Poll : How Have You Pursued Suspicions of the Narcissist’s Infidelity?
Cheating. Messing around. Playing away. Whoring. Being a player.
Infidelity.
It is rare for it to never happen when engaged in a romantic entanglement with our kind.
Of course infidelity may manifest in many ways – emotional, intellectual and financial for instance – but it is physical infidelity which invariably causes the greatest hurt, anger and upset.
Often you suspect that the narcissist is cheating. What have you done in order to ascertain whether he or she is cheating or has been cheating?
You may choose as many as are applicable and as ever, please do expand on your experiences in the comments section.
Thank you for participating.
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Cindy
Why are you still talking to him?
After 29 years together, 19 of them married, my Narc had been the kind of guy you never thought would cheat. My best friend use to laugh about how neither of us had to worry about our guys cheating, they just were not that kind of guys and I trusted him as so. Besides he’s 64 years old, fat and going bald, who would have him?
Then my Narc had a little heart attack and quadruple by-pass surgery. After surgery he was not allowed to drive for 30 days so I took him where ever he wanted to go. One day after hours and 4 of his errands he wants to stop and tell the chick that works at the pizza place, that is across the parking lot from the smoke shop, where he had been telling me he was hanging out for 4-6 hours almost every day for the past 1 1/2 years about his heart and surgery. I told him I’ll bring you to the smoke shop so you can update the guys; no he wants to go to the pizza place. I refused to take him there and he had a huge hissy fit.
We go home and he’s printing poems he wrote before he met me (his poems were part of me falling in love with him) to bring to the pizza lady since the guy next door was giving him a ride. When he returned I told him he was having an affair with the pizza lady and that it is over. He ranted something about no one is going to tell him what he can and can’t do.
About an hour later I walk out not saying anything, got in my car and left. I park in the back of the parking lot of the pizza place where I could see her thru their big window, sat in my car and watched. Not 5 minutes later here he comes in his lifted truck and parks in front of me. Now remember he’s not suppose to be driving none the less a vehicle that you have to pull up your body weight just to get into. The pizza lady comes out all bouncy running up to his truck telling him what are you doing here, I didn’t expect you now? She could not see me behind his truck. They leave and I return home to sleep. I get up at 3 AM to go pee and as I’m walking back to bed I make this laugh that I made when the pizza lady came bouncing out, a distinctive evil laugh, we have some words, he gets angry and calls the police, he has me arrested for domestic violence, I did not hit him, I did razed him about the pizza lady so he put me in jail for something I did not do,
I was devastated to say the lease. I bailed myself out, went home grabbed my purse so I could pay the bails bonds and as I’m sliding into my car seat to leave he’s attacking me threatening to have me arrested again for doing nothing. I left him that day and moved far away, that was over a year ago.
I figured out he was having this affair that day just by his actions and I knew he had been lying to me about where he was going for the past year and a half. He didn’t know what to do about it; he didn’t know how to handle it so he threw me in jail. He was the one that wanted a monogamous relationship so I promised it and stayed true to my promise.
With him being the one that would never screw around on me and never leave me (he’d tell me this throughout our relationship) he had been found out. He ran me out of my home calling the cops every time I was there hoping to get me thrown back in jail after that. I could no longer live in the home that I had lived for the past twenty years, had to leave my animals (2 cats) with him, I had nowhere to go especially with pets.
She was named the Pizza Whore, the uncaring woman that was 1/2 to blame for destroying my 28 year relationship. Throughout the following months he insisted there was nothing going on with the Pizza Whore then one day I followed him to her house, left and went to the pizza place to ask the man that works there that is her so called husband where his wife was now, he didn’t have an answer.
The next time I talk to my Narc I think he’d had a little too much alcohol. I say something like “I should not be calling her a whore cause she has a job” and my Narc says “I don’t know what you did last time, but now I have to pay her even more next time.” And I immediately take back my retraction about calling her a whore.
I have to admit I use to think “who would have him?” well let me tell you there are women out there that will do whatever it takes to a stupid old fool that gives them hundreds of thousands of dollars, that’s who would have him and almost all of our money.
Over a year later and he still insists he never had a thing with the Pizza Whore, he is concerned for her cause he knows how I feel about her, pure hatred. He now admits he did screw around with the blonde bombshell taxi driver and kind of fell in love with her then there was some other young girl that would suck his dick and he’d give her money, but he won’t cop to the Pizza Whore. Now he’s onto the compliment slinging bartender that’s half his age, he’s recruiting with great efforts, he goes after women that are young enough to be his grandchildren so it takes a lot of effort and money . . .
28 Years In The Hole!
My ex narc purposely left ‘proof’ around for me to find as he loved the reaction more than anything
Funny , I didn’t vote. Actually i never susected him. I trusted him and he hided well his game.
How i knew he was cheating? The new target who was smarter than me, or let’s say had more experience than me, called me and told me everything. He was my first relationship. 🙂
It was nothing from the above. In fact, it was his weird behaviour in fb and his constant lying that made me suspicious at first. Generally, he tried his best to make me suspicious-I got crazy and the fuel must have been flooding. Even if there was no need fpr him to upset me, even when he could easily hide, there were always hints, used as small traps for me to fall in. At the beginning of our relationship he asked me if I was a jealous person. I said no, not particularly. Well, with him I became the most jealous person on earth. After about a turbulent year, a friend of mine revealed to me one of the narc’s parallel relationships. She was also a friend of mine, not close but still. She had been taking him to trips all over the world, paying for his furniture etc. He acted like a real gigolo (she is wealthy). As for his (now) wife, one more year later, he let her tag him for the first time in fb (he didn’t like being tagged) so as for me to see. I had left him at the time, however their relationship had begun at the same period he was supposed to be hysterical about me. Typical. So, it was him giving the clues, not me searching his stuff or following him at nights. From the ugly info she gave me much later, I believe my friend (the wealthy lady) had hired a private detective. Which is something I strongly believe I should have also done, right from the start. I had thought about it, but I believed it was too much to do. It is also expensive. However, it is the best solution, if you do it early in the relationship, before you fall in love. I am surprised that it is so low in votes here. A private eye would have saved my life.
M
At the point that you feel you have to hire a private investigator isnt it already over? It should be.
You shouldnt pay someone to tell you what you already know-that there is no trust.
Save your money.
Narc Angel, I did save my money. But I lost a lot of time, not knowing, trying to guess, playing Poirot etc. I was in doubt right from the start, but the next minute all my doubts disappeared (I blamed myself for overeacting) and then doubts started again. You know how it goes 🙂
I didn’t have to do any of these. The new woman posted selfies of the two of them on Facebook, but I knew what was going on before that. She also made sure he came home with makeup on his clothes. I would never be able to access my narc’s phone, but I do have access to phone records online and know every time they talk and for how long.
I was never even allowed to hold his phone in 10 years.
Only one time on my insistance, he let me scroll our photos… i could see him holding his breath… asking it back… i was fast and there… ho and behold… the profile photo of a younger woman from Italy, who he was caught flirting online.
It is so obvious when they will reguse to let us look at their phone !!!
I have even told him that it woulf be smart if he could have a second phone … haha.. haha..
But why would he care? Who i think am i to even suggest smarter ways???
He is the great magnificient one, and i should just be greatful to even be near his shadow.
I didn’t vote.
I just knew, besides it is written all over you once the “act” has happened.
That is so true, Twilight. It’s as if we can smell it…. as if our eyes are a blacklight and we can see all of the hidden evidence.
Those blacklights are good for identifying lice too, you know.
Mine is a terrible story.
I knew that I was going to get into his phone. He was constantly texting, always telling me that it was “work”…after a few years, I became suspious. Took me long enough, because of my trusting self.
Anyway, the day I decided to do it, fate stepped in. He had a grand mal seizure….I was with him and after calling 911, and his family, I did the deed while they were taking him to the hospital.
What I found dumbfounded me. It shocked me so much that I drank and took tranqulizers for 3 days. I couldn’t handle it.
For all his faults, the one thing he had convinced me of; was that he was a one waman man.
LOL…one woman at the moment he should of said. I saw him texting to an ex-scondary source devaluing her, I saw new sources he was cultivating…I saw it all.
Worse yet…I let him hoover me again….After that I knew….It just took me a while to get out.
Happy to say…4 weeks No-Contact and that includes no peaking.
H, mine proclaimed the same thing… a one-woman-man. He even went as far to say that one was all he could manage, especially one like me. Of course, like you, I found out that there were many more he was somehow trying to manage.
I am glad that you found your answers and happy for you on your progress of four weeks! They are hard to resist, but when we think back to all of their deception, it helps to make those weak moments a wee bit stronger. Best wishes as you move forward.
I had read up on Classic Narcissistic habits on this website and a few others. My devaluation had just started and I was being prepped for discard. I kinda had a feeling that he must be cheating as well and I bluffed and bluffed. He kept asking for proof and names but I feigned being hurt and everything. Made that an excuse to escape.
Still getting hoovered though. I am just hoping that I will be strong enough to weather the storm each and every time.
KGD,
Just keep learning. 🙂 There’s a ton of information on this blog. Good job on escaping!
Oops. KRG!
Hi Jasmine,
Narcsite is almost like an online Bible to me. Haha
Thank you for the encouragement though. I sincerely hope that he gets a high performing IPPS soon. I don’t want him to use my loneliness on Valentines against me.
His phone was hard to get into, so instead I went into Google maps on his GPS and reached previous destinations to find some of the places he had gone to when I wasnt around. I was hoping he hadn’t thought to clear the destination history. Bingo! I discovered several address I wasn’t familiar with. A little investigating, and suddenly a couple of secondaries and places they had visited popped out of the woodwork. I thought that was rather clever of me… he is an intelligent man. I was surprised he missed that little detail…
Just seen with others all the time. The MRN had a habit to free his hand – in order nobody sees him holding somebody’s hand – when two appliances same time appear around and see each other.
The Greater just loved to bla bla about appliances, show me their pictures etc. ok he was honest.
Was called and messaged by the affair partner who was clueless about my existence for months until her son, who attended school with my husband’s son told her that he was married to me. I became a super sleuth after that finding blonde hairs all over his clothing, truck and MY truck. I and that particular affair partner are both brunette. I placed a digital recorder behind the couch where he frequently sat to play video games and heard him talking about his big cock to a different woman. I had been so trusting and clueless for 5 years, so he had no security on his phone, and I had password to His email and Google account. When I checked his Google activity, I found countless texts to drug dealers. Morning and night for years he’d been buying and using drugs behind my back. I discovered he had developed a severe porn addiction. I searched his inactive cell phones and found numbers under men’s names which actually belonged to women. I talked to his step-dad and niece who revealed he’d been “borrowing” large sums of money, none of which I never saw or knew about. I searched bank statement and found many flower purchases over the years that were not for me, charges to dating websites and hotels. I searched the trash and his wallet to find receipts for atm withdrawals and purchases made very late at night while I was asleep and for places we’d never been to together. I began recording our phone conversations through an app I downloaded so that I could catch him gaslighting me. I hacked his FB account to find he also had a Tinder account. The list goes on. I’m not a jealous, possessive or suspicious person by nature. I let him turn me into a monster. Then I walked away and I live as though he never existed. I hope it drives him crazy!
Other.. I had a hunch when online messages to me didnt make sense.. obviously he was sending mulitple messages at the same time to other women. I then started to dig and found at least one false fb account with him ‘in a relationship’ with some woman he claimed was just a friend. That had been going on for 3 years. Meanwhile he said he broke up with his IPPS and she moved out of their unit but whenever i went there all her stuff was there.. including novels on the coffee table with bookmarks.. oh he said.. they are my sisters.. she comes around alot. What crap i caught him out so many times and always there was a quick cover up or bs excuse..right now he has a new supply plus the 2 women ‘in a relationship’ with him who have no idea about what he is doing..grrrr..and he just cruises around getting away with it…..
I didn’t have any reason to suspect until the last night we were together. (He was talking for hours with someone, ignoring me, trying to hide his phone, and acting crazy suspicious.)
Then post-escape, during the massive smear campaign, cheating was one of the things *I* was accused of doing. I’m guessing it was projection- since everything else was- but at this point, I’m done! So it no longer matters.
Only the false profile idea, to get out of any possible doubts (as I transformed them in certainties). They simply couldn’t resist the temptation! That was not illegal or immoral imo, as the site has free access and it was only to prove the truth to myself before escaping. Oh, HG…is only my impression or narcissists are very proud to use parts of their true name, birth date or powerful historical personalities names (they admire)? Searching for their profiles…I found this similarities, that’s why I ask.
This one I couldn’t answer. I don’t know for sure that he wasn’t cheating, but he didn’t let me know at least and I never did have any suspicions about it. I was the one being accused of infidelity during the entire relationship and that was utter nonsense; I never cheated on him. Still, now afterwards, I realise that he was a master at projection and that I took the blame for most of his hideous behaviour so who knows what he was doing? I was so busy always defending myself I didn’t have much time to investigate him. So I did nothing.
Oh HG! Are you triangulating all of us? This poll is tailored to the IPSSs. Where is the, “How did you uncover he was pretending to be single but had an IPSS?” poll? What are we always secondary lol?
I can’t type on small devices! Meant IPPSs. Thanks for understanding.
Other, LOL! He busted himself by accusing me of cheating.
I had not worried about it before, as I clearly was the more attractive of the 2 of us, plus I had a high and adventurous sexual appetite, so i assumed he had as much as he could handle in me.
What an inflated ego I had! He had been feeding my ego, too, until either I was not giving enough positive fuel, or he wanted to change it up with me because after a few years, hers was better.
He had wanted to show off what a stud he was so he had taken the son to meet his mistress and 2 year old daughter. Son was not impressed, was instead disgusted and angry, so W threatens him that I will leave and abandon BOTH of them, and W will take it out on son, if he informs me of the situation.
So now a formerly affectionate relationship between them devolves into constant rancor. Neither of them can say WTF to me about it, and now I’m being accused of infidelity! And I didn’t react the way he expected, so he had to bring triangulation into it, how his friend, the waitress at the coffee shop just knew I had to be screwing around, because I sure wasn’t giving him the attention he deserved!!!
BUSTED!
But, even so, he eventually convinced me she was some jezebel that had recently seduced HIM!! And he would never see that “psychotic bitch” again. In the meantime, I did not know what the son knew, and he assumed I had found out ALL of it, and forgiven his dad. Maybe even condoned the relationship.
Which made the son angry at me, too, for the longest time.
My MMRN cheated right in front of me with his teenaged-twink-boyfriend.
I wanted to do many of these things but he has from day 1 been Uber stealthy with darkened screens, multiple private passwords , everything locked & password protected with firewalls etc so it was not possible for me to get much info and hiring PI almost but got angry about high $ amount he stole and I wasted and didn’t want to pour more good $ toward bad. I am just assuming he has but I wish I had gotten hard proof. Divorcing him w/o the biblical out of adultery is hard but I decided to just do what’s best for my children and I regardless of the cost and pain and stigma he puts on me. Biggest mistake I ever made. And I didn’t even get a golden period! Just the giddiness of my own love and future faking that never became real. He can spin a tale! To quote a popular song ‘If your lips are movin then you’re lyin’ “‘ applies to him.
Of course, driving by places of interest usually provided something interesting, but he would always have an innocent little story to support why he was there.
I didn’t have access to his phone or e-mail, so I had to snoop through his house, clothing and suitcase. Those little hotel notepads must be too tempting for a narcissist to leave behind. They love free ink pens too.
He always tied his trashbags up very tightly, causing the plastic bag to tear if I tried to open one. So, I bought trash bags identical to the ones he was using and carried them around in my trunk. In the middle of the night, I’d quickly pull out a full bag from his outside trashcan and toss it in my car. I’d park in a nearby lot a sift through his trash, pulling out receipts, movie tickets, business cards… anything I could find that could give me answers. I’d keep those items and put the uninteresting trash into a new bag. I’d tie it tightly into all of those damn knots and place it back in his can. He never noticed.
To prove his loyalty, he said I could look at his monthly bank statements. I knew he probably had another account, so I declined… telling him if our relationship ever got to that point, it was a bad sign.
Then while he was at work, I’d moisten the back of his bank statements with a little bit of water to loosen the seal. Taking a letter opener I stored in my glove box, I’d slice them open at the seam of the flap and snap pictures of that month’s statements to study later. I usually kept a glue stick with me, but since they can dry up in a hot car, I bought his daughter a bunch of crafting items, several glue stcks included. I gave her a cute little storage container, knowing I would have backup glue on-site. Using the glue stick, I sealed back his bank statements. If you are really careful, the envelope will open the second time as if it’s the first.
Obviously, I found plenty of evidence to hurt me. Someone benefited from a lot of nice dinners during those times I couldn’t reach him. But seeing the look on his face when I’d casually tell him that so-and-so saw him at such-and-such place…. watching him squirm, that was well worth a fib and a few papercuts.
My ex trick spouse has anemia. Bruising was easy with that creature. I saw hand prints. Many times. Went thru gym bags…found left over shit from staying overnite with some shitbag. Took pics. Ran background checks. Talked to people from 30years ago from my hometown. They opened right up. Plus…everything HG said about their texting is on target. That creature asked me in a smartass way of how I knew so much… My reply with a condescending laugh…HG told me all about you. The creature said…who hell is he? I said… Someone who knows exactly who are. Hahaha… The creature shut up and shutdown.
Wow.
If I knew that someone had used tracker / camera / looked through my phone / computer, … I would end the relationship immediately, that is an absolute no-go. If I felt the need to do so myself – same. To me, the trust in a relationship is long gone at that point.
However, my ex-lower-narc-like-lover had once suspiciously many moscitoe bites absolutely everywhere (never had scratches or women’s bites, I was also never allowed to bite or scratch him 🙁 ). He said, he had worked in the garden ….
Wondering what your girlfriend might do, HG?
Ethically I know it was wrong to have checked his messages and such, but I learned a LOT about what he was doing behind my back. He claimed violation of privacy and I didn’t disagree. The problem was that he then refused to accept that what he did was wrong (duh), and he was allowed to have a private life.
I caught him multiple times deliberately not mentioning me being with him on trips, only using “I” statements instead of “We”, or that he had a partner at all.
Who can ever get close the phone?!
Exactly, Empress1!
I had never seen someone keep such a tight grip. Mine guarded his like Fort Knox. I will now use that as a big red flag going forward. If he has to be that protective of his phone… it’s for a reason!
Correct. It is mission control.
He never deleted his dating apps and would always waive it in my face when I told him I did not want to see him, or have anything to do with him anymore.
Sadly I have done these. I am now being subjected to the smear campaign from he and the woman he cheated on me with so many times. His second fuel supply has now become his main source. He is flaunting her and she is emailing telling me how horrible I was etc. She has fallen victim to the im going to prove I’m better and I’m your soulmate trap. All the while she does not realize he is doing this with her for fuel and to hurt me because of who he is with. I feel no sympathy for her where I would for other women because of the things she’s deliberately done to me.
This sad woman even got a tattoo for him already. All the while he was begging me back. I do realize it’s all a ploy for fuel.
OTHER
You can learn a lot when people think they are talking to the narcissist, even when you didn’t intend for that to happen.
You’re exactly right. Oh I have been accused of being that person. And I’m so horrible for how I did him etc. She is one wretched evil woman herself but it just blows me away at how sucked in she is. How they fully convince people we are the bad ones.
Ouch. The tattoo is ALWAYS a bad move.
Ah, the dreaded tattoo…. I decided I wanted a tattoo myself (nothing to do with him) and he helped me decide what to get and went with me to get it. I was so happy with it… then less than a week later he “surprised” me. He went tot he same artist and got a matching one. Lucky meeeee! I still love my tattoo, but I call it my idiot reminder now. Any time I think I might cave, I look at my foot and regain my resolve. Not today, psycho… not today.
His infidelity was right beneath my nose under the guise of polyamory.
Certainly is a very sneaky way to go about it..
But its been said before: beat way to hide something is in plain sight.
Were you already have a polyamory agreement or did he just throw that out there?
Mine claimed that he couldn’t do monogamy but wanted me as his primary partner and move forward with an open style, no serious attachments to others.
Too bad he followed NONE of the tenets that ethical non-monogamy needs to work.
Silver lining: I now know that I don’t like non-monogamy 😀
I just watched her acting and noticed her actions towards some other persons she told me about, backwards puzzled her talking together with HG’s knowledge and got a perfect match. Actually it’s all there for you if know who to ‘read’ it.
One narc was cheating with a salon owner. I knew something was up so I scheduled a hair appointment with one of the stylists at the salon. In conversation I asked how xyz (owner) was doing, what she was up to. She said “oh, she’s with xyz and they’re in Vegas this weekend”. I didn’t know the owner at all but I had a name. The stylist had no idea she’d let out a secret.
Next one I’ve posted before…I texted to let him know my biopsy results…his response within about 5 seconds was “the better to lick you with”. You gotta be careful when you’re texting with multiple victims.
Another time I army crawled through a backyard from the woods to look in his windows at night. Yep, there she sat. Pretty shameless to crawl through dirt and grass but I did it.
I did a lot of covert digging but it sounds so stupid and pointless now. A whole lot of work for men I never trusted anyway. It was my drug of choice at the time.
12345 – You are very clever indeed! I have thought about setting up a false account but don’t really know how to get photos etc…I have even asked a relative to friend the new IPSS/NISS to flirt with her and report back on her page, but in the end, my relative said “Why do you put this much effort into someone so not worth it. Why don’t you just walk away.” That, coupled with HG’s brilliantly insightful books and his consultations, have helped me tremendously.
12345… clever indeed.
And you got the answers you needed… or at least confirmation of what you already “knew.”
I enjoyed reading your post.
Never had any clue or doubted his fidelity – thought he was all about me, myself, and I – until discarded or disengaged from – and even months after that didn’t know that I was replaced by a new IPPS.
Same here. Never suspected a thing….until he disengaged and began flaunting around town with his “family”. We had been married 20 years, yet he had 6 & 7 year old children with someone else. I SHOULD have hired a detective.
I got the username and password to the security system at our vacation home that has cameras. I caught him on there. I thought that was ingenious of me. And of course he underestimated my ingenuity. This caused great wounding I suspect. He threatened to have me arrested for invasion of privacy!!! How ludicrous.
I also went through his phone countless times….
Every single.time he was caught, it was always…my fault.
Used a GPS tracker on my husband’s car. He completely denied any wrong doing & insists the tracker is wrong. I have the data points. It’s not wrong. Sadly
I’m sorry Susan, believe me you are not alone! We are loyal individual and worth so much more.
Let me tell you this: I was changing and ended up with almost no boundaries (except for cheating which I will not and cannot accept because it belittles me and who I am)!
Never ever ever change your rules for his misbehaving and never accept his shit! That’s about it and I hope you and I (from Italy) have lots of good health and love from who appreciates us (kind and sincere),
cheers