My Lil Red Dress

So you’ve found your guy cheating and after contemplating serious bodily harm, you’ve either decided to stay with him or you’ve left his no-good lying, dirty rotten, behind in the dust, but you’re still upset about the other woman.

If you are like most women, you obsess over her. You wonder if she’s prettier than you, better in bed than you, funnier than you…on and on it goes, a million thoughts constantly invade your brain and no matter what you do, you can’t make them stop.

Just like most women, you probably also think about confronting her. You’ve probably got a thing (or ten!) that you’d like to tell her, and really, who can blame you?

But, even after all the hell that you’ve been through, you still have some common sense left, and a part of you wonders if confronting the other woman is the right thing to do.

There’s a few things that you may want to think about before deciding whether a confrontation is what’s right for you:

1. How is the confrontation going to benefit you? Right now, you’ve got to make your yourself your very top priority. Is talking to this woman going to give you closure? Is it going to make you feel better? Now ask yourself if you’ll still feel better if she won’t answer your questions? Or worse, how will it make you feel if she goes into intimate detail about her relationship with your husband? You can’t control how she reacts to you – so if her reaction, or lack of one, is going to cause you more pain, then a confrontation may not be the best option.

2. Was she a friend? I think that it’s important to remember that, unless the other woman was a friend of yours, she really didn’t have any obligation to you. Your husband, on the other hand, did. A lot of my friends get really mad at the other woman, while letting their husbands almost completely off the hook, making excuses like, “That’s what men do.” What?!?! In my world, men who do that end up on curbs. But, seriously, don’t shift blame from your husband to this other woman. If you are planning on confronting her because you think “it’s all her fault,” it may not be the best thing to do. On the other hand, if she was a friend of yours, then she, too, had an obligation not to sleep with your husband. In that case, a confrontation is almost unavoidable.

3. Is your husband still seeing her? If you are planning a confrontation to get her to stop seeing your husband, it’s probably not a wise idea. Seriously, if your husband is still cheating on you, do you really want him back? If you do, it’s time to think about your motives and to spend some time working on your self-esteem.

I guess I made it sound as if confronting the other woman is never a good idea, and I don’t necessarily think that. There are times when a confrontation may be a good thing. If it’s going to help you in your healing process, then by all means, tell her how her involvement with your husband affected your life. Just don’t set your expectations very high – meaning, she’s not likely to see the situation the same way as you do.

If you’ve decided to confront her, it’s also smart to think about how you’ll do it before you run off and start a fight. Writing a letter or an email may be better than a face-to-face confrontation because it will allow you to say what you want to say without any interruption. Another benefit is that it will allow you to actually think about what you are saying before it all comes flying out of your mouth. If you are anything like me…that’s a serious benefit!

Has your husband cheated on you? Did you know the other woman? Did you confront her? How did it go? We’d love to hear about it!

It’s a fact, lots of boyfriends cheat. If you think yours is one of them, it’s best if you find it out before your relationship goes any further than it is right now. Yeah, it’s going to hurt, but it’s better than finding out after you are married with kids. If your gut tells you that something is wrong, chances are good that there is indeed something going on. As women, we typically want to believe the best about those who we love, even though we know, in our heart, that something isn’t right.

The first step to catch a cheating boyfriend is being alert to the signs that something isn’t right. Some signs to look for include:

~ Your boyfriend all of the sudden starts carrying his cell phone with him everywhere he goes. He’ll no longer allow you to touch the phone and will possibly even password protect it so you can’t look at it if he does leave it lying around. The same can be true for the computer.

~ Has your boyfriend all of the sudden started dressing better or working out?

~ Has his sex drive changed? Some guys seem to lose their sex drive, while others want to be intimate with their girlfriend all the time. If you’ve gone from 5 nights a week to 0 or from 0 to 5, there might be a problem.

~ Does he lie about his whereabouts? Has he started having night meetings? Does he have a new set of “friends” that you don’t know? If so, chances are pretty good that he’s cheating on you.

~ If you are getting anonymous calls or hang-ups when you answer your home phone, I hope you’re on high alert.

~ Has be become irritable for no reason? Does he become defensive when you ask simple questions?

Taken alone, each one of these signs could mean nothing. If you’ve been cheated on in the past, or are a jealous person by nature, try not to jump to conclusions. That said, if more than one of these are true and if you’ve got that feeling in your gut that he’s cheating – you’re probably wise to pay attention to it.

The problem is that you’ve invested a lot of time into your relationship and chances are, you don’t want to just walk away. You want proof. You actually want to catch your cheating boyfriend. This is where a lot of woman mess up. Instead of collecting evidence, they confront their boyfriend before they have any evidence.

Unless you’re dating a guy whose really dumb or really honest (which I doubt if you think he’s cheating on you), he’s not likely to admit that he’s been cheating. It just isn’t gonna happen. If you really think you’re being cheated on, your best bet is to stay quiet and to start watching closely.

Here’s how to catch a cheating boyfriend:

~ Do you have access to your boyfriend’s computer? Do you share a computer? Check the history on the computer. If it’s erased after he uses the computer, chances are good that he’s cheating on you. You can install a spy program on your computer to confirm your suspicions.

~ If you are receiving phone calls from unknown numbers or if there are strange phone numbers on his cell phone, use a service such as reverse phone detective to track the telephone numbers.

~ Check his stories to see if they are true. If he tells you that he’s working late, drive past his place of business to see if his car is there. If you think that he’s cheating, it most likely won’t be.

~ If you live with him, pay close attention to his pockets when doing laundry. Look for receipts or other items that show what he’s been doing.

~ If you have a shared bank account or credit card account, pay very close attention to all charges. If he’s cheating, you may very well find unexplained charges.

It’s no fun to catch a cheating boyfriend, but if your gut tells you that something is wrong, then take the time to follow up on your suspicions. Once they are confirmed, things will get worse, because you’ll have to decide what to do about it. More about that later…

Have you every caught your boyfriend cheating? How did you do it? Did you stay together after you caught him?