to not only find a woman to have an affair with online, but he has the house all to himself all day to make phone calls or worse…have her over.

Pop in for lunch sometime, or come home early from work. Does he act nervous, annoyed, angry? You may have surprised him and maybe his first worried thought might be, “Are you sick, did you get fired, are you ok?” But past that, he should be happy to see you.

If he’s not, there’s reason to be suspicious.

4. HE HAS A LONG-DISTANCE CALLING CARD FOR NO REASON YOU’RE AWARE OF.

At a discrete moment, grab his wallet and look for a prepaid calling card.

The reason: he wants to make calls to his lover without you being able to track it. If he calls using a calling card, a) the woman can’t tell with caller ID where he is calling from and b) it never shows up on his home phone account or work account, because he calls an 800 number.

Ask him about this card and see what he says. Don’t be surprised if he has a plausible but unsatisfactory answer, like, “I can’t always get good cell phone reception on business trips and I need to use the hotel phone.”

He might say that, or he may not have a good answer and may get defensive. A guarded, hesitant reaction is not unlikely, since men rarely think ahead to come up with a believable excuse for their suspicious behavior.

5. HE’S ON THE INTERNET IN PRIVATE.

In today’s hectic world, a married couple’s time together is precious, given all our responsibilities. But maybe your man doesn’t see it as all that precious?

Maybe he shuts himself off in the home office or den with a laptop, and you don’t hear from him for hours.

He could be spending his time on the World Wide Web’s seedier side. If you are inclined toward sexual adventure, the Internet not only provides access to a multitude of likeminded people, it in effect encourages fantasy and lack of inhibition.

The Internet is thus becoming THE major conduit for cheaters and their affairs.

Internet junkies are typically pretty savvy with covering their tracks, but it’s somewhat labor intensive, clearing folders and files all the time. Keep returning periodically to the computer he uses and check the history and cookie folders, investigating any web links or URLs you don’t recognize. He’s bound to trip up sooner or later.

These are highly effective ways to tell if your man is cheating on you, and they aren’t expensive or all that time consuming to do.

If your man is doing one of these things, does that mean he’s cheating?

No.

There’s LOTS more signs you need to know about.

No one sign by itself signals much of anything.

But two, three or more signs linked together are starting to build a very compelling case that something is going on.

In fact, there are 14 other crucial signs you need to look out for beyond the five I’ve laid out for you above. In my e-book, “Why Is He Cheating?”,

I dedicate a whole chapter to going over all 19 of them in detail.

But those are just the SIGNS of a man being a cheater. There’s much, much more to the picture that you need to know. Beyond just FINDING OUT, “Why Is He Cheating?” can help you:

• DISCOVER the Five Types of Cheaters: What they’re after, how they operate, and how they feel about YOU.
• DETERMINE which Cheater Type your man is most likely to be.
• UNDERSTAND the major reasons WHY men cheat on perfectly good women.
• PROBE the inner psyche of your man, so you can see the world through HIS eyes.
• CALCULATE the chances for reconciliation and repair.
• LEARN how to make sure crucial conversations and dialogues with your man stay ON TRACK and PRODUCTIVE.
• STAY SANE, in what is arguably one of the toughest things you can face!

You DON’T have to be alone through this.

You can have “Why Is He Cheating?” to guide you through.

Order your copy right now and be reading it in minutes!

Let me know what you find out, and how my book has helped you uncover the truth about what’s happening in your relationship. May you find the inner strength to deal with whatever happens, and realize peace in your heart no matter what.

This is an e-mail I received from a woman whose husband claimed the friendship he had with a woman was platonic. But she found evidence to the contrary…

“The last year of our marriage has been very difficult. My husband lost his job 9 months ago and has since gotten a new one, but he hates it. I’ve had family problems because my father had been diagnosed with colon cancer and my sister is going through a divorce. It seems like we were always fighting and the tension was sometimes so high that he would leave the house for hours at a time on weekends. He never told me where he went when he came back, and I never asked. That’s because we were giving each other the silent treatment.

Last week I was on the computer at home checking my email and noticed that he had forgotten to sign out of his email account. On purpose or by accident I don’t know. I know I shouldn’t have but I couldn’t help myself, something told me to go in and look at his emails. I just had a gut feeling. I saw an email from that woman he used to be friends with. She was giving him advice on our marriage, and that’s not the worse part! There was a bunch of affectionate words in the email, like “hon” and “babe” and at the end she signed it “Love ya.”

I just about started crying but I didn’t. I just couldn’t believe it! When he got home I told him I read the email and told him how upset I was and how he had been lying to me. He told me I was exaggerating and that it was “nothing.” Not only that, but he got mad at ME for snooping around his email!! He said that he and this woman were still just friends and had always spoken to each other like that, but what a bunch of BS. At the end of the night I started doubting myself and wondering if he was right that I was going off the deep end.

But now I wonder about all those Saturdays and Sundays where he would use any excuse to get in a fight and storm out of the house for several hours at a time. Maybe he was with her. I bet he was.”

I received these real-life cheating stories from a combination of posting ads for them on Craigslist and soliciting stories from readers of this website. These ones on this website are just a small sampling. I compiled the best stories in my eBook, “Why Is He Cheating? The Surprising Reasons Why Men Cheat, What They Do to Get Away With It, and How To Know if Your Relationship Will Survive Infidelity.”

“Two years ago I discovered the casual encounters section of Craigslist and I could not believe that you could just post an ad and meet up with someone so easily.  I began with just reading them as a fantasy way to fulfill my desire for sex which wasn’t being met at home.  I then posted a few ads just to see what kind of replies I might get with no intention of acting on them.  Many of the replies would be generated by spam bots to entice guys into joining a porn web-site, or linked to an escort service. Through this process I found the most effective way to write an ad as to get replies from real women.  I established some email dialog with a few of them, but when it came down to meeting I always came up with some excuse or way to cancel out of it at the last minute.  I used an alias email account and name during all of this.

My first affair came about because I had a business trip planned and so I placed an ad on that cities Craigslist casual encounters section. I got a reply within an hour and began emailing back and forth for a few days. A divorced woman with two teen daughters and a busy work schedule. I played the same angle back at her that I was divorced, had kids and couldn’t fit a relationship into my life at this time but still needed intimacy. She wanted to talk on the phone before I came out, so I had to by a disposable pre-pay cell phone. We talked a few times and agreed to meet in the hotel bar. Two drinks and a little small talk then we ended up back in my hotel room. It was okay but I felt guilty as hell and swore I would never do it again. She emailed me a few times after I got back, saying my phone wasn’t working (I had actually tossed it in the trash at the airport before I came back home). I didn’t email back and she stopped trying after a week.

Three months passed and the fear and guilt began to fade. I was asked to go on another upcoming 3 day weekend business trip. I let my wife know about the dates and such I would be out of town, and then a few days later work decided I wouldn’t need to go after all. Wow, I thought this would be a great chance to take a personal vacation, hit some bars and hole up in a hotel away from the wife and kids. I booked a room at a hotel across town, and placed a casual encounter ad. Again I got a reply and played the business trip angle, the thing is this was in my home town. Like the first time, I met the woman in the hotel bar and ended up in my room. Three days later we parted and I was in a state of sexual euphoria. This woman was everything I was seeking in a sexual partner. We emailed back and forth for a few weeks and I arranged another couple of meetings, which were always at a hotel near then airport, because I was claiming I had a layover on a business trip to another city. Little did she know I actually lived 30 minutes away from her. I was getting in deep and realized I had to end it before the shit hit the fan. I came up with an incredible story of being transferred to Germany with my company and within a month falling on love with a woman who I was going to marry. She was piss as hell at me and never wrote or called again.

Unfortunately I was developing a serious sexual addition and I wanted more. I was becoming an evil person.

My most recent encounter was 5 months ago. I placed an ad for a lunch time hook-up and got a reply.  She didn’t even want to met somewhere public first and gave me her address. Foolishly I drove right over. She had said she was 41, but she was easily 10 years older. Oh well, I figured I’ll still get my rocks off. We began, I started thinking that I must not of put on my deodorant or something, but realized it was her. Repulsed, I didn’t want to continue and decided to leave before it got any further.  She wanted money, I just left, and I threw up out my car window, thinking about what and whom I’ve become.

Disgusted with myself and the depths I have allowed myself to get to, once again I am swearing to never do this again. So why am I telling you all of this? Perhaps as a way to expose myself without telling my wife. Perhaps as a way to help others. I’m not sure. I’m not seeking forgiveness just to say what I’ve done. I know I want to change.”