Most women discover cheating boyfriend through snooping the phone, new study reveals

By DAVID ODONGO

Going through your partner’s mobile phone tops the list among the most common ways a cheating spouse is discovered, a new American survey has shown.

Forty-one per cent of women will discover a cheating spouse through snooping through their mobile phones, the survey by US dating website OurTime said.

Going through your partner’s social media account is the second most favourite way to discover a cheating spouse at 23 per cent while going through file in a computer or tablets comes in third at 13 per cent.

Caught in the act comes in at number four with 11 per cent while being told by a friend that your partner is cheating comes in at number five.

Told by family member is number six at 3 per cent while confessing comes last at number seven with only 2 per cent.

The same research also found out that one in three women believe it is acceptable to snoop on partner’s texts if they think he is cheating.

More than a third of women think it is okay to snoop on their partner’s texts or emails to see if they are cheating, the survey has found.

Some 37 per cent of females admitted that they would happily trawl through many electronic communication methods to see if their husband or boyfriend was playing away.

Surprisingly the figure is higher than that for men — just 29 per cent of males said such behaviour was acceptable.

The study shows that while women may be the fairer sexes, they are also the most suspicious and think that surveillance is the only way to have peace of mind.

Their snooping did not stop at emails or texts as they felt justified going through their partner’s contact lists on phones as well.

Facebook profiles too were apparently not out of bounds for a woman on the hunt for what the researchers termed ‘bad behaviour’.

The study also found that younger people were more paranoid when it came to snooping with 36 per cent of those aged 18 to 34 saying it was okay. For those aged 55 the figure was just 26 per cent.

Relationships expert Jean Hannah Edelstein said: “If you are looking at your partner’s emails and text messages then there might be wider trust issues in your relationship.”

A previous study found that one in 10 men admitted to logging on to their partner’s social networking site to snoop on them.

Those who did so admitted to finding out things they did not want to, such as their partners gossiping about them with their friends.

The research by OurTime surveyed 2,000 adults.