Cheaters are incredibly predictable. Cheaters are predictable as hell.

I understand that this could be upsetting if you’re currently attempting to determine whether your partner cheated on you, but cheaters always use the same strategy.

They all seem to have attended the same “How to Be a Terrible Person” workshop and made thorough notes.

The problem with guilt is that it causes people to behave strangely.

Additionally, there are certain behaviors that are obvious when guilt and fear of being discovered are combined.

Here’s what people do right away after betraying their partner’s trust, if you’re wondering if your partner cheated or if you’re trying to figure out what happened after you found out:

8 Steps People Take Right After Cheating on a Partner

1. They completely alter their hygiene habits and take obsessive showers

I’m sure you’ve seen it a lot in films, and it’s probably the most obvious.

When they get home, cheaters immediately go to the shower, seemingly in an attempt to erase any traces of their transgressions. Cheaters come home and head straight for the shower, as if trying to wash off evidence of their sins.

They are, let’s face it.

They are attempting to purify their conscience in addition to their bodies.

However, that is not how it operates.

Soap and water won’t make guilt go away, no matter how hard you scrub.

When they used to only shower once a day, some cheaters will abruptly start doing so twice a day.

Alternatively, they may be taking longer showers in an attempt to shake off their guilt.

They may start using different soaps, switch up their perfume or cologne, or develop an unexpected obsession with dental hygiene.

They will start carrying breath mints everywhere, brush their teeth several times, or use mouthwash religiously.

All of this is due to their fear that you will be able to detect their betrayal. 

Some people even switch to new deodorant, shampoo, perfume, and other products overnight, completely altering their grooming regimen.

Maybe they think that if they smell different enough, they can change into someone else—someone who didn’t just cheat on someone they said they loved.

2. They Develop Excessive Love in a Way That Seems Totally False

We all want our partners to be loving, but we don’t want it when they’ve done something wrong. We all want our partners to be affectionate, but when it’s because they’ve done something wrong, then we don’t want it. 

In the most obvious ways, guilt causes people to overcompensate.

The partner who hasn’t touched you in months is suddenly all over you.

They are cooking dinner when they haven’t done so in years, bringing you flowers out of the blue, having more sex than usual, and telling you they love you all the time.

No, they’re attempting to maintain mental equilibrium; they didn’t suddenly realize how amazing you are.

They believe that showing you extra kindness will somehow make up for what they just did.

It’s similar to emotional math that doesn’t add up.

They are ultimately discovered because fake affection feels so different from true love. 

Because guilt-driven affection is too calculated, too eager, and too desperate.

Sincere emotion naturally leads to genuine affection.

Feelings of guilt-driven affection resemble a performance in which they are making an excessive effort to persuade themselves and you that they are still decent people.

The desperation behind it is palpable even to you. 

3. They suddenly become paranoid and project their dishonest behavior onto you.

Have you observed how individuals who are acting inappropriately believe that everyone is acting in the same way? Have you noticed how people who are doing what they are not supposed to do think everyone is doing the same? 

For the same reason, dishonest people will start accusing you of being unfaithful or suspicious of everything you do.

They get fixated on your friendships, ask you why you’re wearing nice clothes, wonder why you’re working late, and question you about who you’re messaging.

It is bothersome and a type of psychological projection. 

They believe you are doing the same thing because they are aware of how simple it was for them to betray your trust.

You could undoubtedly do the same if they were able to lie that convincingly and sneak around that successfully.

Alternatively, they are attempting to divert attention from their own actions by making you feel defensive about your own.

It’s the epitome of simple manipulation.

4. They Start to Pay Extreme Attention to Your Time and Location

It’s said that a man’s daily routine holds the key to his success.

Knowing yours, then, is the key to a cheater’s survival. Well, the secret of a cheater’s survival is in knowing yours.

It’s not because they suddenly care more about your safety or your day that cheaters develop an almost obsessive need to know exactly where you are at all times.

You’ll hear statements such as

“When are you going to get home?”

“Will you be working late tonight?”

“This weekend, what are your plans?”

“With whom are you having lunch?”

“What time does your meeting end?”

“After work, are you heading straight home?” Yen, yen, yen.

They need to know your schedule for two very deliberate reasons: first, they want to know when it’s safe to talk to the person they cheated on, and second, they are afraid that you might discover their deception.

In actuality, they don’t simply inquire about your schedule once and store it.

They verify and verify again.

“You promised to return home by six, correct?”

“You have a yoga class until eight, right?” “Your yoga class is definitely until 8?”

“Are you certain you have no more stops to make?”

The reason for this is that those who are guilty are constantly afraid of being discovered, so they start keeping a closer eye on everything than a helicopter parent does with their teen.

Without being asked, they may begin to volunteer incredibly specific details about their own whereabouts.

“I plan to stay at work until approximately 6:15, after which I will visit the Fifth Street grocery store. You know, the one by the gas station, and I should be there by 7:30 at the latest. I’ll likely be there for twenty minutes, after which I’ll go straight home.

Because innocent people don’t feel the need to defend their every action, this overexplanation raises serious concerns.

5. They chose random fights to create distance and justify their actions.

What better way to escape the suffocating guilt than to make yourself the villain? What other way is there to escape the suffocating guilt than to make you the villain?

This behavior is cruel due to its manipulative nature.

Some cheaters will come home and deliberately pick fights with you over completely unrelated topics.

The dishes, your grocery bill, your job, your friends, your hobbies—everything becomes ammunition for conflict.

They instigate conflict to feel better about betraying you.

It’s a psychological trick to shift blame and alleviate their own guilt.

Another underlying reason for these staged fights is that distance feels safer than intimacy when carrying such a big secret.

They understand that their partners do not deserve what they are doing to them, and being close serves as a reminder of what they have done.

So they incite conflict in order to justify emotional and physical distance.

The fight allows them to be cold, withdraw, sleep in separate beds, and avoid intimate and vulnerable conversations.

After all, it’s easier to avoid making eye contact when you’re angry with each other.

And it’s easier to stay out late if you give each other space.

6. They Experience Severe Device and Phone Paranoia

The year is 2025.This is 2025.

Check someone’s phone to learn more about their life.

Our conversations, pictures, locations, search histories, social media activity, dating apps, and covert communications are all stored on our devices.

Anything.

This is precisely the reason why cheaters suddenly develop extreme paranoia about their gadgets.

All of a sudden, their phone seems to have been surgically affixed to their hand.

They flip it face down when they are around you, take it to the bathroom, sleep with it under their pillow, and practically have a panic attack if you get within three feet of it.

They replace the passcode you’ve been using for years with an entirely different one.

They become reticent about who calls or texts them, and when notifications arrive while you’re around, they start to react almost physically.

But in 2025, it’s not just phones.But it’s not just phones in 2025.

They start guarding their gaming consoles, laptops, tablets, smart watches, Bluetooth-enabled cars, and streaming accounts.

Fort Knox is any gadget that might reveal their secret.

They may suddenly become obsessed with erasing their browser history, something they had never given much thought to before.

Every day, they clear their call logs.

Even harmless Google searches are conducted in incognito mode.

Instead of remaining logged in, they begin to log out of all of their social media accounts.

They disable location sharing, read receipts, and any other feature that could let you know what they’re doing.

Some will even go so far as to purchase a burner phone or use apps made expressly to conceal communications—applications that appear to be calculators but are actually platforms for covert messaging.

When they go out, they’ll start leaving their primary phone at home, claiming to want to cut back on technology, all the while communicating via the covert gadget.

It’s just a whole lot. 

7. They begin talking about other people’s relationships and infidelity incessantly.

Suddenly, they become very interested in other couples’ business, and I mean VERY interested.

“Did you hear that Xavier cheated on Funmi? I can’t believe she took him back.”

“I would never forgive cheating. Would you?”

“Some people think emotional affairs aren’t real cheating. What do you think about that?”

“I read this article about couples who worked through infidelity. It’s interesting how people can move past it.”

“My coworker’s wife found out he was having an affair, and apparently, she’s staying with him. I don’t understand how people do that.”

They’re not just making conversation or suddenly developing an interest in relationship psychology.

They are conducting research.

Do market research on your tolerance levels, boundaries, definitions of betrayal, and most importantly, your capacity for forgiveness.

They want to know exactly how you feel about infidelity, including what you consider to be acceptable and unacceptable, as well as what circumstances make adultery “understandable.”

They’re attempting to predict the kind of response they might receive if the truth is out.

Are you the kind of person who would pack up and head out right away?

Do you think you might be able to resolve it?

Do you distinguish between relationships that are emotional and those that are physical?

Do you think a continuous affair is more serious than a one-night stand?

In essence, they are creating a database of your answers to hypothetical situations that aren’t at all hypothetical to them.

8. In order to avoid admitting major transgressions, they confess to minor ones.

This is one of the more psychologically perverse actions that dishonest people take, and its calculating is utterly demonic.

To avoid admitting to the nuclear-level treachery they truly committed, they will deliberately confess to small transgressions.

“I feel awful about what I have to tell you. Last week, I had coffee with my former partner. I should have brought it up, but I didn’t want you to be concerned. I apologize for not telling you.

They had more than coffee in the interim.

After having coffee, they returned to the ex’s apartment, slept together for three hours, and decided to get together again the following week.

However, by acknowledging the coffee, which is technically accurate, they achieve a number of psychological objectives that are quite clever in their deception.

They first feel as though they have been “honest,” even when they haven’t been.

This helps them feel less guilty since their brain interprets it as stating the truth.

It’s similar to thinking you’ve cured your entire sickness after taking half a dose of medication.

Second, in a controlled setting, they may see how you respond to their deceit.

To what extent does the coffee irritate you?

To what extent do you ask questions?

How suspicious do you get?

On a much smaller scale that kids can handle, this provides them with important information about how you will respond to treachery.

Third, instead of getting caught in a falsehood, they fabricate a story in which they are the ones freely disclosing information.

You are less likely to assume there is more to the story because they are positioned as trustworthy and forthright.

Trust your gut if, as you read this, you see your partner exhibiting a variety of behaviors.

Multiple behaviors occurring at the same time are rarely a coincidence, albeit one or two of these behaviors may be explained by other causes.

Because dishonest people are frequently defensive, cunning, and will gaslight you into thinking you’re hallucinating or being paranoid, confronting them requires preparation and technique.

Living with someone who pretends to love you is not what you deserve.