Tell me if this has happened to you recently or if you’re experiencing this RIGHT NOW.
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.