I guess the first step is to recognize what brought you to this place. You have a strong feeling that something is wrong in your relationship with your boyfriend, girlfriend, or spouse. He suspects that if something is going on, if he or she is cheating, then there must be some secret communications between the two of them. So how can you recognize this secret communication if it is happening?

in the old days

It used to be the home phone that often signaled that something was wrong. One of the following things would be happening:

• the hang up. The phone rings, you answer it, and the caller immediately hangs up. Okay, this could happen with a wrong number. But when it happens more than once over a few days or a couple of weeks, it’s reasonable to believe that the caller wanted to talk, but not to you. These types of calls are almost always the “other person”.
• The call from the other room. She rings the phone and her boyfriend, girlfriend or spouse runs to the phone to be the first to answer and then moves to another room to continue the call, often the bathroom. When asked, she says that she was someone from work or a friend. It’s funny that that kind of behavior has never happened before.
• One or two rings and hang up. The phone rings a different number of times, but never enough to be answered. And, like the first red flag above, this happens more than once. What often follows is that the important person suddenly needs to run to the local gas market for cigarettes, gas up the car, or some other excuse to get out of the house that night. They then often go away for a longer period of time than expected and “met a friend and talked” before returning home.

All of the above are very common danger signs of a cheating boyfriend, girlfriend, or spouse. And these phone-related signs have their counterparts in the age of cell phones.

Cell Phone Warning Signs

If you think about it, two of the three warning signs above probably won’t happen with cell phones because they’re portable.

There probably won’t be any interruptions because you’re not likely to be the one answering your boyfriend’s, girlfriend’s, or spouse’s phone.

Also, the two-ring signal isn’t likely to exist in the modern age of silent ringing and text messaging.

That leaves us with a slightly different set of red flags:

• An incoming call that is not explained. You are present when he or she answers a call. They hang up the call and don’t explain who it is, but their tone of voice and reaction to the call are not what I would expect from the person they say the call is from. For example, if you’re from work, you wouldn’t expect them to be brief and hang up without asking questions or giving instructions to the caller.
• An incoming text message that is not shared. Similar to the above, he or she receives and obviously reads a text message, but is noncommittal about the message and turns the phone around so you can’t accidentally read the message.
• A closely guarded cell phone. People tend to be a bit casual or careless with their things. They can leave their keys, favorite ink pens, watches, and other things lying around where anyone in the house could pick them up. Although cell phones are precious items (think how lost we are without them), we still don’t put them in a safe every night. If your partner always has their cell phone secretly and never where you can look, something is wrong.

We have a wonderful way to get the information we need from a cell phone in ways we could never get from a traditional home corded phone.

Next step: get cell numbers

As we all know, the message book on any cell phone will display a list of recent calls, incoming calls, outgoing calls, etc. If you can get those numbers, you can use a cell number lookup on the web to find out where the calls are coming from and who is making the call.

Your task now is to have just a few minutes alone with that phone to write down the numbers. Of course, if you think you’re in a dangerous relationship, you don’t need this information, just get out now or seek help from a professional to help you escape. But if you think you’re safe, start thinking about how to get the phone for a few minutes.

Perhaps your partner is quite sleepy after drinking or having sex late at night. You already know them well enough to know when they make the most of it. Start observing where they place their phone at different times during the day and night. When you get your phone, be sure to put it far enough away so that the opening and clicking sounds don’t wake you up.

Here’s a thought: buy an identical phone for yourself to use. If you “accidentally” switch phones, you have a built-in alibi: you mixed the two up and picked up theirs by mistake.

Or, you can also use the “I’m thinking about getting a new phone” ploy as an excuse to check out yours. Maybe you need to make a call to see how good it sounds. Maybe you need to walk down the hall to the bathroom while talking to a friend and end up locking yourself in the bathroom for a few minutes. You could even keep talking to your friend while you check the numbers. In fact, you could still be talking to the friend as you walk back and hand the phone back to them.

After I have the numbers, we move on to investigating the calls.

The Research Step: Using a Cell Number Lookup

A cell number lookup is also called a reverse phone directory or anything else. The bottom line is that it is a web-based investigative tool that gives you information about the callers whose numbers you have noted down.

A free cell phone lookup will give you enough information to allow you to triage suspicious numbers and possibly eliminate most or all of them.

For example, if you know that your girlfriend, boyfriend, or spouse has family in Topeka, Kansas (we’ll assume that’s pretty far from where you live), and the cell number lookup shows the location on Google map as Topeka, the number it is probably a member of the family and is harmless. That eliminates that number unless he suspects an illicit relationship with someone in the family’s hometown.

If the free lookup reveals a call from somewhere that has no logical connection to your match, or if the number is one you don’t recognize from where you currently live, you may want to get a more detailed report that you can provide. Next:

• Owner’s name and address
• household members
• People search results
• And more

Calm down or, if there really is a problem, find out the truth and move on with your life by making the relationship honest and good or leaving it. Either way, you’ll feel better if you take action.