I Busted My Cheating Boyfriend By Setting Up A Fake Dating Profile

I’m generally against snooping but I resorted to doing it with my toxic ex because he was so skilled at lying that I could never get any answers and my suspicions that he was cheating were eating me alive. I’m not proud of what I did, but it did give me a chance to walk away from the relationship knowing that I was making the right decision.

  1. I suspected he was cheating for months. I was concerned that he had someone else in his life when he started working later and taking an interest in things he never used to care about. For instance, he never used to like going to the gym but suddenly he was going every night after work. What was that about?
  2. I tried to tell myself I was being obsessed. The thing is, I didn’t know for sure that he was cheating on me, so I tried to tell myself I was just overreacting and overly suspicious. But no matter what I told myself, I just couldn’t shake the feeling.
  3. Signs kept coming at me. He started listening to country music and I knew that something was up because he always used to hate it. He’d put his phone away on dates and I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was doing that so I wouldn’t see who was texting him so late. Things like this just wouldn’t stop being flung at me. I knew something was up!
  4. I eventually confronted him. I knew that I had to be reasonable about this. I wanted to know what was going on, so I decided to be an adult and talk to my partner instead of snooping through his phone. I really didn’t want to do the latter. One night after dinner when he seemed super-distracted, I asked him if he was still happy dating me and if he had someone else. Bam!
  5. He played it cool. He didn’t become defensive, which was something I was expecting. He remained calm and open to hearing me out. Ugh, had I made a huge mistake by accusing him of dating someone else? He even reassured me of how much he loved me, so I should have been reassured about our relationship.
  6. I wasn’t convinced. I wasn’t in high spirits. Instead, I was feeling duped! My intuition was firing on all cylinders, making me even more sure that he was cheating on me. But how could I find out? Some friends of mine thought I was nuts and that I had to stop letting my irrational fears get in the way of a good relationship, but even that couldn’t stop me. I was a woman scorned on a mission!
  7. I wondered if he was on a dating app. This thought didn’t just come to me out of the blue. I’d met the guy on a dating app, after all, and wondered if he still had an active profile on there. It was a long shot but I knew I had to chase it. I was done being lied to and realized I shouldn’t give away my trust — it had to be earned. I had to find out the truth once and for all so I could know if he deserved my trust or not.
  8. I set up a fake profile. I felt really guilty and embarrassed to do this, but I went ahead with it in the hope of finding answers. I hoped that I’d be proven wrong, but I wasn’t. He was still active. The guy’s profile was still active and he’d been online a mere few hours previously. What the hell?
  9. He then matched with me! He knew I’d checked out his profile with my fake one and he got in touch, asking me to tell me about myself. I was so tempted to tell him I was his girlfriend and he was busted but I didn’t.
  10. I saved that for our real-life conversation. When we met for dinner the next night, I told him that it was over. I showed him proof of his cheating ways by showing him screenshots of the conversation we’d had on the dating profile. He tried to spin the truth, saying that it wasn’t him and his profile had been hacked. Whatever. This guy was such a good liar it was scary, but I wasn’t falling for it.
Giulia Simolo is a writer from Johannesburg, South Africa with a degree in English Language and Literature. She has been working as a journalist for more than a decade, writing for sites including AskMen, Native Interiors, and Live Eco. You can find out more about her on Facebook and LinkedIn, or follow her on Twitter @GiuliaSimolo.
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