Determining if your partner is cheating or drifting away is the easy part. The hard part is facing the truth about what you are sensing.
The signs of cheating are always the same. The challenge is to have the courage to face what you sense is going on and keep yourself from finding ways to convince yourself that it’s not true.
If you notice a profound difference in the way your partner is behaving toward you there is a very good chance that they are having an affair or drifting away from you.
What do I mean by drifting? They have given up on you partially or completely and are seeking a relationship elsewhere.
What is it that you are sensing? Your subconscious mind is analyzing all the experiences, communications, and images that you have of your present and past partner(s) and comparing them to what’s happening now. This is your intuition at work.
If your current observations match what you experienced at the beginning of your relationship but it’s NOT directed at you and their treatment of you overall is inconsistent with what you knew then, your mental alarm goes off indicating that something is wrong. The alarm is like a carbon monoxide detector. When a carbon monoxide detector alarm goes off you can’t see, taste, or smell the danger but it can harm you if don’t trust the alarm and take action to get out of that environment and correct the problem before you attempt to re-enter it (the relationship).
Although your relationship may gradually become as it is, the signs of cheating are generally sudden and dramatic. Intense romance always happens at the beginning of a new relationship and usually only lasts for a few months. It’s during this phase that you’ll have the best chance to detect and sense the presence of an affair.
Your partner is likely having a sexual or emotional affair if they are doing many of the following things. If they are only doing one or two of them, then it’s unlikely that they are having an affair but rather there is another cause for their behavior. An emotional affair is a romantic connection that has not progressed to any sort of sexual activity.
Here are the signs that your partner may be having a sexual or emotional affair or they are starting to drift away from you and toward such activity.
- They are taking much more care of their appearance when they go to places without you including work.
- They are becoming impatience and short-tempered with you.
- They are treating you in a disrespectful manner.
- They are showing little or no affection toward you.
- They are showing little or no interest in having sex with you.
- They are spending much more time away from you than they did before.
- They are spending a lot of time secretively communicating by phone, email, or other means with a person or persons unknown to you.
- They are spending a lot of time with a new friend or group of friends and you are rarely if ever asked to join them.
- They are spending large portions of a day or evening away from you without a verifiable explanation other than they were alone or with a “friend.”
- They are staying out all night without a verifiable explanation other than they were alone, with a “friend,” or some other extraordinary account.
- They are going on overnight trips and vacations without a verifiable explanation other than they are going alone, with a “friend,” or some other extraordinary account.
- They are taking actions that indicate that they are going to leave you like seeking a new job or home in a different city.
Verifiable explanation means that you have concrete evidence that they are indeed alone or with a friend and their prior and subsequent behavior verifies this to be true. For example, they treat you in a loving, affectionate, and respectful manner before they leave and after they return.
Few things in life hurt more than discovering that the person you are in love with is having an affair. But your life is not over if they are. Quite the opposite can happen actually. You can use the pain to make major positive changes in your life as I describe in my article entitled, “Breaking Up! How to Ride the Pain to Gain.” Then you can look forward to a new and better relationship in the near future.
Can a relationship be completely healed after an affair? It’s possible, but it’s unlikely. Trust is a nearly impossible feeling to regain after someone has cheated on you. This is especially true after a long affair involving a string of lies and abusive behavior. If it’s a short or one-night affair, then there’s a possibility that you might be able to move on from it. But don’t agree to move on too quickly without giving yourself the opportunity to fully process how you feel. If both parties did the same thing during a troublesome period, then there is a chance that you can call it a draw and move on. Unfortunately, any affair weakens the foundation of a relationship. And it takes a lot of extra effort to restore it to the point where you can start building again.
If children are not involved, I don’t see the point in even trying. If children are involved and your relationship has been severely damaged, it would probably be in the best interest of your children that you get a divorce.
If you are now convinced that your partner is likely having an affair, where do you go from here? You start making plans for a new life and a new relationship. By doing this, you’ll gain emotional equilibrium, confidence, and hope for a happy future beyond your current circumstances.