Do you have a feeling in your gut that’s something wrong in your relationship? That maybe, just maybe, your partner’s being unfaithful? If you do, then you have a decision to make and several options to choose from.

The Options

First, think about how sure you are of their infidelity. If you aren’t sure at all then option one, confronting them right now, without wasting any time, is completely out of the question. Doing so could ruin the relationship because it’d highlight, rightly or wrongly, that you don’t trust your partner.

The second option: ignore your suspicions, assume they’re unfounded and that they always will be, that nothing’s going on, and continue as normal.

This option’s one many people take, either to avoid being confronted with an ugly truth, that their lover’s doing some extra ‘loving’ behind their backs, or because they fear they’re being unfair to their partners by being suspicious of them and doubtful of their devotedness.

Third option: do something to help eradicate your suspicions. Find out either way what’s going on, if your partner’s cheating on you or if they’re being faithful.

Learning the Truth

Okay, let’s assume option three is the one for you. You want to find out the truth and don’t want to simply ignore your gut instinct and continue on as normal. What methods of investigation, ways of discovering the facts, are there at your disposal?

1. The simplest way (often considered the first step), and something you might have already begun doing, is looking for obvious signs of potential betrayal. Your partner smells of a fragrance, perfume or after-shave you don’t recognize.

They’ve been leaving the house for work half an hour earlier than they’ve ever done before, for no apparent reason. They don’t seem to enjoy sex with you as they used to, or choose to avoid it completely whenever they can.

Keep an eye out for these surface signs of potential infidelity. In a way, looking for them and recording them in your mind or on paper can be considered harmless, it’s free information there to be noticed…if only you’ll look.

2. After the obvious potential signs of cheating dry up, or when you feel you’re at a dead end looking for and analyzing them, more forthright, headstrong action may be called for. Some people, at this point, reach straight for the Yellow Pages, thumbing right to the private investigator section.

That’s one option, sure, but there are things you can do yourself before calling in a third party. First, you could try setting a trap. It may sound a little primeval, like catching a wild animal, but really it’s more like a test.

These tests can take many forms. For example, arrange a “trip,” say you’re going away for a couple days to visit your folks, or friends, and use that time to keep track of some of the things your partner does.

You don’t necessarily need to sit outside in the car with a pair of binoculars 24/7, just pay attention to key times when your partner would, if you were home, do certain things, like leave the house for work, come home, etc.

You’d be surprised how many cheaters embrace these rare, private opportunities to further their affairs and indulge in some extra-marital ‘relations’.

Subtler Ways of Testing Fidelity

There are also subtler ways of testing your partner’s fidelity and faithfulness. One of them’s called the ‘gossip’ test. It involves bringing up the topic of cheating using a fictional third party, such as one of your work colleagues or friends.

Mention, without hinting at your suspicion of them in the slightest, that your friend (or whoever you’ve chosen to use for this test) confided in you that they’re cheating on their partner. Most people are, to some degree or another, even if it’s just to maintain conversation, interested in a little gossip, especially if it involves a subject as juicy as infidelity.

But when cheaters hear the topic of cheating brought up, they tend to silently panic – a rush of nerves sweeps their consciousness. Have they been rumbled? Is this a test? Am I reacting like a non-cheater would to this kind of chat?

Keep a close watch on how YOUR partner reacts…it could provide a telling insight into their current state of mind, how they feel about cheating and whether or not, when you boil it right down, you can trust them to not cheat on you.

These days it’s easier than ever to communicate with people. We’ve got high-speed internet connections (wireless & otherwise), mobile phones, pagers, fax machines.

We can talk at the touch of a button, across cities, countries, the entire world. Furthermore, communication through these digital protocols is almost instant, fairly cheap and,if you want it to be,completely private and hidden.

While advancements in digital communication are, on the whole, a great thing, they do have their down sides. One disadvantage is that cheating husbands, wives (or, for that matter, girlfriends or boyfriends) can communicate with their private lovers away from the prying eyes and ears of their trusting partners.

It happens every day: thousands upon thousands of text messages are sent by disloyal men and women to those they’re sleeping with behind their real partners’ backs.

Back in the day, the only way a guy or girl could arrange a clandestine meeting would be over a hard-line (either a house phone or a pay phone). That meant the cheater would either have to make risky calls from the home of their unsuspecting spouses, or secretly take a trip to a local call box and do it from there.

Both of these methods of communication could often be spotted by the betrayed party quite easily.

But that’s now a thing of the past. It’s now a cinch for a cheater to send messages to their secret lovers from work, a locked bathroom, even from under the bed covers while their current, faithful partner sleeps quietly and 100% unaware of what’s going on just 6 inches away from them.

It’s true; things are easier for cheaters these days, but not that easy. Just as all others kinds of cheats, be it a card shark, a conman or a computer hacker, leave signs of their dishonesty behind, so do disloyal partners. And looking for the right signs, in the right places, is the absolute best way of knowing for sure if you can trust your partner.

Okay, you know now how easy it is for cheaters to communicate with their secret partners using digital communication. But what are the signs, the indications, the clues of this kind of activity? Let’s take a look:

1. Computers and Internet

Computers offer cheaters a multitude of communication methods including: email, instant messenger programs, chat rooms and forums. Although it can be difficult to tell what your partner’s doing online without actually looking over their shoulder (tricky!), there are indications you can look for more easily.

One is an increased amount of time spent at the computer for no apparent reason, perhaps when you’re in bed or before you get up. Another is your partner quickly turning off the computer monitor or turning it away from you when you enter the room.

Also, try checking the internet browsing history of the computer your partner uses most often. Sometimes there are web pages, chat room locations or other signs that your partner has been taking part in internet infidelity to be found there. Other times, you’ll find that the browser history has been freshly deleted. This, as you can imagine, could be equally suspicious.

2. Cell Phones

As mentioned earlier, mobile/cellular phones make quick and private communication easy. If you feel comfortable doing so, checking your partner’s phone’s call history, address book and text message archive can provide you with a wealth of telling information.

Bear in mind, though, that cheating partners, in an effort to remain uncaught, often keep their phones on their person most of the time. If your partner used to leave their phone lying around, but now never seems to do so, you must ask yourself why.

3. Old School

Last but not least, don’t forget or ignore the “old” style methods of cheater communication. Many cheaters still use house phones to call their secret lovers. Check your itemized phone bill for calls to local numbers you don’t recognize and that aren’t in your phone book.

Also, pay attention to how your partner reacts when you walk into the room when they’re on the phone. It’s difficult to mask panic and surprise when the partner you’re cheating on walks into the room while you’re chatting to your secret significant other. Quick hang-ups could be a sign your partner’s being disloyal over the phone and, perhaps, elsewhere.

By keeping your eyes peeled and ears open, you can sidestep the advantages new methods of communication offer cheaters and, hopefully, discover what’s really going on.

Jim Walthby is the author of Beating Cheating. For more ways to catch a cheating spouse, go to the Beating Cheating website.