Have you ever considered the consequences of
poor communication in your relationship? The gradual
decline in communication that starts with taking
each other for granted, letting the comfort of
routine and familiarity set in, until one day you
are confronted with the fact that your partner may be much more
unhappy than you think.

Not all affairs are tumultuous events, riven
with lust, passion, and illicit sex. Many of them
start from one person’s need to be noticed, need
to be listened to, need to be validated, or need
to feel loved.

When you are looking for proof of cheating in
your relationship, have you considered the chain of
events that have got you to this point? Do you
want proof, or do you want redemption and a happy
relationship as well?

Consider the following email from a member and
my subsequent reply:

I need really great advice for my situation
right now. My wife has been very different to my
family (we have 3 kids) and I for the past few
weeks. She has always been going home late from
work and everytime I ask, she would be defensive
saying she got out late, or whatever stupid
excuse.

To make the long story short, I tracked down
calls made through the phone bills and found a
unknown number. I called that number and asked
who it belonged to and if i got the right number.
He never gave his name but when I said the number
I dialed he said I got the wrong number, After
trying to call again i couldnt get in touch.

While I was looking at my phone bill, he called
my wife the next day, after I had called. He
must have figured that I was the one who called
cuz I said his number keeps popping up on my phone
bill.

Eventually I was able to pressure it out of my
wife and she admit that she was secretly in touch
with one of her co workers. He works in the same
department my wife does. I confronted the guy over
the phone, of course he denied everything and said
they were just really good friends and were
confiding with each other.

She claims that she was just happy talking to
him cuz she wanted the attention. She never
admitted though she liked him and that there was
never anything sexual going on. The guy is not
good looking as me , he’s short and fat while Im
tall and fit. My wife is the most attractive girls
where she works and I think is even taller than this
man. The guy is married as well with 3 kids of his own.

She admit to me there were days she texted him
some pretty personal stuff, and has confided in him
in a way that she hasn’t done with me for a very
long time.

She admited to me her text messages because she
says she wants to save the relationship and wants to
be honest with me. She said those texts were
meant for me but because she was so angry with our
fight she texted it to the guy but said she
eeventually took that back. She was so scared cuz
I was gonna file for divorce.

It really hurt me when she told me this but she
said she never liked the guy and that I was her
one and only true love (I was her first boyfriend
and partner and we’ve been together for 15 years).
Now I am with my wife after she tells me that she
regrets being the friend of that guy and said she
never had any bad intentions.

She doest know whether the guy had any bad
intentions as well, and the reason for hiding
their friendship was because she knew I would
really get mad and never allow them to even be
friends to begin with.

I am writing to you now cuz I don’t know what
to do. She said she wont talk to the guy ever
again, but I still feel betrayed and still think
that there was an emotional and sexual connection
goin on between them during those times. What I
want to know is if I can still find out whether
something really happened during those times and
what you can advice me cuz I still live with her.

I feel so depressed and so hurt everytime I
think about it without really having solid
evidence that they did do something sexual. They
are surely on guard now, for all I know might not
even be seeing each other anymore, but I need an
answer to what might have they been doing those
weeks before I found out.

Was it really just true friendship and talking
about their personal problems , as my wife claims
or did they have a sexual affair? I can never
truly accept if I find out she has. I NEED YOUR
HELP!!!!!!

Here is my reply:

Thanks for your email.

I understand that this must be a difficult time
for you and your wife as you come to terms with
what has happened. Our product deals more with
uncovering evidence of affairs as they are
happening rather than finding historical evidence
of affairs.

You do however have enough evidence to identify
that there are some significant problems in your
relationship, and in particular I draw attention to
your mention of the fact that she was happy
talking to this guy because she wanted the
attention.

Why do you feel she is motivated to confide in
this man rather than you? Why do you feel she
cannot talk to you? This is a cry for help and
the success or failure of your relationship may hinge
on how you react to this.

You have a choice here. You can look for
historical evidence and see if there was a chance
that she had an affair, or you can work on the
issues that exist in your relationship. She doesn’t
feel comfortable communicating with you, and she
mentioned in the text that she appreciated the
other man for seeing the good in her. I see this
as a problem, but one that can be fixed if you are
both committed to this process.

I understand that she dealt with this issue in
an inappropriate fashion, and I am not trying to
condone what she did. But at the same time you
need to take responsibility for your share in this
situation and in allowing the communication in
your relationship to break down. If you don’t deal
with your communication issues and find ways to
share feelings and make her feel validated in the
relationship, there is a good chance this will
happen again.

Every relationship crisis situation invites us into
change and growth. It is up to you identify what
lessons you are being called to, and to make this
change or run the risk of encountering this
situation again.

Communicate. Talk about your feelings. Listen.
Re-establish intimacy. Validate your wife in the
relationship. Make her feel valued and loved.
Participate in the relationship and work on
breaking the habit of taking each other for
granted.

If possible, go away for a break together, even
if only for a night or a weekend and find ways to
reconnect and strengthen your relationship. Remember
what it feels like to be in love and live your
love for one another.

If you still choose to focus on monitoring your
wife’s activities, try installing the tracking
software on your computer. Install digital
recording devices in her car. Digital recording
devices are incredibly sound-sensitive and can
pick up on most conversations. Install mobile GPS
in her vehicle to track her movements and see if
they correlate with what she is telling you.

Ultimately, you may have to settle for the fact
that you may never know what happened all those
weeks ago. But your best defense against
infidelity now is in focusing on your relationship and
your future, not searching through your past.

The best resource to discover exactly how to do it
if you decide you want to monitor your wife’s activities
is Sara Pauls Catch A Cheating Spouse course which
you can downoad from the link just above.