How to tell if he’s cheating
Ebony, March, 2005 by Zondra Hughes
ONCE upon a time, your heart was at ease and all was well in paradise. Back then, your man made it clear that you were a top priority, regardless of what was going on in his world. So if he said that he would pick you up at 9:00 p.m., you knew to expect your doorbell to ring at 8:45 p.m. And if he said he was going to hang out with friends, you knew that he wanted you to be right there hanging out with him. And if he said that he was working late, you could always count on that phone call from the workplace, reassuring you that he was on his way home, and that he couldn’t wait to sink his teeth into his favorite dinner and spend some quality time with you.
But now the tide has turned and something, you can’t put your hands on it, is radically wrong.
His whereabouts are unaccounted for. Sudden nondescript “emergencies” are putting you and your needs on the back burner. The sex is different; his brief kisses and even briefer phone conversations have become empty consolation prizes for his absences and unfulfilled promises.
And now your mind is asking the question that your heart may have answered a long time ago: Is he cheating?
How are you going to find out the truth? And what are you going to do with the truth once you know it–are you going to fight for your relationship, or are you going to dump him first?
Here is the best advice from relationship experts and Sisters who have walked a mile in your stilettos. Caution: As in all cases of the heart, ultimately, the choice to pursue the truth, and the decision on what to do once you know the truth, lies with you.
WHO’S CHEATING? WHO’S NOT?
Disclaimer No. 1: William July II, author of The Hidden Lover, and other relationship experts around the globe, point out there are many reasons why a man would cheat, and his infidelity may have nothing at all to do with you or the status of your relationship.
“… He isn’t cheating because he doesn’t have a good partner, it’s because something inside him is creating a desire to go outside his relationship,” July explains. “Often he’s struggling with issues that are making him unstable.”
Disclaimer No. 2: Not every Brother is a cheat, and there’s a good chance that the Brother you’re with isn’t on the prowl for your replacement, at least according to recent statistics.
Although it may appear that there’s a whole lot of bed-hopping and heartbreaking going on–(and, not to step on any toes, here, but a whopping 44 percent of Sisters admitted to cheating in the groundbreaking EBONY Sex Survey, October, 2004)–the reality is that no matter how bad the current infidelity trend may seem, the majority of men do NOT stray.
In fact, just a scant 22 percent of men are scandalous, according to Tom W. Smith, director of the General Social Survey at the National Opinion Research Center (NORC), University of Chicago. Smith tells EBONY that the majority of African-Americans are vehemently against adultery, a trend that has been all but set in stone since the NORC began conducting such studies decades ago, and that the “adultery is wrong” sentiment is still echoed throughout the nation.
Yet Black women are quick to point out that the statistics about male infidelity are fluid at best. Many argue that 7 out of every 10 Brothers are creeping every now and then, or carrying on full secondary relationships.
FOLLOW THE CLUES: Telltale signs of a cheater.
Back in the old days, the signs of a straying mate weren’t too hard to miss: The smell of foreign perfume lingering in his car or on his clothes; the sudden surge in so-called wrong numbers and hang-up calls received at your home; unusually long hours spent at work without the overtime pay to prove it; and an uncharacteristic interest in his personal appearance are just a few of the common red flags.
Despite the common telltale signs of infidelity, no two cheaters behave alike, experts say. Sometimes a cheater will pick an argument so that he can storm out of the house and into the arms of another; and sometimes, a cheater will become overly romantic, says television show producer and self-described cheater Bobby Goldstein, creator of the reality series, Cheaters.
“I wasn’t at home a lot; I was very short-tempered with my ex-spouse, and I think I overcompensated for my actions by trying to do more and more good in less and less time,” Goldstein says. “So if you receive flowers, and more attention, but the little things don’t check out, or if there are expenses that are not accounted for, you need to [look out]. If a woman is smart, she will be all over this guy and make him come clean.”
Here are other surefire signs of a cheater, according to Brittian Wilder, author of Is It Love or a Big Misunderstanding?:
* He is constantly saying, “I need more time to myself,” even if you only see him a few days out of the week already.
* He’s always finding excuses to be away from you. (Usually this is when “hanging with the homeboys” come into play.)
* Changes in the bedroom–he is rarely in the mood for sex; or he may try something new with you.
* He suddenly becomes critical of you and compares you to others.
* He develops an interest in new things, hobbies or even foods.
* He can’t look you in the eye when you ask him pointblank, “Are you having an affair?”
Cheating on the Internet is just as serious as cheating in the flesh, despite the common belief that there are no victims when married partners engage in virtual sex while chatting with others online, according to Pennsylvania-area psychologist Kimberly Young, author of Tangled in the Web.
“I’ve discovered that people were getting hooked on the Internet the way people are addicted to drugs or alcohol,” Dr. Young tells EBONY. “There are many stories of Internet infidelity that I’ve come across, and every couple’s definition of cheating is different; some people believe that chatting on the Internet isn’t cheating until they are at the point when they cross that boundary and they are going to meet the person.
She continues, saying, “A major sign that the online relationship is getting out of control is when the spouse is spending so much time around the computer that he doesn’t go out with the spouse any more.”
According to relationship experts, these are the common signs of an Internet affair:
* He is spending an inordinate amount of time on the Internet, especially time that used to be spent with you.
* He abruptly stops typing or turns off the computer in your presence.
* Your mate does not like to check his e-mail in front of you, or if he keeps multiple e-mail accounts.
* He has several unexpected meetings with people you don’t know.
* Your mate regularly visits dating sites on the Internet.
* There are unusual credit card charges from unknown Internet merchants.
Getting to the truth online is going to be a lot harder nowadays.
One company supplies realistic alibis–complete with supporting documentation–for straying spouses; and a host of Internet companies sell computer software programs that promise to erase every site you visit, every file you open, and every person you’ve ever e-mailed for good. Which also means that perusing your lover’s old e-mails, or monitoring their online chats and downloading activity may be a thing of the past.
THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE: How to Catch a Cheat (If you want to)
It used to be that most Sisters–blessed with the sixth sense of smelling a lie before it even tumbles out of a man’s mouth–were quite adept at knowing, feeling, smelling, or sometime even predicting exactly when a partner has his good eye on someone else.
And for many, outwitting a cheating mate is a badge of honor, as Sisters have become quite industrious at getting to the bottom of things.
Renee * of New Jersey suspected that her husband was slipping out of the house during the wee hours of the morning as she slept, so she dumped dry copier ink at the entrance way seconds before the couple settled for bed.
“I destroyed the mauve carpet,” she laughs. “But you should have seen the look on his face when I pointed out his set of black footprints returning to the bedroom.”
(Renee’s husband admitted to the fling, and the two are currently in marriage counseling).
Jackie * of Tallahassee, Fla., was unnerved by her boyfriend’s constant mentions of a particular co-worker. She reprogrammed his cell phone so that it bypassed voice mail and automatically picked up whenever he received a call. On one Friday afternoon, Jackie called his cell phone at work and got an earful–all without his knowledge.
“They were in his cubicle plotting how they were going to get away from us [their respective mates] for the weekend,” Jackie says. “I was hurt as hell. I didn’t mention a word about it until he came home from work that evening. And sure enough he told me this long sob story about how his grandmother being ill and he wanted to spend the weekend with her like he used to do as a little boy. I said nothing. He went away for the weekend, and when he returned on Sunday night his possessions were waiting for him on the front porch.”
(Jackie * and her bad-boy beau have since broken up.)
Women can rest assured that for every new tool that’s on the market to assist your mate in his quest to run around on you, there’s another tool on the market to assist you with busting him out.
DNAPlus.com offers what it calls the “5 Minute Infidelity Test Kit” that is sure to be a hit with those Forensic Files and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation buffs out there. The kit claims to detect invisible traces of sexual activity in your sheets or articles of clothing, even if he uses a condom.
If all else fails, you can always hire private eyes and a television crew to follow a suspected cheater. Not only will you expose him as a liar, you can also dump him on national television. The reality television series Cheaters does exactly that, five nights a week.
During the first half of the 30-minute show, suspicious mates have their suspected loved ones followed by private eyes–sometimes even outfitting their own bedrooms with surveillance cameras. During the second half of the show, the jilted mate confronts the cheater in the act of committing some of the most outrageous acts of infidelity.
INFIDELITY: The Aftermath
So, you’ve unearthed the cold hard facts that indicate that your mate has been unfaithful. Now that you know the truth, it’s time to determine if your union is worth saving, and if it is indeed salvageable, suggests New York-area matrimonial lawyer Robert Stephan Cohen, author of Reconcilable Differences: 7 Essential Tips to Remain Together from a top Matrimonial Lawyer.
“The natural reaction of someone who’s been cheated on is to vacillate between wanting to stay with their partner and needing to leave,” he notes. “Once you’ve made a decision, you have to let your partner work to regain your trust despite your natural reservations. You have to take a leap of faith and believe in your spouse’s ability to be faithful.”
Conversely, if you do decide to separate, Cohen warns that your decision should be a well-thought-out one, not a quick reaction to the injustice at hand.
In other words, if you really don’t want to leave your man, because he has proven himself to be a good and decent man despite this indiscretion, cut the divorce theatrics and find yourselves a good counselor.
“Two people who are truly in love with each other can make an effort and right all wrongs, by being honest and direct,” Cohen says. “Believe me, I’ve seen it happen.”
COPYRIGHT 2005 Johnson Publishing Co.
COPYRIGHT 2005 Gale Group
Bibliography for “How to tell if he’s cheating”
Zondra Hughes “How to tell if he’s cheating“. Ebony. March 2005. FindArticles.com. 08 Oct. 2007. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1077/is_5_60/ai_n11852371
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The biggest lies about Black male and female relationships
The biggest lies about Black male and female relationships
THE “happy Black couple.” To some, that phrase seems like the ultimate oxymoron. That’s because so many people buy into the notion that the battles between Black men and Black women are so fierce that maintaining a stable, committed relationship is virtually impossible. True enough, Brothers and Sisters often find themselves staring across a great divide that makes coupling up a challenge. Still, countless Black folks are hooking up and staying hooked up, defying the stereotypes and the mythology that says Black couples can’t make it.
In fact, as Black and White scholars have demonstrated, Black family relationships were as stable and strong as Southern White households and Northern White ethnic households until the 1930s. Since that time, the situation has changed, primarily because of a lethal combination of racism, urbanization, unemployment and drugs. “What is astonishing under these circumstances,” as one historian noted, “is not that some Black couples have problems, but that so many Black couples still love and give.” These couples are all around us, and we can learn from them and from Black history how to identify–and how to defy–the biggest lies about Black male/female relationships.
On the following pages are some of the biggest myths associated with Black male/female relationships and some ways in which you can avoid falling into the emotional and mental traps that make these pitfalls seem too big to steer clear of.
1. Black Relationships/Marriages Don’t Last
Many people accept this notion as fact despite the contrary evidence presented by the thousands of Black couples who each year celebrate marriages that have lasted 50 years or more. Jet magazine features them each week. They are couples like Lurline and Wendell Cotton of Garland, Texas. The Cottons, both 80, celebrated their 59th wedding anniversary on February 6.
Not only have the Cottons lived together for most of their lives, they worked together for nearly 40 years in Wendell Cotton’s dental practice in California. Lurline Cotton served as her husband’s office manager until the couple retired and moved to Texas in 1984. What’s the key to their marital longevity? “Mutual respect,” says Lurline Cotton, who had three sisters, each of whom also was married over 50 years. “You’ve got to have that respect for the other person. There are going to be hard times and some disagreements in a marriage. But when you have that respect, then you are allowed to be who you are and your partner is allowed to be who he is, and you can work through anything.”
2. Black Male/Female Relationships Are Only About Sex
It’s true that sex is a critical component in any marriage or committed relationship, but its significance as the only thing that cements Black male/female relationships is highly exaggerated. “Sex is important; every man will tell you that,” says Dr. George Smith, a Chicago psychotherapist who has counseled more than 2,000 couples in relationship trouble. “But if sex is all you have holding your relationship together, you’re in trouble because you don’t have a true relationship.”
Smith says he tries to show the couples he works with how to communicate and trust and support each another so that their relationship is about more than sex. More often than not, he’s successful. He helps couples find the bonds and mutual goals that make their sexual relationship a sustainable partnership. “Any relationship of substance has to be based on trust and commitment and respect,” he says. “If you have those things, you’ll not only have a true partnership, you’ll have great sex.”
3. All Black Male/Female Relationships Are Filled With Arguments, Hardship And Pain
Love may hurt, but it doesn’t have to, the experts say. Many Black couples in healthy and stable relationships can and do disagree without becoming disagreeable.
But the image of the constantly bickering Black couple has taken over popular thought to such a degree that most people assume it is the norm, says Tiy-E Muhammad, assistant professor of psychology at Clark Atlanta University. “Many people believe that couples must have dramatic occurrences–cursing at one another, being put out of the house, keying somebody’s car–in order to appreciate one another,” Muhammad says. “WRONG! It is very possible–in fact, it’s the norm–for a couple to have a nice, respectful relationship without all of the drama that society is starting to make us believe is normal.”
The way to avoid having your relationship dispute degenerate into screaming matches is to learn how to fight fair. Don’t choose the moment of a dispute about money to hit your partner with a “low blow” about sexual performance or inattention to your emotional needs. “Make sure that what you’re fighting about is really what you’re mad about [at the time],” says Kathy Grant, a Miami marriage counselor. “When arguments blow up into huge, dramatic fights, there’s more at work there than what people say they’re arguing about. That’s why constant communication is important.”
4. All Black Men Cheat On Their Partners
This is such a widely accepted belief, many Black men won’t even dispute it. But while monogamy can be hard, it’s a behavior many Black men conform to with the love and support of strong Black women.
But due to the myriad social and environmental forces that have not been supportive of strong, Black male role models, “a lot of Black men don’t know how to be a husband or father,” says Dr. Smith. “But if you work with him, nurture him, talk to him, you can help him to be the husband and father you want and need him to be.”
Smith also cautions Black men not to allow ego and insecurity to push them to live up to the myth of the Black superstud at the expense of their relationships. “A lot of times, as Black men, our huge egos are all we bring to the table in a relationship, and when that ego gets hurt, we strike out with the one weapon we think we have,” Smith says. “But a lot of Black men, with the help of their women, are learning to open up. They’re learning how to deal with frustrations in their relationships in other ways besides having a woman on the side.”
But women also bear some responsibility for the promulgation of the belief that all Black men cheat. “A lot of women withhold sex as a form of behavior modification or punishment when they’re angry with their spouse or boyfriend,” says Dr. Grant. “That’s not only not healthy, it doesn’t work. It’s the surefire way to send a man looking elsewhere, especially since society is conditioning him to believe that’s what is expected of him.”
Both Grant and Smith say communication and maintaining an active sex life are essential to keep a man from straying. “It can be tough,” says Grant. “Especially for the working mother, who on top of her job, still takes the lead role in caring for the kids and home. She’s often just too tired for sex. But you’ve got to find ways to make that a priority in your relationship. Help him see how sharing in the housework and taking care of the children will also help in the bedroom. Don’t withhold sex if he doesn’t do those things. But help him to see how rewarding it can be when he does.”
5. Black Women Can’t Hold Relationships Together Because They Are Too Domineering And Demanding
It is ironic that the strength and determination for which Black women are revered as mothers and stalwart family supporters are also the qualities around which a great deal of relationship mythology is centered.
Part of the problem is the ambivalence many men have about what they really want in a partner/mate. “Modern-day men enjoy having an independent woman,” says Tiy-E Muhammad. “Most men will say, `I want a woman who’s got it going on.’ But after the relationship has begun, those same men will now want that woman to submit and be a part of his vision and his dream. He will want to be the dominant figure in the relationship in order to feel whole.”
In relationships that work–those that endure for decades–the individuals who make up the couple take turns allowing the other to be “boss.” “You don’t have to be totally submissive,” says Lurline Cotton, “but sometimes you go along with what he wants to do, even if it’s not exactly what you want, and he goes along with what you want to do, even if it’s not exactly what he wants.”
This only works if there is trust in the relationship. “You have to be secure in the feeling that your mate is operating in your best interest,” says Dr. Grant. “But a lot of Black women have had experiences that may lead them to believe that every guy is trying to get over on them, and that’s a hard barrier to get over. So men have to work hard to show them that they’re deserving of that trust. It may take time and a lot of effort on the man’s part to get through that barrier, but a lot of couples manage it.”
Black women also must relinquish some control, especially on the home front, which many women see as their dominion. “Just because he doesn’t feed the baby exactly the way you would or make dinner exactly the way you would, you don’t just take that away from him or degrade his approach,” advises Dr. Smith. “If you nurture him and show appreciation for the way he does-things, you’re showing him respect and building up that trust in the relationship.”
The bottom line is that Black couples do make it–more make it, in fact, than our society ever really acknowledges. And if more people followed the examples of the couples whose relationships do endure, and the tips from the experts who help struggling couples get over the hump, perhaps the myths about Black male/female relationships would fade–replaced by more stories like those of Lurline and Wendell Cotton, whose 59-year marriage is still going strong.
“It takes a commitment to what you’re trying to build together,” Lurline Cotton says. “But if you have the respect and th,e love, the commitment is a lot easier to maintain.”
COPYRIGHT 2002 Johnson Publishing Co.
COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group
Bibliography for “The biggest lies about Black male and female relationships”
“The biggest lies about Black male and female relationships“. Ebony. March 2002. FindArticles.com. 08 Oct. 2007. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1077/is_5_57/ai_83450359
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