How can you find out if your significant other is cheating on you? Well, for some folks, you could just look in the tabloids. Virginia Beach’s own Victoria Fuller—of “Bachelor in Paradise” fame—is trying to shoot down accusations of cheating on season eight’s bachelor, Johnny DePhillipo. Victoria’s juicy gossip may be all over Instagram, but what can you do if you suspect your not-so-famous wife is cheating?

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Be Careful What You Wish For

The internet, sadly, is ripe with opportunities for you to scratch the itch but be careful what you wish for. Reverse telephone lookups scan the internet for accounts linked to, say, your wife’s cell phone number.

Peruse such an online outfit and you will encounter warning flag after warning flag:

  • Beware! You could discover the owner of that telephone number has crazy photos you have never seen!
  • This sensitive information could contain details that will change your relationship forever!
  • CAUTION: Potentially shocking information. This tool uses deep web search technology. Prepare yourself for the unexpected!
  • Sale on exclamation points!!!

The responses are usually a hodgepodge of publicly available records and some proprietary information. You can achieve nearly the same results by typing your wife’s telephone number into Google (123-555-6789) and sifting through the search results.

Before shelling out any money for an answer, make absolutely sure you want an answer:

  • Some husbands hope for comfort by learning their doubts are groundless and their wives are saints
  • Some men hope to find an “out” to excuse their own behaviors by finding mildly scintillating stuff about their wives
  • Some men—masochists, perhaps—relish the lurid discoveries that could come from probing the mystery that is their marriage

Legitimate Online Sources for Catching a Cheater

After getting past the rubbish pile of paid internet advertisements, some genuine websites offer good advice on sussing out your cheating spouse:

  • com suggests checking her changing shopping and spending habits; noticing her diminished libido; keying in on her increased cell phone use and her secretiveness about it; and truly seeing that she takes newfound pride in her sexiness and personal appearance
  • Survive Divorce offers up evidence of changing computer passwords; increased emphasis on fitness and working out; being incommunicado while out on “errands”; reluctance to be around your friends; decreased attention to home matters (meals, cleaning, laundry); and minimal effort on family events like birthdays, anniversaries, workplace promotions, or your children’s school functions
  • HackSpirit points out that your wife might suddenly talk about troubled marriages in your circle of family and friends; she might suddenly get daring and experimental in bed; she shifts her way of talking about your future together; and she increases her “little white lie” count

Look Just Under Your Nose

Before involving other people in your suspicions, you can do some basic sleuthing around your house:

  • Check telephone statements, bank records, credit card statements, and discarded receipts for unusual activity or severe changes in usage or spending
  • Poke around closets for garments—for men or women—you do not recognize
  • Look for items that allow your wife to change her appearance, such as wigs, large sunglasses, especially high-heeled shoes, or coats with pronounced shoulder padding (she may disguise herself to slip into hotels and motels – yes, really!)
  • Check medicine cabinets, nightstands, and bathroom vanity drawers for unfamiliar condoms, colognes, lubricants, or sex toys

Goldilocks & The Setup

You can also change your own behavior in hopes of uncovering her suspicious behavior:

  • Leave for work as usual but then call in sick, return to your neighborhood, and park down the street from your home to see what unfolds
  • Establish a pattern of being away (at the gym, club meeting, or friend’s house) at a specific day and time every week, but then return unexpectedly once in a while to see if an unfamiliar car is in your driveway, if an unwelcome guest is in your home, or if an unknown man or woman is in your marital bed

Desperate husbands have also been known to rent cars to follow their wives (who will not recognize the unfamiliar car) around town. They have asked friends to keep an eye on their wives and report unusual behavior. They have even claimed to go out of town on business only to tail their wives, playing detective.

Hire a Private Investigator

Way back in 1906, private detectives wore shoes with gum rubber soles that made no noise, so they could skulk and slink and sneak without anyone hearing them. Thus, gumshoes were private eyes, flatfoots, operatives, sleuths; dicks.

You can still hire a dick—er, a private investigator—to find out if your wife is cheating on you. Legitimate private investigators must be licensed by the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice, must pass a 60-hour training course, and must pass fingerprint and background criminal history checks.

Many law firms work with private investigative services; your divorce lawyer may be able to offer advice on finding one. If you call such a service, you are inquiring about “Infidelity investigations.” Expect a menu of services:

  • 24-hour surveillance
  • Interviewing hotel or restaurant personnel
  • Video and photographic evidence
  • Gathering physical evidence from hotel rooms, restaurants, or public places
  • Placing a GPS tracker on your jointly owned vehicles
  • Record your telephone conversations with your spouse in accordance with Virginia Code § 19.2-62 (one-party consent)

You, your family law attorney, and the private investigator can select the best strategy for uncovering the harsh truth. Work with your divorce lawyer to put the legally admissible evidence to its best use.

Call The Only Family Law Firm in Virginia Representing Men Exclusively

When you contact us today at The Firm For Men, or you telephone our Virginia Beach office at (757) 383-9184, you can receive advice from experienced Virginia Beach divorce attorneys, and the closest attention to your case. We specialize in helping Virginia’s men in all aspects of family law, including separation and divorce due to fault grounds like adultery.