I recently got into a lively discussion with a few friends about what constitutes signs of cheating for a wife. I love these kinds of discussions especially when the majority of participants are married and aren’t basing our argument on anything more than personal experience and opinions. So, with their amusement and permission, here’s a look at the signs we’ve compiled and some personal comments on them.
Signs of Cheating or no?
The collective wisdom of our group (comprised of 4 married participants and 1 soon-to-be-married) the signs of a cheating wife include:
She maintains her prescription for birth-control pills even after her husband has a vasectomy.
On the Contrary: One of our wives also still utilizes the benefits of birth-control pills following her husband’s vasectomy because medically, she needs the assistance and it has nothing to do with her fidelity whatsoever.
She goes out shopping for a couple of items and comes home 5 or 6 hours later.
On the Contrary: Three of our wives laugh themselves silly over this as a sign of cheating, in fact, their husbands are often impressed if they go out shopping and come home in short order because for them, shopping is a sport.
She stops confiding in her husband.
In Agreement: We all agreed this is a bad sign for the marriage, but we’re not sure if it’s necessarily a sign of cheating unless she is seeking her emotional comfort elsewhere. The truth is that an emotional affair is usually the first step of other types of cheating, especially in wives.
She doesn’t wear her wedding rings.
Questionable: At some point in time, all of us have stopped wearing our wedding rings for one reason or another. For myself, during my pregnancy, my fingers were too swollen to wear the rings and following my most recent surgery, I couldn’t wear my rings for a couple of weeks because of the same problem. So there are other reasons why a wife may not wear her wedding rings.
She spends an unconventional amount of money on her clothes and her personal grooming.
Questionable: This is another one of those gray areas. Women buy new clothes for different reasons. She could be reinvesting in herself and looking to feel better about herself and her appearance. She could be losing weight or gaining weight. She could be just looking to make a change and sometimes, a change in the wardrobe can help you effect a personal change whether it’s adding some color or different styles. So this is an iffy area for most of us and it’s not necessarily a sign of cheating, but it could be a sign of a developing self-confidence and more.
She starts keeping secrets, a secret cell phone, a secret email account and even secret meetings.
In Agreement: When you start keeping secrets from your husband and you are more interested in all these secrets – it’s just not a good sign for a relationship overall.
Do you agree?
Related Articles:
Protecting Your Marriage from Infidelity
My Spouse is Letting Him or Herself Go