If you suspect your wife isn’t honoring your marriage vows, it probably won’t do much good to ask her, especially if your suspicions are based mostly on emotion instead of facts. Once you’ve familiarized yourself with the warning signs of a cheating wife, you can decide if your fears are misplaced or whether it’s time to take steps to find harder evidence, such as hiring a private investigator.

Although you’ve probably always found your wife attractive, she might have entered a “comfortable” phase after a couple of years of marriage. This phase might involve fewer hair appointments or pedicures while you both saved up for a down payment on a house or less time working out or shaving her legs for the year following your first child’s birth. These are normal changes that may not have even bothered you, so if she revisits her single-girl grooming habits seemingly out of nowhere, she may be trying to impress someone else. This sign alone doesn’t point to cheating, but you should look for other possibly less visible signs if her grooming routine abruptly kicks into high gear. Another sign in this category: purchasing racy lingerie.

If your wife has always been nonchalant about the computer or careless with charging her phone, a sudden change in these behaviors may indicate cheating. A cheating wife might password lock her phone and keep it nearby always, password lock her laptop, set up her browser to automatically delete its history and change her email and social media passwords. If she’s the type to buy loud music ringers, but now you never hear those ringers, she’s probably keeping her phone on silent because she doesn’t want you to know when or how often she’s getting calls or texts. If you’re used to hearing her gab away on the phone, but now she leaves the room to talk, you’ve identified another possible sign of cheating. You probably have many of your wife’s family members and closest girlfriend’s phone numbers; if not, look at their social media profiles, which might list them. Go over your phone bill and look for numbers that aren’t her friends' or family’s. Note especially calls she made on nights she went out without you. Confront her if you find a phone card. If she has a cell phone, there’s no reason to have a phone card.

Whether your wife spends her days building her career or building block towers with the children, it’s suspicious if she begins finding reasons to be away from home significantly more often. While you can’t begrudge her a new hobby or putting in longer hours at work in hopes of a promotion, if you can never reach her during these times then she might be fibbing about her whereabouts. If she begins running errands without the children at times when she normally would take them with her, this is also a red flag. Similarly, removing the infant or child booster seats when she goes out could also be a sign of cheating, as is withdrawing cash at the ATM when she’s out instead of using the check card.

If you’ve always shared the events of your workday with your wife, it’s a red flag if her eyes start glazing over when you start talking. This indicates that your wife has lost interest in you, and is putting less effort into maintaining the relationship. Other red flags include a sharp drop off in frequency of physical intimacy, sleeping separately, moodier behavior, more frequent criticism, less frequent discussion of future plans, general avoidance and listening to music she doesn’t share with you, especially romantic songs. Also, if she organizes frequent girls-only outings or she insists on running errands alone, she might be including someone else in her plans whom she doesn’t want you to meet.