Whenever you’re in a long-term, romantic relationship (especially a marriage) with somebody, absolutely nothing can put a halt to that relationship like the feelings associated with a wife who is or has been cheating. In the event that you find yourself worried that your wife may not be completely trustworthy, you will likely want to know what to look for as signs that she might be having an affair.  Although, I have not been through such a situation (that I am aware of), I have researched the topic thoroughly as it is often a reason why many marriages lead to divorce.  The affair, itself, is not often the cause of the divorce, but it is the feelings of betrayal that are almost impossible to get over.

A quick warning before I continue… No single point that I discuss from here on out is a guarantee that your wife is being unfaithful!  Look for a combination of peculiar behaviors and treat them as possible warning signs that would be a reason to pay close attention.  If anything, use what I am about to go over as a test to see if more attention needs to be put on exactly what your wife is up to when you are not around.  But if you are planning on confronting her about an affair, make sure that you are 100% certain of what is really going on.  Otherwise, constantly accusing your wife of cheating when she is NOT, can cause just as many problems with your marriage as if she was actually having an affair.

With that said, the following are some behaviors that you will want to look out for:
1) You may find that suddenly your wife is becoming exceedingly more worried about the way she looks.  Does she spend more time (and money) making sure that she looks good even though you are not even aware of her having any reason and/or plans?  Have they changed their look and clothes after many years, but not discussed with you why they are doing it?  Is she going to the gym or simply exercising a lot more often even though she has done nothing of the sort since before you two were married?

All of these things do not automatically mean that you should start to worry, and full body makeovers are very common these days.  But if you casually question her about the changes, and she denies them or comes back with an excuse that makes no sense, then you will want to look for other signs that something sneaky is going on.  This may be the most obvious or outward sign, because she knows that you would not be upset if she was simply wanting to improve her appearance and figure.  In fact, most husbands would be happy see it, but if only these changes were not being used to impress/attract someone else.  Anyway you put it, these are only precursors and should never be used as the only evidence you have to accuse her of cheating.  Think about it… What if she is making these changes in an attempt to improve your relationship.  Either way, let her know that you have noticed the changes and that you “like it”.

2) The next sign may be a little more subtle and hard to recognize at first.  But if you know what to pay attention to, it should not be that difficult.  Keep an eye out to determine if your wife is more concerned about her privacy that she has been in the past.  For instance, does she take her phone calls to another part of the house even though you are the only other person present? Does she act startled or make quick changes to what’s on the monitor when you walk  in the room when she is on the computer?  Does she all the sudden start deleting information about what she is looking at on the web when you thought that she didn’t even know how to do that?

If this is all happening then it should be obvious that she is talking about or looking at something that she does not want you to know about.  But does that mean that she is cheating or even thinking about having an affair? Not Really… She could be planning a suprise party for you or researching that she doesn’t want you to know about yet.  Or even has a friend who is having an affair that she needs to keep secret from everyone including you.  Again this could be just one piece of the puzzle, but alone it is not strong enough evidence that she is the middle of an affair.

(Quick Note: Unless you wife is a hacker or some trained computer specialist, it is unlikely that she knows how to properly erase everything on the computer that she would need to.  The key is being able to find it.  There are several software tools that can find all the traces that are left on the computer’s hard drive from internet activity.  One such tool is  the “Evidence Eraser“, and it can help you properly erase your internet activity as well.)

3) Another sign that works in much the same way is if your wife becomes seems to suddenly shy away from being intimate.  The key to look out for here is if the change occurs suddenly.  This is not to be confused with the decrease in sexual appetite that gets more common as the relationship, in this case a marriage, grows older.  Nobody ever wants to admit that their marriage will become less physical, but time often changes that.

You also need to look out for other conditions that could lead to a sudden, decreased interest in sex.  There are several medical reasons to explain (you can do your own research on that) and something as common as stress can do the trick as well.  If there is a sudden onset of stress associated with things like financial problems or work-related issues, you will surely want to consider that before automatically accuse her of cheating.  But if everything else in your world seems to be normal and she still constantly shuns your attempts to make love, then there is a valid reason for you to suspect something.

4) The fourth possible sign actually pulls a 180 on what we have been talking about before.  Have you noticed that your wife has suddenly paid more attention to you, but not in an overly intimate way?  For instance, has she started buying you gifts or making you extravagant meals for no apparent reason at all?  If this is happening at a rapid rate, then there is a chance that she is trying to subside a guilty conscience.  This guilt will cause her to act more kindly to you, but is not yet stong enough to end the affair or to tell you what is wrong.  If you find that this is happening in your marriage then you should really press her as to where this guilt is coming from.  They will often deny out it or come up with a story that does not relate to the amount of guilt that they are exhibiting.

5) A final sign will tend to develop over time, but it will become more and more noticeable to you.  Think hard about previous conversations and try to determine if your wife has picked up different phrases or slang terms that she has never used in the previous time that you have been together.  Do you find them randomly singing rock songs when you know that she would never listen to that type of music before?  If this is becoming commonplace you should casually ask her where she picked these things up.  If she has a quick descriptive answer than she is likely telling the truth.  But if she has to think hard about it and still comes up with a very vague answer like “I heard somewhere the other day” then it is not wrong to be a little suspicious.

Remember, it takes more than one of these signs to really start to worry about whether or not your wife is having an affair.  And even then, make sure you don’t jump to any conclusions without investigating their true meanings.  But if you are patient and take the time needed to look for these meanings and still can’t find any real reasons, then it may be time to be suspicious and start really getting down to the root of all this.  Be careful to not let your wife know what you are up to and by all means do not get caught while you are in the middle of doing some investigating.

I wish I had all the answers and steps to give you in order to find the facts that you need.  I have seen what a man goes through when he feels strongly that his wife is cheating, but doesn’t know how to verify it.  I am not telling you to go out and hire a professional, because in this age of no-fault divorce, it really doesn’t matter if your wife is cheating on you or not.  But peace of mind is something that you should strive for, it will help you to get on with your life.  If you need to know what steps to take in order to find out the real facts, then I suggest looking into a manual of some sort.  For instance, this guide goes over the exact procedures that private investigators use for their clients and better yet, it lets you know what processes are legal and which ones could get you into a little trouble.  But if knowing the truth is a high priority to you then a manual like this one would be a small price to pay for your sanity.

With all that being said, I sincerely hope that you never find yourself in this position.  Marriages can lead to divorce for a number of different reasons, but finding out that a wife that you shared your life with has been cheating for the last 2 years, can make that divorce that much more painful to go through.

We have already covered what steps that need to be taken in order to conduct your future business privately, out of the prying eyes of your soon to be ex-wife and her divorce attorney.  You’ve got the new mailing address, new e-mail address, and a safe  place to store your hard copies of everything.  Now is the time to start separating yourself financially.  The cost of the divorce will be bad enough…you do not want to find yourself in some sort of financial crisis because you left yourself vulnerable.  These things can be done fairly easily, but the headaches that they could cause if they aren’t taken care of could be astronomical.  The sad thing is that you would have nobody else to blame but yourself.

So read each step carefully, and consider putting them into practice as soon as possible:

1) Close any joint credit card accounts immediately. You do not want to find out later that your wife paid her divorce attorney’s retainer with a credit card that you are both responsible for.  Think of it… what if you get off scott-free and do not have to pay any of your wife’s legal fees (believe me they will try), but you find out that she used your joint credit card to pay for them in the first place.  Now with the debt likely to be split 50/50 you have to pay half her legal fees by default.  This is just one example, as she could simply go on one last shopping spree knowing that you will have to pay for at least half of it in the end.  It is just a safety precaution that every man going through a divorce should consider.

If there happens to be a credit card account under your name, and she is an authorized user, by all means have her “unauthorized” immediately.  But do not close that account.  You will need a credit card account or two to help with your expenses and/or any emergencies.  If you do not have your own account once you close out the joint accounts, then be sure and open one up.  You never know when it might come in handy, and you can trust me when I say that it will be a lot tougher to get a new account once you are officially divorced.  You are going to need a way to start building your credit up again and a new credit card account is a good way to start.

2)  Open a new checking and/or savings account in your name only. Some of you may already have one, but for those that don’t make sure to do it immediately.  You are going to need to keep your finances separate at some point in the divorce, so why not start now.  Besides this new account will be crucial for the next couple of steps.  And if you want some added security pick a bank or credit union that neither of you have used before.  If she doesn’t know where you are banking, it will be hard for her to come up with some scheme in the first place.  But just to be even safer, have it noted on your account that your wife (give them her full married and maiden name) is not to have access to this account in anyway.  That way they can be on alert for all sorts of possibilities, the most common being when she finds your checkbook and tries to write herself a check while forging your name.  She has probably forged your name before, in fact you may have asked her to, but now is not the time for her to start practicing your signature again.

3)  Re-route any direct deposits into your new bank account. This is just simply the practical thing to do.  If your paycheck gets direct deposited, then make sure that gets changed first.  This by no way means that you should stop paying any bills that you would normally.  It is just a way to make sure that she cannot get her hands on any extra money and use it as she pleases.  There is a very good chance that this will piss her off, but just remind her that this is what comes with a divorce and that you are still going to cover all the expenses that you have been… just out of another account that she doesn’t have access to.  If she usually handles all the bills, then just find out what needs to go where.  Eventually, you will have to be taking care of all your own bills anyway, so there is no better reason to start now.

4)  Optional, but recommended… Withdrawal exactly 50% of the funds in a joint account and deposit it into your new account. Now this may be considered a little sneaky, and you may be questioned (by the judge) as to why you did this.  But I consider this as being proactive.  Let’s say that you leave all the money in the joint account and someday you find that it has been completely cleared out by your wife.  Your are still entitled to 50% of this money, and with the right financial records it will be awarded back to you during the actual divorce.  But at that point, you are at the mercy of your new ex-wife as to when she will be able to get the money together to pay you back… if she ever does.  She will likely test your determination at first, and you will be forced to spend extra money in legal fees to file contempt charges, having the courts pressure her into paying you back that money.  In the end there is no way of knowing how long that will take.

How much simpler would it have been if you would have just transferred that 50% into your new account months earlier?  This can be done safely.  It’s just very important that you keep excellent financial records.  You need to have the definitive evidence that you transferred only 50% or less.  If there is just the least bit of question, make sure you always error on the lower side, which means it is always better to transfer say 48% than it is to transfer 51%.  If you are not confident in your financial records enough to back your actions up in court, by all means don’t do it.  If you have great records and are still skeptical, by all means consult with a divorce attorney first.  But now is the time to start protecting yourself, your kids, and your future, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that!

Important Note: If there are any non-marital funds in the joint account (ie. money that she inherited or funds that she had saved prior to you getting married) be sure not to include that in calculating the 50%.  You are not entitled to money that will not be considered as marital, and if you make such a mistake, I promise that her divorce attorney will try and make you out to be a money-hungry thief.  This is definitely not worth risking, so remember to always error on the low side.

Now that your divorce is coming, the time has come for you to start thinking about living your own separate life again.  For however long you were married, you have shared virtually everything with your wife, from financial issues to medical decisions, but that is no longer the case.  You are going to have to strive to keep your stuff private and away from her prying eyes for the first time in a long while.  This is particularly important with any issues and/or information that will be involved in your divorce process.  Financial statements, correspondence with you divorce attorney, constant knowledge of your whereabouts are no longer her business anymore, and it is your responsibility to take the necessary steps to keep that way!

The following are a few easy steps that you can do get things started.  Just know that this officially marks the time where you are on your way to living your own private life again.  It may make you a little nervous at first, but after a little while the nervousness may change into a sense of liberation, which should be a good feeling…

• Find yourself a place that you can use as a address that your wife does not have access to.  This will be used for all future legal and financial matters that she has no business knowing about.  You could simply change your mailing address to a family member’s or friend’s house, but the best option is to go ahead an get a P.O. box.  It is much more secure and you won’t have to go into any explanations as to why your mailing address is different, even though you claim to be living in the same home.

Note: If you do decide to use someone else’s house as a new mailing address, then make sure that you trust this person 100%, even if someone offers them a little money to disclose sensitive information about you.  Also, only change the mailing addresses of important stuff, like bank accounts and credit cards, and let the utility bills and junk mail continue to come to the house.

• In this age of technology, it is also important to have an e-mail address that only you have access to.  There is just as much correspondence coming in via email as there is through regular mail these days.  Many attorneys and their paralegals use e-mail to discuss issues in your case and send you papers to be signed.  You definitely don’t want you wife poking into this kind information.  Also, if you get any important information (ie. financial statements, divorce attorney correspondence, etc) sent to you through your e-mail address, then make sure you print out a hard copy to store with your other important files.

Another Note: Google’s email service, gMail, works just fine for something like this.  It’s secure, free to use, and can be accessed anywhere you have internet.  Just make sure that you use a password that your wife will not be able to guess, and that your computer will not accidentally store the password so that she can log in to your account the second you turn your back.

• I have already talked about having hard copies of everything, but want to re-iterate it one more time.  Save all statements, bills, correspondence, and anything that even looks like it could be important.  Find a place to store these files so that you wife cannot get a hold of it.  I found a place at work amid all my other work folders.  So even if she went to the trouble of sneaking into my office, she would have one hell of a time trying to find anything that was actually important.

Final Note: We will talk about this more in a later post, but this is a good time to mention it.  Let your boss and your co-workers know that you are in the process in going through a divorce.  Not only do they make good support (they are always good for a confidence boost), but they will know that if your wife or some other strange person comes snooping around to tell them to get lost.  And they are always good to let you know if she came around or if they saw here out and about town.  They tend to make for some good (& free) private investigators by just keeping there eyes open.

If you complete these steps and make a good effort to make sure she doesn’t find out about the specifics, then you are well on your way to being properly prepared for your divorce.  Immediately following this post, we will talk about the first couple of things that you can do to protect your finances.  This financial advice will be the first to make good use of the work that we hope you accomplished from the information here.

For now this is just going to be a quick post, but later we will get into the topic of divorce and how to properly divide your marital debt.  There is a sort of urgency when I am writing this because of a recent email that was sent by one of our visitors.  I am not sure how common this situation is, but it happened to me and I have recently found out that it has happened to a few other people as well.

What I am referring to is when your wife, or a vengeful soon to be ex wife, finds a way to take out a credit card solely in your name.  It may be more difficult to do now because of the all the issues that credit card companies have gone through recently, but I am sure that it is still happening.  All it requires is some lack of respect by your significant other and some personal information that she can easily get a hold of (really, how hard would it be to for her to get a hold of your social security number,birthday, etc.)

This is how it works and why it can come back to bite YOU in the ass…

Your wife fills out some credit card application online (or one of those they send to you in the mail), and has the information sent to a different location (ie. her work, a friends house, etc).  She is issued the credit card and has some male friend, who is probably jealous of you and has a crush on your wife, activate it for her over the phone.  Now she has a working credit card with your name all over it, and an expendable income.  The kicker is that during the spending spree she pays the minimum payments each month to keep it under wraps for a while longer.  Think about it… How much would it suck if she used that same credit card to hire the most expensive divorce lawyer in town.

My question to you… When was the last time that you saw your credit report?  When you got it was she involved in any way?  Are you 100% sure that there were no missing pages?  There is a specific reason that I ask you this…

Let’s say that she pulled this off early in the marriage and has built up one hell of a debt and making only minimal payments.  You happen to find out at some point, but you are still responsible for 50% of it… Why, you ask?  Because it will be very hard to prove to the judge that you were completely oblivious to it.  After all, it is your credit and you are a responsible adult who always knows what’s on it.  At this point, its your word against you wife’s that you didn’t know about it, and the judge will still order to divide that debt 99% of the time.  You can pursue a different route, like trying to get her on identity theft, but that is a completely different legal issue and the judge in your divorce case won’t even consider that without a charge and/or conviction.  This is exactly what happened to me… Yes, I wasn’t keeping track of my credit report for a long time and it cost me in the end.  Trust me I won’t make that mistake again!

Scenario #2… You are actually being proactive and got a copy of your credit report in the last month or so.  However; your wife could have just as easily opened up a credit card account after you obtained your report and is now able to use it just as freely because you are too confident about knowing all the information that is on your credit report.  You check your report 6 months down the road and found out then, what she did, but now the divorce is final.  It’s too late to even make her responsible for 50% of the debt.  Meanwhile the credit card company is calling you to get payment 3 or 4 times a day, because she stopped paying anything on it.  You explain the situation, but again without a charge and/or conviction of identity theft, they could care less.  Your name is on the account and you are legally still responsible.  The end result: Suck it up or go through another lengthy legal battle.  Meanwhile, your credit rating falls through the floor.

With my ordeal, I have found the easiest way to have prevented the problem is to report the issue as soon as it happened.  But of course it was too late for me and rather than spend even more time in court, I reluctantly agreed to pay on the $7000 credit card account.  I am still trying to repair my credit from this more than a year later!

So what is the moral of this story… Always know what is going on inside your credit report! At least until this divorce issue is over and you feel “confident” that you are in the clear.  But all of us here highly recommend that you take it one step farther and enroll in a credit monitoring service, like the one at CreditReport.com, so that even if someone, aka your ex-wife, tries something then you will know about it immediately.  Hell, you will even be notified when the credit card company simply looks at you credit report to see if “you” qualify.  It should always raise a red flag when some company pulls up your credit report and you don’t even know who they are.  If that happens, report it immediately, before something even worse happens.

It really doesn’t matter if you use CreditReport.com or not.  There are several different monitoring services available.  But make sure that you use somebody who will look out for you while you have to focus on other, more pertinent issues at home.  The cheap expense of a monitoring service is tiny compared to what it could cost if anything like this happens to you. For example, Creditreport.com has a free trial and then only costs $14.95 a month; That equals to 39 years of credit monitoring to add up to the $7000 I have to pay.

So please be careful and remember “Hope for the Best, but Prepare for the Worst!”.  And in case you were wondering… Yes, I used (and still do) CreditReport.com to keep an eye on my credit.

In item #2 of the divorce checklist, we will go over some different strategies and information that you will need to take into account, plans that need to be made in case you have to take quick action once your efforts to save your marriage stop working and/or things start taking a turn for the worse.  Some of you may be here because you are considering a divorce, others are here because you already know in your mind that you are getting a divorce and a few of you just learned that your wife has suddenly demanded a divorce.  In any case, once you determine that a divorce is inevitable you need to start preparing immediately.  Your livelihood, your future may be at stake here, and its imperative that you stay one step ahead of everyone else.

The primary reason why you have to be a head of the game is because you are already starting out from behind.  Unless you have been purposely ignoring everything that has to do with divorce (i.e. TV, news, magazines, the internet) for the majority of your life, you already know that there is still a gender bias in our country’s divorce process.  For the better part of our history, the men in a divorce have been required to keep providing for his ex-wife for well after the divorce.  This was important in the past when the husband was the primary source of income while the wife took care of the house and family.  Just think back to any 50’s or 60’s television show when they often depicted the “perfect family life”… The husband announces that he is home from a long day at the office as the family sits down to a big dinner that the wife has been busy preparing all afternoon.

Times have changed a lot since those days, and yet the divorce process is still lagging behind.  Women are now more likely to have careers, they have just as much education, and earn an income that is comparable to their husbands.  Sure they still have the children (we couldn’t change that even if we wanted to), but that no longer means that she is required to become a stay-at-home Mom.  There are laws that protect their jobs, when they have to take time off to have a child.  Stay-at-home dads are even becoming more common.  Equal rights for women have progressed a lot in this country, as they should, and yet there is still the issue where the wife is considered the victim of a divorce.  And oftentimes, under the guidance of her divorce attorney, she plays the part very well.

So in order to generate a level playing field, you as the man in the divorce is going to have to work a lot harder than anyone else.  That is the way it is, and is not going to change anytime soon, so it’s not worth dwelling on it for any longer than it takes to read this post.  Use the time you have now wisely.

This time should be used for gathering information.  Information on your assets, your debts, and all sources of income.  Now is the time to speculate on what your divorce will bring you.  Are you lucky enough to have a uncontested divorce that you can finish quickly and at minimal cost? Or will it turn into an all-out divorce battle?  If you are going to need a divorce attorney, now is the time to do some research and schedule consultations (But don’t hire anyone yet, unless you absolutely need to).  Also, during this time, keep your emotions at bay!  Don’t go getting yourself into a bind because you can’t control your anger, resentment, and/or jealousy.  Besides the less emotion that you show, the more mysterious you will be to your wife.  It makes it hard for her to guess what you are up to, giving you more freedom to plan your next move.

The most important thing is that you do not fall behind on what you need to get done.  It is very easy to do during this period because there is no one there to direct you, you don’t know how long you have before things really start to heat up, and unless you are able to go days without sleep, and/or going to work, you will not know what exactly your wife is up to.  We will try and give you some guidance on what to do during this time, but because every marriage and divorce is different, it is impossible to cover every detail.  So you will have to make some decisions on your own!

Quick Review of Item #2 of the Divorce Checklist

• Now is not the time to sit and wait for something to happen… Now is the time to prepare for what is to come!
• You, as the man in the divorce, are going to start from behind; that the nature of the divorce process in this country.
• If doesn’t look like you are working harder than everyone else, then your not doing enough.
• You need to start gathering important information (ie financial info) and storing it in a safe place.
• It’s time to determine if you will need a divorce attorney, if so, do your research and schedule consultations.
• Keep your emotions in check! One outburst could certainly lead to problems and gives your wife too much ammo.
• Do Not Move Out of Your House Voluntarily! This in itself has repercussions.  If you want to move out, then make sure the time is right.
• Prepare yourself mentally for what is to come.  Remember, the woman that you are divorcing is obviously not the same woman that you married.
• As always send us an e-mail, if there are specific questions that you cannot find an answer to.