10. When you ask about cheating, your partner deflects and avoids

6. An altered schedule.

When your significant other – who never once worked late – suddenly needs to work late, and that starts to happen more and more frequently, they may be lying. If your spouse has never been away on a business trip and suddenly finds a need to travel for work, that could be a sign that they are having weekend getaways with an affair partner. Flat tires, dead batteries, traffic jams, spending extra time at the gym, and similar excuses for being late or absent altogether might what’s better than bumble also signal infidelity. A cheating partner might also suddenly be forgetful about picking up the kids, birthdays and other important events, etc.

7. Friends seem uncomfortable around you.

With infidelity, you, the betrayed partner, are nearly always the last person to find out. The cheater’s friends often know about the infidelity right from the start, and your own friends are likely to find out long before you do. This knowledge typically causes these individuals to feel uncomfortable around you. The cheater’s friends might try to avoid you or to be overly nice to you. Your own friends may try to avoid conversations about your relationship, and they might overcompensate by being extra nice.

8. Unexplained expenses.

If there are odd charges on your partner’s credit cards, or there is suddenly less money in your or your partner’s bank accounts, retirement accounts, investment accounts, etc., that’s a possible sign of infidelity. If you ask your partner about these expenses, and their answers seem untrue, it’s likely that they are untrue. Infidelity costs money: gifts, trips, wine and dinners, hotel rooms, etc. The costs of cheating can add up very quickly. If you see large cash withdrawals or evidence of purchases from places you rarely or never frequent, that’s not a good sign.

9. Emotional intimacy has faded.

After a few years, no relationship is as intense as it was in the first few months. That said, we do tend to bond and to securely attach over time, learning to trust one another with our secrets, our desires, and other important aspects of our lives. That process is known as building emotional intimacy. And emotional intimacy is what keeps us bonded to our significant other long after the bloom is off the rose, so to speak.

So, if your partner suddenly seems less emotionally vulnerable and intimate with you and does not seem to want you to be emotionally vulnerable and intimate, that’s a strong indication that their focus has shifted – most likely to an affair partner.

If your spouse is cheating on you, the absolute last thing in the world that they want to do is talk about it with you. So when you introduce this topic in conversation, they may try to deflect and avoid. In short, your partner will do everything possible to steer you onto another topic, or they will shift blame for what you’re thinking and feeling onto you.

If you’ve confronted your partner about infidelity and been rebuffed, maybe with a message like, “If you trusted me a little more, maybe things would be better between us,” you should not let that override your gut sense that something is wrong in your relationship. Nor should you automatically accept your partner’s assertion that you are at fault. As stated earlier, if your gut tells you that your significant other is cheating on you, you’re probably right.

Please note: Your significant other could display all 10 of these signs and still not be cheating. But these remain indications that something is wrong in their life and/or your relationship. It might not be cheating, but there is almost certainly something that you and your significant other to talk about. At the same time, your mate could be exhibiting none of these 10 signs and still be cheating. Either way, the good news is that learning about infidelity does not automatically signal the end of your relationship. It simply means your partner has a lot of work to do if they want to restore relationship trust, make things right, and re-establish emotional and sexual intimacy.