I'm sweating bullets right now because out of nowhere my SO opened the cell phone bill (which she never does) and now I can't find the statement.  She left the pages with the monthly charges on it but kept the other.

Now I could be nervous for no reason here.  Her phone is also listed on the same account.  Ok, before I get flamed for being an idiot let me just restate that she NEVER EVER looks at the cell bill. Or any bill for that matter.  

I guess what I'm wondering is what exactly would raise an SO's suspicion?  I mean most of the provider #'s on there are for very short calls like a couple of minutes at most.

Help me out here.  Has anyone been caught by a cell phone statement?

Maybe she's worried about some calls she made. Perhaps she has a boyfriend.

Have an airtight explanation ready if needed.  i.e. business calls - just hope she doesn't dial any of those numbers.  I don't think there should be any red flags unless the SAME # is dialed repeatedly.

You might look into one of those pre paid cell phones that you pay for the minutes in advance. She will not see the calls you make that way.

the television show cheaters says that the first place to to determine if your SO is cheating is the cell phone bill.....

for the future get a phone card. Its easy to hide unlike a prepaid cell phone.

Cell phone bills are great for getting the upper hand on a split up.  My, soon to be ex-wife, made the mistake of using her cell to call her BF while we were on vacation and everyday for a week after she said she needed to "find herself" in a different state...guess where the BF lives...LOL
I have the kids and the house.  Be thankful in your situation it's an SO and not a wife.

My wife had me followed and video taped! Caught me in a very intimate/passionate state with my ex-ATF.Totally my fault,I got careless.Phone numbers you can maybe BS about but nothing you can say or do when you see yourself on the big screen.So keep that straight face and lie lie lie!!!

The thing guys always fail to realize is that women are finely tuned to any small, almost imperceptible changes in their behavior patterns.  These can be a subtle shift in attiude, language used, patience, attentiveness, etc.   Most guys would (and do) miss these cues- but guys, this is a woman's stock-in-trade!  

If a woman suspects something, unlike a man, she'll build her case for weeks or months until she's convinced you're up to something- but by then it's too late.  Since none of we men are as good at acting as we'd like to believe, I suggest you go into full damage control mode and be as "normal" as possible for the next couple months.  Don't over-compensate (tantamount to an admission of guilt), but don't see or call anyone else either.  Just lay low and go on about your business until you figure out what's going on.

I regret that I'm speaking from VERY expensive experience on this matter.

God invented those things for a reason LOL. I have no idea whether or not a record is made of the PIN number when a call is made on a card. But even if there is, all you have to do is pay cash for it at the convenience store. Besides, I don't think anyone would try to trace such a call unless it was made by a suspected terrorist.

Cell phones are not secure anyway. Anything you say on one can be heard, accidentally or on purpose. Get a phone card and use a land line.

How about the truth if confronted?

Providers are not girlfriends or mistresses.  No love is redirected from your SO to a provider (unless you are really immature).  

Now don't be an idiot and convict yourself if she is merely suspicious.  You don't have to resort to a blathering confession.  You can be vague without lying.  If someone went through my damn phone bill and quizzed me, I wouldn't recognize over 50% of the damn numbers.

You pay for intimacy (not just sex).  You have physical and emotional needs that were not being met.  Don't try to blame your SO, but do explain that you are simply a flesh and blood male human being with emotional and physical needs. Tell her that for whatever reasons, you felt you had to go elsewhere to meet these needs.

Be a Man - tell the truth if you must.  Understand why you do what you do and explain it to her.  Living up to a series of lies is worse than drug addiction.

I hope that the majority of the TER community is composed of people who are reasonably intelligent and have integrity.  So far, I believe that to be true - I admire the community for that.

Never fear the truth.  frankd

This happened to a friend of mine and it was terrible.

First you need to contact people/ ladies and you talk to regular or may have spoke with last month. Let them know just in case the wife starts calling those numbers.  Then start thinking of some good excuses if/ when she confronts you with what she thinks she knows.......

You have to understand women, sometimes we SEEM like we know more than we really do.....  our version of fishing.

Hugs
Kira

if you have sprint pcs, you can have your bill simplified, which means it shows only minutes used, not every call you make.

Never had the wife open the cell phone bill, it goes to work. But did have a provider/weekend getway gal call on Valentines day while wife and I were packing for a trip. Had told girl never to call again, but she wanted to wish me happy Valentines day. Almost got caught on that one. Hope she leaves me alone now.

In response to someone who said a provider called them on Valentine's day at home ---if a provider EVER calls me out of the blue (and isn't just returning a call I made to her) she is 86'd and I would NEVER see her again. It happened one time and that was IT.

Ladies; please PLEASE don't go calling your past clients out of the blue. I read it as unprofessional and desperate to be frank with you.

Also, I don't see escorts whose voice mails say "Hi this is Mary, my rate for outcall is xxx an hour and I do this and this and this. My ad can be found at xxxx.com

If I get a lady who has a message like that ; forget it. I do have a separate bill sent somewhere else, but if my SO DID see the bill and called the numbers the messages she'd hear (from the regular girls I see) would be very vague "Hi leave a message etc" I could even get off saying I was returning some calls or whatever but at LEAST she wouldn't know off the bat I was calling providers.

Haha.  Thanks for throwing gas on the fire 2cents but my SO doesn't watch that show.......at least I don't think she does.

And to LawDog:  pretty funny dude.

Thanks for all of the advice everyone.  What I'm going to try and do is get all of my paper trail eliminated by converting my wireless bil to online only.  That way she won't have an opportunity to see the bill at all.

One of my ATF's uses a traditional business greeting on her VM... "Hello, I'm out of the office or away from my desk right now, please leave a message and..."

What a great way to help prevent Alias007's concern.

I feel that in general, men tend to become "comfortable" with a situation, and it is sheer sloppiness that gets them in trouble.  In a business meeting we're focused like a laser beam on body language, tone of voice, subtle innuendos, presentation content, preparedness, etc.

I don't think that women are more or less sensitive to these things. I think that men generally become insensitive to them over time, and when they're caught they think the woman is overly perceptive.  

In my narrow view of reality, during the time that married couples and those in long-term relationships spend together, they get to know each other very well.  Think about it, you become familiar with seeing each other react to different situations like stress, happiness, sadness, excitement, etc.  These are deviations from the mean, or your normal non-reactive personality with them. When you start doing things out of the blue, that aren’t part of the “usual” standard deviations from your norm, and also aren’t part of your normal non-reactive personality, you’ve instantly set off red flags.

The more deviations outside your standard, the more likely your SO will notice. I honestly don’t think it takes keen observation to notice atypical behavior patterns. New behaviors stand out like one person marching out of step in a military review parade, or even like a new grave in a cemetery.

Complacency and lack of diligence is the culprit here IMNSHO.

HPG

I have extremely high powers of observation, and I've had many women tell me so.  BUT, I'm talking about the subtle, almost subliminal signals that people send out... not the ones like starting to do sit-ups out of the blue, or buying new neckties or wearing cologne  (or coming home smelling like perfume).

Your wife of GF will notice if you hug her slightly differently, or kiss her differently.  You may not even know you're doing it either.  Perhaps her questions make you almost imperceptibly more agitated than before... that sort of thing.  I've got books on body language and the like, but I'm talking about things that are way more subtle than that.  

I'm only guessing, because I'm not a woman, but I think women  constantly judge the status/health of the relationship.  They are either consciously or unconsciously looking for all the little cues or reassurances that tell them how things are going.  Perhaps it's a skill that's honed from motherhood.  We men, on the other hand,  seem to think that if our wife/s.o. is there when we get home and she isn't nagging us, and no questions are asked, then everything must be OK.  

I can assure you, having paid several hundred thousand dollars to an ex-wife to learn this lesson, that women are working on an entirely  different level.  Like most guys, I thought I was completely in control of things too- leaving no clues, fooling everybody, hiding my feelings etc.  You learn this lesson at your own peril.



-- Modified on 2/27/2003 1:46:46 AM

A female friend of mine was in a flat marriage that had become cohabitation.  She got involved in a secret affair, but on their family's urging, they started going to counseling.

At the very first meeting, the counselor, a woman, spoke to them together only for a minute or two together and imediately split them up to talk to them individually.

First question out of her mouth to my friend was "How long have you been having an affair?"  My friend was stunned, and said "How did you know just from talking to us 5 minutes?"

The response:  "Your husband has the look--the body language, the eyes--of someone who is lacking an intimate relationship in their life.  You don't."

You have to be careful--I know my ATFs fill my tank so full sometimes that the glow can give someone a sunburn.

Sorry NotReallyThere. I have to disagree. There are always exceptions, but:

I think that saying that the woman is more tuned in to our own (men’s) feelings and more sensitive to our own duality is incorrect.  I think that women know who and what they have become a part of, and when there are subtle changes in that they don’t ignore them. Over the course of time those subtleties add up and become not so subtle, and impossible to ignore.

I really think when a man looks at himself in the mirror every day he sees with complete clarity what and who he is.  Most of the time he will choose to see something other than what he "clearly" sees.  Again, this is a subtle yet initially conscious choice. It is the repetition of that kind of "vanity choice" on a daily basis that leads to the gradual desensitization of ones inwardly focused powers of observation, and on the path to carelessness.

I still say when you're ruthlessly honest with yourself, the things you mentioned about kissing, hugging, moving, etc. are all there for you us to see, some choose not to.  I’ve listened to many friends, relatives, co-workers, employees and others kicking their own asses about this same issue, they ALL knew in hindsight what they were doing, and how careless they had become. Unconsciously or not, and even sometimes willingly, men allow themselves to become careless because deep down they want out.

My $0.02

Few Cell Phone facts.

1.  Itemized call detail is actually an upgraded service for most companies, as part of a package, or at additional monthly cost.  Ask for non-detailed billing.  Most accounts now provide more free time than we can ever use each month, so you never exceed the free time limit, nor need reason to itemize individual calls.

2.  Analog Cell Phones at 800 Mhz are/were able to be heard with old scanners and modified new models (a law was passed that required the scanners be limited to not get these channels, but hobbiests can still find tricks to get it back)  These phones were the old klunky original style phones.

3.  As analog channels are limited, most companies go to Digital signals - which greatly increases the calls per unit bandwidth.  Digital signals cannot be overheard without D/A conversion and overcoming other security features, These are also at different frequencies.  It also allows smaller batteries, less power drain, smaller phones, more features, etc.  Tri-Mode Phones will default to the clearest digital signal first, and only go to analog of no other signal is present.

4. New Phones are/will incorporate triangulation circuitry that will identify your location in an event of emergency.  They call it GPS, but it is more based on Cell Phone signal triangulation that actual Satellite GPS technology.  Can this be be used to our disadvantage...time will only tell, hackers are amazingly proficient people and the government is a little more lax with our civil liberties in light of the terrorist threat.

5.  Cell phones have easier way to tell on you than the phone bill...many store a list of 10+ of your most recent calls(one list for received calls, another for sent calls), all you have to do is scroll down and see the statistics of the call(duration, time of call, phone number, etc are all available for review).  Any person with 2-3 minutes alone with your handset can get these details(hint, when you are in the shower or bathroom)if they want to know.  You have to know how many it stores, and make sure to have that many innocuous calls on the list after calling a "special" number.  Its an even more treacherous version of "redial" and "*69" used on home phones.


Just some food for thought.




Leco