Affairs and cheating on partners is more common than you might think. Every year 5% of people in a serious, committed relationship have had an affair or fling. More surprisingly, 20% of people surveyed admit to being unfaithful at least once during their relationship.
A recent study highlighted steps people have used to hide their affairs and protect their main relationship. Some participants of the study were more creative with the steps they took than others, dedicating more time and energy to ensure they were not caught out. The tips and strategies outlined below are the most common revealed in the study.
Keep all non face-to-face communications short, concise and to the minimum to limit the chance of being discovered.
It sounds obvious, but unusual behaviour will ring alarm bells. New interests, new vocabulary and phrases, new outfits, new fragrances will all tip off a partner that something might be happening. By keeping home life and interactions unchanged partners are less likely to become suspicious.
In today's digital world it's all to leave a trail of evidence of our activity. Be careful with your text or Whatsapp messages, emails, photos, satnav recent locations, iPhone 'Find Me' tracking, browser history, Google Maps searchs. The list goes on and only gets longer.
Personal technology can easily provide suspicious partners with hard evidence of an affair. An unfaithful partner can easily become too relaxed with their digital communications or simply forget to delete messages, especially if an affair has been long-running, so it's always good practice to password protect all devices and accounts and sign-out of affair apps, affair sites and all social media after use.
It is very common for cheating partners to ask friends to provide realistic excuses for their infidelity.
In order to have an established and continued affair while maintaining good relations with the primary partner, contact with the affair partner should be limited to avoid arousing suspicion.
A common way a cheating partner avoids suspicion is by giving their main partner plenty of love and attention. This tactic can often successful cover an affair.
If adding or changing passwords on accounts and devices is too suspicious a common alternative is to simply get a separate account or device. As long as the device is never found by the main partner it should be a good safeguarding tactic.
Not all strategies and tactics will work in all relationship situations. A personalised approach is required to tailor strategies to suit the relationship and main partner in order to avoid arousing any suspicion and to have a successful affair.
Finding new affair partners is not always easy, especially if you're not in a daily environment which involves meeting lots of people. A common and accept way to find new partners and to have flings is to using dating apps and affair websites. As finding a dating app on a partner's phone will immediately arouse suspicion, dating and affair websites are accepted as the safer and more discreet option. As long as you use a strong password and clear your browser history after use affair sites as safe to use.