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List of 13 Signs That Your Husband is a Cheater

By:
Michael Tierney
Updated
June 15, 2022

Infidelity is a common issue in many relationships. Little in the world is as heartbreaking as discovering your husband is cheating on you. Unfortunately, around 25% of men have had extramarital affairs in the United States alone. In reality, some relationships cannot survive due to one party's inability to commit to another person entirely. Believing that your spouse is sleeping around is a heart-wrenching thought, especially if you were genuinely committed to the marriage. However, if your husband is unable or unwilling to return that dedication, you might be hurt by his lack of loyalty.

That said, you should not blindly accuse your spouse of infidelity either. Doing so could severely damage the relationship and push him towards infidelity. While it might seem like a conundrum, there are ways to determine if your husband is indeed cheating on you. You see, the act of infidelity takes a psychological toll that results in the offending spouse behaving in a certain way. These behaviors can be clues you can use to determine if your husband is cheating on you or not before you confront him.

This article will outline some of the most common signs of a disloyal husband.

#1: He is Combative

One of the earliest signs of a cheating husband is a change in his disposition towards you.

Husband Being Combative

Often, a cheater looks for another man or woman to escape the routine of marriage and satisfy urges he feels he cannot satisfy with you. Rather than try to talk things through, he will seek out a new partner behind your back.

Solution When he finds a new partner, he will likely become very irritable and particular about the most minor of situations.

For example, he might suddenly take issue with how you dress and turn it into an explosive argument since he has found pleasure elsewhere. He essentially stops caring about rational discussion and turns everything into an argument. Sometimes, a cheating husband's combative behavior evolves into borderline abuse. He might become more controlling of you to try and mask his affair.

#2: Communication Suffers

A cheating husband's ability to communicate with you will suffer similarly to the previous sign.

Solution When he is not argumentative or irrationally angry, he will be curt with his response and avoid details about his day.

Marriage Communication Issues

For example, say he steps out of the house to run an errand, but when you inquire further, he refuses to specify the exact nature of the errand. Later, when he returns home, and you ask him how things were, he will likely respond with a simple, one-word response like "fine" or "okay" to avoid going into detail. Odds are, rather than running an errand, he was out seeing his lover. He will even become more reserved about sharing with you emotionally and stop talking to you about things he was previously happy to discuss.

#3: He Becomes Defensive

Similar to how your husband might avoid details, he might become defensive when you press for information.

Husband Becoming Defensive

If you inquire about his day or ask follow-up questions, he might react explosively and say something along the lines of how you are "interrogating him" or giving him the third degree.

Solution Cheating on a partner is exceptionally stressful for the cheater as he is trying to cover his tracks with someone who sees him constantly.

As a result, the stress wears away his ability to cope with pressure and causes him to react explosively when you inquire for details about his activities.

#4: His Schedule Changes

When you are married to someone for a time, you get to know their daily routine and schedule. It is common and one of those small joys of marriage since you can rely on seeing your loved one.

Solution However, a cheater will have a very different perspective of the routine and will likely start to break patterns.

Husband Changing Schedule

If your husband's schedule becomes more erratic, it might be because he is attempting to disguise his outings with his lover. In fact, this routine often drives disloyal spouses to cheat as they cannot commit to anyone or any patterns. If you notice your husband is going out more frequently than he used to, you might want to look into it.

#5: He Often "Works Late"

One of the most common excuses a cheating husband will give is that he must work late. After all, employment can be the ultimate alibi since his income likely helps you maintain your living.

Husband Working Late

However, working late should usually be a rare occurrence and not something that happens so frequently you can predict when he will say it.

Solution Often, a cheating husband will use work as an alibi while he goes to spend an evening with his lover behind your back.

These evenings spent with his partner would likely be a little more obvious since constantly having to work late would be reflected in his income, proving whether he was working late or not.

#6: Your Sex Life Suffers

Most times, when your husband is having his needs met elsewhere, you might find your sex life deteriorating.

Solution The loss of intimacy is usually tied to the fact that he no longer feels the spark with you since he is focusing his attention on his new partner.

While this can be heartbreaking, it can alert you to whether your spouse is having an affair or not. Especially if your husband previously had a powerful sex drive.

Sex Life Suffering

Alternatively, things could go in the opposite direction. Sometimes, your husband is so exhilarated by his affair that his sex drive doubles, and he is constantly hounding you for sex. While the former is far more likely, a sudden surge in his sex drive might be just as alarming.

#7: His Appearance Changes

Another common sign of a cheating husband is his outward appearance rather than an emotional response.

Husband Changing His Appearance

When your husband is out courting another man or woman, he will be working to impress them in a similar way to when he was trying to impress you.

Solution This often means he will tailor his appearance to align with his new partner's preferences.

He might start wearing different clothes, or he might shave more often. He might even start exercising more often to make his figure more appealing to someone else. A sudden change in your husband's fashion sense and physical health can be a common sign of infidelity.

#8: He Spends More Time on His Phone

When a man cheats on his spouse, he will often lose interest in spending time with you and will try to communicate with his new lover whenever possible.

Husband Spending More Time On His Phone

This might mean he spends more time on the phone texting even when you are in the same room. He could even communicate with them to plan their next evening together when you sit beside him.

Solution However, the real sign is if he becomes withdrawn and hesitant to share who he is speaking to or tries to hide his screen.

Spending excessive time texting and being reluctant to tell you who he is texting could signify that he is communicating with his lover right then and there.

#9: He Projects Onto You

Perhaps the strangest sign of a cheating husband is when he begins projecting his infidelity onto you. When your husband is cheating, the guilt of it all does affect him to some degree, though rarely to a point where he stops.

Solution Instead, he tries to justify it to himself by convincing himself that you are also cheating on him.

Husband Projecting Onto Wife

The difference is that he will be more vocal with his accusations and might constantly accuse you of cheating when you go out or speak to a male friend or co-worker. Sometimes, that projection is the source of his cheating, as his fear of being cheated on is so great that he decides to beat you to it. If your husband frequently accuses you of infidelity when you have done nothing, it can indicate his cheating.

#10: He is Overcompensating

A huge sign of infidelity is when your husband overcompensates for the smallest thing. An experienced cheater knows that the more reserved with information he is, the more likely he is to get caught.

Solution To combat this, he may acquiesce to every concession you ask him to make in the most extreme way.

For example, suppose you ask him a question about a woman he has texted with whom you are unfamiliar. In that case, he might overcompensate by immediately offering you access to all of his communication accounts. This sudden onset of sharing his correspondence is intended to set you at ease but might only make you more suspicious if the initial question was innocuous.

Husband Overcompensating

Similarly, he might go into excessive detail about his activities, having created an elaborate alibi. Once again, he does this to put you at ease, but the more in-depth he goes, the more likely he is lying.

#11: Strange Charges Appear on His Statement

Outings with an extramarital partner are expensive since it is just dating again. He might be taking them out to dinner, buying them gifts, or even helping them financially.

Reviewing Strange Charges

Either way, he is almost certainly spending money on this person. Often, these expenses are placed on a credit card tied to his bank account. He might sometimes charge it to your joint account if he is particularly foolish.

Solution These charges eventually pile up and create a discrepancy in his spending habits that you will likely notice.

If your husband is spending money at boutiques and restaurants, it can be a dead giveaway that he is having an affair.

#12: He Spends Less Time With You

Rather than being unavailable mentally and emotionally, your husband might also be unavailable physically.

Wife Spending Time Alone

If your husband is constantly making excuses about why he cannot be with you at a certain point in the day, he might be covering for dates with his lover. Even when it is something you used to be able to rely on him for, like meeting up for lunch or spending a date night with you on weekends, in extreme cases, he will likely even have an excuse if you need to go to the hospital and he has "something he can't get out of right now."

Solution The less present your husband suddenly is, the more likely it is that he is cheating.

#13: He is Excessively Using Social Media

Social media accounts are the easiest way to hide correspondence with a lover and allow him to focus on them instead of you.

Excessively Using Social Media

If your husband has an extramarital affair, he might spend more time following his lover's posts and expressing their admiration on social media. He will do so to ingratiate himself to his lover, even if he was previously averse to social media.

Solution If you find him constantly liking posts or on one person's profile, it could be the person he is having an affair with.

Of course, the real red flag is his sudden appreciation for social media if he had previously avoided it.

Coping with a Cheating Husband

There is virtually nothing as heartbreaking and disappointing as discovering the man you agreed to spend the rest of your life with is cavorting with someone else. It is a major violation of trust and an affront to his promises when you married him. However, infidelity is a real issue in a modern marriage that can devastate your entire world. Especially since infidelity is one of the leading causes of divorce in the country. However, just because signs exist does not mean he is cheating on you. One or two signs could be innocent changes in behavior, but multiple signs or even one of the more serious signs can be fairly alarming.

Woman Discovering Her Husband Is Cheating

We know that the idea that your husband is cheating on you is not one you want to entertain. We hope you never experience any of these signs and can live a long life with your husband. However, if you notice these signs in your husband's behavior, you might be in for a heartbreaking discovery.

After reading today's article, do you have any questions about the divorce process following your husband's potential infidelity, or the laws surrounding the divorce process? If so, please feel free to leave a comment down below, or reach out and contact us at any time. We understand that this is going to be a rough period of life, and we will gladly assist you through it to the best of our ability.

Written By:
Michael Tierney

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