These days it's easier than ever to communicate with people - we've got high-speed internet connections (wireless & otherwise), mobile phones, pagers, fax machines. We can talk at the touch of a button, across cities, countries, the entire world. Furthermore, communication through these digital protocols is almost instant, fairly cheap and - if you want it to be - completely private and hidden.



While advancements in digital communication are, on the whole, a great thing, they do have their down sides. One disadvantage is that cheating husbands, wives (or, for that matter, girlfriends or boyfriends) can communicate with their private lovers away from the prying eyes and ears of their trusting partners. It happens every day: thousands upon thousands of text messages are sent by disloyal men and women to those they're sleeping with behind their real partners' backs.

Back in the day, the only way a guy or girl could arrange a clandestine meeting would be over a hard-line (either a house phone or a payphone). That meant the cheater would either have to make risky calls from the home of their unsuspecting spouses, or secretly take a trip to a local call box and do it from there. Both of these methods of communication could often be spotted by the betrayed party quite easily.

But that's now a thing of the past. It's now a cinch for a cheater to send messages to their secret lovers from work, a locked bathroom, even from under the bed covers while their current, faithful partner sleeps quietly and 100% unaware of what's going on just 6 inches away from them.

It's true; things are easier for cheaters these days...but not that easy. Just as all others kinds of cheats - be it a card shark, a conman or a computer hacker - leave signs of their dishonesty behind, so do disloyal partners. And looking for the right signs, in the right places, is the absolute best way of knowing for sure if you can trust your partner.

Okay, you know now how easy it is for cheaters to communicate with their secret partners using digital communication. But what are the signs, the indications, the clues of this kind of activity? Let's take a look:

1. Computers offer cheaters a multitude of communication methods, including: email, instant messenger programs, chat rooms and forums. Although it can be difficult to tell what your partner's doing online without actually looking over their shoulder (tricky!), there are indications you can look for more easily. One is an increased amount of time spent at the computer for no apparent reason, perhaps when you're in bed or before you get up. Another is your partner quickly turning off the computer monitor or turning it away from you when you enter the room.

Also, try checking the internet browsing history of the computer your partner uses most often. Sometimes there are web pages, chat room locations or other signs that your partner has been taking part in internet infidelity to be found there. Other times, you'll find that the browser history has been freshly deleted - this, as you can imagine, could be equally suspicious.

2. As mentioned earlier, mobile/cellular phones make quick and private communication easy. If you feel comfortable doing so, checking your partner's phone's call history, address book and text message archive can provide you with a wealth of telling information. Bear in mind, though, that cheating partner's - in an effort to remain uncaught - often keep their phones on their person most of the time. If your partner used to leave their phone lying around, but now never seems to do so, you must ask yourself why.

3. Last but not least, don't forget or ignore the "old" style methods of cheater communication. Many cheaters still use house phones to call their secret lovers. Check your itemized phone bill for calls to local numbers you don't recognize and that aren't in your phone book. Also, pay attention to how your partner reacts when you walk into the room when they're on the phone. It's difficult to mask panic and surprise when the partner you're cheating on walks into the room while you're chatting to your secret significant other. Quick hang-ups could be a sign your partner's being disloyal over the phone and, perhaps, elsewhere.

By keeping your eyes peeled and ears open, you can sidestep the advantages new methods of communication offer cheaters and, hopefully, discover what's really going on.