Can My Boyfriend Tell if I Slept with Someone Else?

PDF download Download Article
PDF download Download Article

If you cheated on your boyfriend, you may be feeling a lot of anxiety, confusion, and fear of being caught, regardless of the reasons you cheated. We’re not here to judge you, but to give you all the information you need to know about ways your boyfriend might find out you were unfaithful. We’ve put together this guide answering how your boyfriend can tell if you slept with someone else, along with advice on what you should do next.

Can a Man Tell If I’ve Cheated On Him?

Your guy might not be able to tell if you've been sleeping with someone else by how sex feels with you. However, STDs, hickeys, bruises, or the smell of someone else's cologne or perfume on you might make him suspicious. He might also be able to figure it out if the way you act around him suddenly changes.

Section 1 of 3:

Can my boyfriend tell that I had sex with someone else?

PDF download Download Article
  1. No matter how many other people you’ve been with, your anatomy won’t change. There is no way to tell that someone had sex with another person purely through how sex feels with them. [1]
    • If you’re having vaginal sex, the “tightness” of the vagina (its elasticity) has to do with a number of factors: how aroused you are, your menstrual cycle, and any medications you’re on. It has nothing to do with how many partners you’ve had.
  2. If you transmit an STD to your boyfriend, he notices hickies or bruises in suspicious places during sex, or he smells someone else’s cologne or perfume on you, he might be able to connect the dots. [2]
    • If you’re having unprotected sex with a partner other than your boyfriend, it’s extremely important that you test yourself regularly. Transmitting an STD to your boyfriend isn’t just a way that you can get caught cheating, but puts his health at risk.
    3. Advertisement
Section 2 of 3:

Ways He Might Be Able to Figure Out You Cheated

PDF download Download Article
  1. Texts and e-mails are the most common way cheating is discovered. If he’s noticed that you’ve been acting suspiciously when it comes to your phone, especially if you used to be more open, he may become suspicious. Finding proof of cheating on your phone produces evidence that’s difficult to deny. [3]
  2. If he asks you to explain where you’ve been and your explanation changes, it can be a pretty clear sign that something is up. Not being open, straightforward, and consistent in your communication with him can cause him to become suspicious.
  3. Once someone else knows your secret, it’s no longer something that you can totally control. If your boyfriend knows your friends or lover, he might notice that they’ve been acting strange around him, or they might even let the secret slip to him. This is another pretty common way that cheating gets discovered. [4]
  4. Although you might not express much remorse externally, it’s hard to not feel any guilt and sorrow on the inside. Feeling these kinds of emotions can cause you to turn into a shadow of yourself, something that your boyfriend might notice in your moods and behavior.
    • Intuition can be a very powerful sense. Your boyfriend might have a hunch that something feels off or different in your relationship, even without any obvious signs. This can lead him to suspect that you might be cheating.
  5. You might have cheated because, whether you knew it or not, you wanted your boyfriend to feel the threat of losing you or you wanted to end the relationship with him. If these are some of the reasons you cheated, you’re not alone—some researchers think that many cheaters want to be caught for exactly these reasons, and so they aren’t particularly careful hiding evidence, or you might even end up confessing. [5]
    6. Advertisement
Section 3 of 3:

Should I tell my boyfriend I slept with someone else?

PDF download Download Article
  1. If you slept with someone else while your boyfriend and you weren’t together, or if you have an open relationship where you don’t have a responsibility to disclose your partners, you have the right to maintain your own privacy if you choose to. [6]
  2. Good relationships are built on honesty. Though there is a very real chance that confessing that you cheated could end the relationship, it’s generally better to confess than it is to get caught. If you feel like it’s impossible to deal with the guilt and anxiety of your infidelity, it may be best to have a hard conversation, even if it means the end of your relationship. [7]
    • Confessing that you cheated doesn’t have to end the relationship. Many couples are able to move past this and have an even stronger relationship than before.
    • After you confess, you’ll have to spend a lot of time rebuilding trust with your boyfriend. Understand that you’ve hurt him and work with him to make amends.
    • Going to couple’s therapy can help you move past what happened. Couple’s therapists are trained to deal with the fallout from infidelity, and can facilitate important conversations between your boyfriend and you.
  3. If your cheating was a one-time thing, you know that you will never repeat it again, you used protection, and you completely regret the encounter, it may be better to keep quiet. Although you might feel better after confessing, you’ve put your boyfriend in a really painful and difficult situation. [8]
    • If you feel like telling him could pose a serious threat to your physical safety, keeping quiet might be the best option for you. Your safety is more important than anything.
  4. Figuring out what to do after you’ve cheated can be really difficult, especially if you’re doing it on your own. Take feelings of guilt, anxiety, and confusion seriously. A therapist can offer you a non-judgmental space to process your emotions and figure out how you want to proceed in your relationship.
    5. Advertisement

Expert Q&A

Ask a Question
200 characters left
Include your email address to get a message when this question is answered.
Submit
      Advertisement

      Tips

      Submit a Tip
      All tip submissions are carefully reviewed before being published
      Name
      Please provide your name and last initial
      Submit
      Thanks for submitting a tip for review!

      You Might Also Like

      170+ Deep, Heartfelt & Passionate Love Messages to Send Your Guy
      How to
      Make Your Girlfriend Want to Have Sex With You
      How to
      Turn a Girl On
      45 Sweet Paragraphs That’ll Make Your Girlfriend Cry
      150+ Romantic & Funny Questions to Make Your Boyfriend Laugh
      How to
      Prepare for Your First Time for Guys
      28 Funny Jokes to Tell Your Girlfriend
      How to
      Find Out if a Guy Secretly Likes You
      How to
      Tell if Your Boyfriend Is Gay
      Signs a Woman is Sexually Attracted to You
      Romantic and Thoughtful Texts to Send to Your Boyfriend to Make Him Feel Special
      How to
      Create Sexual Tension
      How to
      Tell if Someone Has a Dating Profile
      24 Different Ways to Kiss Your Boyfriend (and Be a Better Kisser)
      Advertisement

      Expert Interview

      Thanks for reading our article! If you’d like to learn more about cheating, check out our in-depth interview with Moshe Ratson, MFT, PCC .

      References

      1. ↑ https://theaproject.org/faq/my-boyfriend-gets-upset-sometimes-my-vagina-looser-other-times-he-thinks-i%E2%80%99m-cheating-i%E2%80%99m-not
      2. ↑ ​​ https://www.womansday.com/relationships/dating-marriage/advice/a1586/11-signs-that-he-might-be-having-an-affair-107288/
      3. ↑ ​​ https://www.womansday.com/relationships/dating-marriage/advice/a1586/11-signs-that-he-might-be-having-an-affair-107288/
      4. ↑ https://www.self.com/story/friend-cheated
      5. ↑ https://www.womenshealthmag.com/sex-and-love/a19947021/caught-cheating/
      6. ↑ https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-the-name-love/202011/should-couples-really-share-their-sexual-histories
      7. ↑ https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/love-and-sex-in-the-digital-age/201706/should-you-tell-your-partner-you-cheated
      8. ↑ https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/should-you-tell-partner-you-cheated-a3983051.html

      About This Article

      In other languages
      Thanks to all authors for creating a page that has been read 190,092 times.

      Did this article help you?

      Advertisement