How To Find Out If Someone Is Married, Before It Ends in Heartbreak

Key Takeaways

• Look for telltale signs of infidelity, like reluctance to introduce you to their friends, have you over, or cancellation of plans repeatedly at the last minute. 
• Search public government websites for marriage records. 
• Use Spokeo People Search to cast an even wider net and look up marriage records more easily.

Wondering how to find out if someone is married? You can always try looking them in the eye and straight-up asking, but you don’t want to go into that situation without a little bit of ammo in your quiver – plus, cheaters tend to be smooth, habitual liars, so you might even be left with more doubts than you started with.

Whether you’re worried about having your heart broken or falling for a romance scam, knowing how to find out if someone is married is an essential 21st-century dating survival skill. Here’s how to spot the telltale signs, and how to look up if someone is married or not.

Look for These Red Flags

Before you search for conclusive proof, start by looking out for some of the most obvious signs that someone’s already hitched – while none of these common red flags are definitive, spotting a combination of them can certainly help you decide whether or not to pursue a deeper search. 

Obviously, you’ll want to peep that ring finger, but there are other less-known ways to shake out a cheater. Keep an eye out for these giveaways before any hearts get broken:

• Their ring finger has visible tan lines or indentations from wearing a wedding ring that they’ve slyly taken off.  
• They always pay in cash (possibly so their partner can’t trace their spending).
• They have more than one phone, and won’t share both numbers with you.
  They only want to chat in hard-to-trace apps, like Snapchat, WhatsApp, or Signal.
• They seem to go off the grid regularly.
• They get a lot of calls they don’t want to answer in front of you.
• They can never hang out after work hours, and always seem to be busy on the weekends and holidays. 
• They never introduce you to their social circle or their kids.
• Calls and hangs always seem to happen outside of their home. 
• Likewise, they never invite you to their place. 

Check Local Government Records

If the telltale signs, the bad vibes, and your gut feeling are giving you enough reason to raise the alarm, but you’re not ready for a confrontation yet, checking local government records for marriage records under your potential boo’s name is a natural next step. 

Marriage records are maintained at the county level, so your first stop should be the National Association of Counties’ website. The County Explorer page has an interactive map you can use to locate the county where your beau lives, directing you to that county’s official government site, where you can search public records for free.

• At the NACo site, locate the county you’re interested in on the map, or search for it in the search bar. This will refer you to a government site for that county – click that link.
• Look for “records search” or similar options at the local site. Once you’re at the appropriate records search site, search the maybe-married’s name, or as much of it as you have, and specify that you’re looking for marriage records.
• Try alternative spellings if you get no results.
• Some counties may support a separate search for marriage licenses, so try that next. You can also search by divorce records (for instance, if their story involves a divorce and you want to make sure that the divorce actually happened).
• If you get multiple results on a search, click through to see if any of them match the age of your potential SO (or an age that might be close to theirs, just in case they’re lying about that, too), or correspond to somewhere you know this person has lived in the past.

Find Peace of Mind with Spokeo

While local marriage and divorce records are a great tool, here’s the thing: they’re local. So if you don’t know exactly which county your potential cheater legally resides in – which could even be a factor that’s up in the air if they are indeed a liar – you need to widen the net. Even if you do know the county they live in, remember that marriage licenses are filed at the time of the wedding, and it is very possible that your crush could’ve filed their marriage license in a county where they no longer reside. 

That’s what a Spokeo People Search is for. In addition to widening the locality net to the entire United States, a People Search will do way more legwork than just searching marriage records. We’ll scour billions of public records – including court records, property records, business records, and more – that have the potential to turn up not just whether someone is married or divorced, but also info like address history, family and associates, criminal records (additional fees may apply for court and historical records search), and much more. 

Here’s how to find out more about your mysterious partner, instantly:    

1. Head to Spokeo.com and enter the name, cell phone (or landline) number, email address, or physical address of the person you’re curious about in the Name, Email, Phone, or Address search field (you’ll also see tabs for each above the search bar).
   
2. Hit the “Search Now” button and check out the results you get, usually including basic information about the person you’ve searched.
   
3. Review the available options for purchasing a report containing the full extent of what Spokeo was able to find. Upon purchase, you’ll gain access to available public data found for that number, which may include the owner’s name, current address, associated social media profiles, and even marital status.

Public records are public for a reason: they help keep us honest. All 600 million court records, 3.9 billion historical records, and billions more sources Spokeo searches, all are a matter of public record – and among those billions, you only need a few small bits to put your mind at ease. 

While finding out that your special someone is married may be painful, you have a right to know. And to protect your heart, you can do more than just take their word for it – you might just have a bad vibe, but with Spokeo, you can get the receipts. 

As a freelance writer, small business owner, and consultant with more than a decade of experience, Dan has been fortunate enough to collaborate with leading brands including Microsoft, Fortune, Verizon, Discover, Office Depot, The Motley Fool, and more. He currently resides in Dallas, TX.