Infidelity: Forms, Barriers, and Truth
What is an Infidelity Case?
Merriam-Webster defines infidelity as:
- :lack of belief in a religion.
- a: unfaithfulness to a moral obligation: disloyalty b:the act or fact of having a romantic or sexual relationship with someone other than one’s husband, wife, or partner
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/infidelity
I have been working as a private investigator for over 11 years now and have worked on many infidelity cases. Many people call these cases cheating cases or just cheaters. What I have come to consider as an infidelity case is when a husband, wife, or partner (client) suspect their spouse (husband, wife, or partner) of a romantic or sexual relationship with someone else. The suspected infidelity can be physical, emotional, or online. Many of the infidelity cases are of a physical nature. Many of the cases can be emotional cases where the spouse is emotionally invested with another person outside of their marriage. Many of the infidelity cases are online relationships. These types of cases are increasing by leaps and bounds due to the easy access and privacy provided by the internet. Why do the clients suspect infidelity?
Signs of a Cheating Spouse
There are so many potential signs that a spouse is cheating. No relationship or person is the same so the signs will vary greatly. Sometimes the signs are subtle and sometimes they are drastic. Because of this huge spectrum of signs and the dishonesty or secrecy of the spouse it can be very difficult to be sure about suspected infidelity without some sort of proof. The following links provide the most common signs of infidelity and some very surprising statistics:
But, again, the signs can vary greatly so always, always trust your intuition or ‘gut’. If a suspicion arises there is usually a reason even if the client can not pin point the exact sign.
Barriers to Finding the Truth
There are two main barriers to finding the truth of infidelity:
- The lack of honesty or openness from the spouse
- The shame and embarrassment of the client
Often , when a client confronts their spouse with their worries of ‘something going on’ the spouse becomes very defensive and shuts down any honest communication. The spouse behaves this way due to fear of the consequences of being caught in infidelity. The spouse does not want to face these consequences whether it’s feelings of shame or guilt, embarrassment, or fear of financial loss due to a divorce, etc. The spouse can go to extreme actions to conceal their behavior. This makes it very difficult for the client to know if or what is really going on with the spouse. This ‘unknown’ can be more emotionally damaging to the client than the infidelity itself.
There are so many times when I get a call from a client and I can hear (almost feel) their embarrassment, their shame over potential infidelity by their spouse. I can tell it was very difficult to reach out to someone they don’t know or trust with this type of information.
Because of this, many cases of infidelity go on far longer than they should have. It shows great courage when the client is able to overcome their embarrassment and give me a call to talk about something so personal and ask for help. I always try to tell them that they are not the only ones, and these cases are more common than they know. I am not a counselor or a therapist so I don’t pretend to know their feelings. I want the client to know I do not pass judgement, I do not place blame, I attempt to find the truth, and everything, absolutely everything, is confidential. Sometimes, I am the only person who knows the suspicions of the client and I am the only person who the client has talked to about the suspected infidelity. I try to empathize and understand the client as best as I can but ultimately the only thing I can provide the client is the truth.
How Can a Private Investigator Help?
A private investigator can provide professional and discreet services for a very uncomfortable and embarrassing situation. These services can be anything from Surveillance to Computer Forensics and the goal is to provide the truth to the client. Done in the correct way, the client will be shown the truth and nobody will even know the private investigator was there. I have worked cases where infidelity was a condition of a prenuptial agreement, where the spouse was suspected of infidelity with a person who was harmful to the shared children, where the spouse had been caught before and the client wanted to make sure there was still fidelity in the relationship, and many other situations. It is important to the client and the family for the private investigator working on the case to be conscious of the volatility and fragility of cases of this type. That is why hiring a private investigator with experience is important. Also, hiring a private investigator with experience guarantees that all laws and statutes are being obeyed in the performance of the services so if the information is used in a court it can be trusted to not hurt the client’s case but help it.
Ben P.
Steadfast Private Investigations