Is Your Partner Texting Someone Else? The Telltale Signs (and How to Find Out Who They’re Texting)

Key Takeaways

• Use a Spokeo Reverse Phone Look Up to help find out who an unfaithful partner is texting.
• Common signs of infidelity include new schedules, a change in how possessive they are over their phone, and emotional distance in your relationship, among others. 
• Both emotional and physical cheating can be enabled by text messaging. 

Have you noticed your partner spending a suspicious amount of extra time texting lately? Do they get kind of weird about it when you call them out? While we definitely don’t recommend jumping to conclusions – a solid relationship is built on foundations of trust and open communication, after all – relationship experts have identified some consistent, telltale signs of infidelity to keep an eye out for.

It’s usually best to start the process of understanding if your partner is cheating with a serious and open conversation. But, if you find yourself in a position where you’ve got the other half of a cheating partner’s phone number on your hands, Spokeo’s Reverse Phone Lookup can provide publicly available information that may be associated with that number. Here’s how.    

Potential Signs of Infidelity 

Let’s be super clear up front: it’s up to you to decide when the combination of vibes and telltale signs of infidelity warrants a discussion or confrontation with your partner, and how much snooping around their phone is justified. 

What we can tell you, though, is that relationship experts such as licensed marriage, couples, and family therapists, LMHCs, PsyDs, LCSWs, CSATs, and even attorneys offer certain consistent behaviors as potential red flags for infidelity. Some of these red flags include:

• Newfound periods of being less easily reachable or available, including suddenly altered schedules (or a hyper-focus on your schedule).
• Likewise, lessened emotional availability.
• Sudden and significant changes in your sex life together, including a decrease in attention or lovemaking.
• Friends appearing uncomfortable around you can be an indication that they might be in the know.
• Your partner is paying an unusual amount of attention to their appearance (especially if they didn’t previously).
• Your partner stops talking about your future together.
• A more possessive shift in phone habits, or consistent and noticeable changes in phone habits in general.
• The appearance of sudden or secretive new expenses.
• Defensiveness or inconsistent stories when confronted.
• A recent lack of emotional intimacy or affection, or a sense of hostility toward your relationship.
• The sudden appearance of commonly used apps that cheaters commonly opt for, as they’re lighter on digital trails (including Snapchat, Signal, Telegram, and WhatsApp).

Sometimes, a strong gut feeling is a signal, too – especially when it happens in tandem with other potentially telltale signs. 

See Who They Are Texting: When to Use Spokeo, and How It Works

Ultimately, the choice of when to stealthily check your partner’s device for the digits of who they’ve been texting is a deeply personal one. Only you can decide when your boundaries have been crossed enough that it’s time to cross that boundary in return. If you’re certain that your partner has been sending cheating text messages, or the signs of infidelity and your gut feelings have reached a threshold for you, it might be time to get hold of the number in question.

Whether you get that number by peeking, snooping their active texts, or digging up recently deleted text messages, a Spokeo Reverse Phone Lookup can help you see who they are texting. Our powerful phone search tool scans billions of public records to search for who that phone number belongs to, their address, social media profiles, and more.

Here’s how a Reverse Phone Lookup on Spokeo works:

1. Enter a 10-digit phone number in the Spokeo Reverse Phone Lookup search bar, then click the “Search Now” button.
   
2. Once on the results preview page, hit “Continue” to see if there is an available report, which can include all kinds of helpful details about the person the phone number belongs to, from the location to which the phone number is registered to marital status (that’s a big one) to address history and much more.
   
3. Access all the available details of the (previously) mysterious texter with a 7-day trial of Spokeo for $0.95. With a Spokeo subscription, you can potentially gain access to details like age, relatives, and – especially useful in infidelity cases – public social media profiles, dating profiles, and publicly shared blogs and photos. 

Frequently Asked Questions

When does texting count as cheating? 

Great question – when is text cheating? As the Baltimore Therapy Center puts it: 

“..it doesn’t really matter whether texting is actually cheating. The truth is that you get to define the boundaries of your marriage or relationship and what counts as a violation of those boundaries. That doesn’t mean your partner has to agree with you; it does mean you need to communicate about it (not just argue and defend).”

That’s to say that your partner secretly texting a person you don’t know could count as cheating, if that’s a boundary you’ve set. Or, maybe you’re OK with your partner simply texting about their day with someone else, but using texting to set up times and places to meet is where things cross the line. 

What do cheating texts look like? 

While that’s a boundary that’s ultimately up to you and your partner to decide, some common signs of cheating via text in a committed relationship include flirting, sexting, emotionally intimate conversations, and an overdivulgence of personal details, especially ones that make you uncomfortable. 

What is emotional infidelity? 

Whether your partner is engaging in physical, IRL infidelity with the person they’re texting or not, in some cases, the texting alone can be a form of what experts call emotional infidelity. When a partner forms a deep, intimate (and especially secretive) connection with someone else that doesn’t involve sex or physical intimacy, that may be what experts call emotional infidelity, or an emotional affair. 

Again, at the end of the day, it’s up to both you and your partner to set boundaries that you feel are cheating, and to express those emotional boundaries clearly – ideally well before any form of cheating takes place, emotional or physical.  

How do I deal with my partner texting someone else? 

When it’s time for a confrontation, marital therapist Andrew G. Marshall recommends choosing the moment wisely, questioning your partner about the texts, letting them arrive at the conclusion that they’ve done something wrong. He also recommends listening deeply to their story and discussing the underlying conditions in the relationship that may have contributed to the infidelity.  

Of course, whether you’re dealing with a confirmed cheater or you just have your suspicions, the best way to get your burning questions answered by cooler heads is to speak to a mental health professional or relationship expert, such as a licensed therapist or marriage counselor. Nonprofit resources like the American Counseling Association’s provider directories at Counseling.org can help. 

Catch a Cheater, Protect Your Heart

If you’re concerned your partner is cheating, but don’t have any text messages as proof, you can also use Spokeo’s powerful people search tools to learn more about who you’ve given your heart to. By inputting your partner’s name, phone number, or email address, you just may uncover previously unknown numbers, emails, and social media accounts that they may have linked to a dating app or be using to sneak around with. 

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.