Questions to Ask a Cheating Wife

The questions

Open any question to see why it works.

1. 1

   Is it over, and have you spoken to him since I found out?

   What happens in the days after discovery tells you more than any promise made in the same conversation. A final message to end it properly is still contact, and the reason she gives for needing to send it usually shows whose feelings she was managing.

2. 2

   How long was it going on?

   The duration redefines a whole stretch of your marriage, including events you remember fondly. Expect the number to grow in later conversations, partly because first accounts get compressed and partly because she is answering the narrowest reading of the question.

3. 3

   Was it physical, emotional, or both?

   People assume the physical part causes the most damage, but for many the harder part is the confiding: the daily messages, the private jokes, the person she took her bad days to. Her answer determines what repair would actually involve.

4. 4

   Do you have feelings for him?

   Ask it plainly and pay attention to the first few seconds rather than the sentence that follows. Attempting to rebuild while she is still attached to someone else does not hold, and an honest I am not sure is a more serious answer than a quick denial.

5. 5

   Who is he, and do I know him?

   This is not idle curiosity. Whether he is a colleague, a friend of yours, a neighbour or a stranger determines how much of your daily life you now have to renegotiate, and whether the two of you will keep running into him.

6. 6

   Where did it happen, and was he ever in our house?

   People often find this harder than they expect to hear, and harder still to discover later. Ask now rather than reconstructing it in your head for months, and decide afterwards what you want to do about the room.

7. 7

   Did anything happen while I was away, ill, or dealing with something?

   Almost everyone eventually maps the affair onto their own timeline, and finding out afterwards that a particular week was not what you thought is a second injury. It is better to ask once than to keep discovering dates.

8. 8

   Who else knows?

   Friends and family who knew and said nothing change your social world as much as the affair does. Find out before you next see them, because walking into a room where half the people already know is its own experience.

9. 9

   Did you spend money on this?

   Hotels, trips, gifts and meals come out of shared money and are traceable. Ask directly rather than looking for it, then look anyway, because the amount matters practically and the willingness to name it matters differently.

10. 10

    Do I need to get tested?

    Ask, but book the test whatever she says. She may not have complete information about him, and her reassurance is based on what she was told by someone with an obvious reason to be reassuring.

11. 11

    What have the children seen or heard?

    Children register tension long before anyone explains it, and they often know more than either parent believes. Establish what they already have before deciding what to tell them, because correcting a half-story is harder than starting one.

12. 12

    Was he ever around our children?

    A distinct question from what the children saw. If he was introduced as a friend, a colleague or a coach, your children have a relationship with him that will need handling, and you should know about it before they mention his name at dinner.

13. 13

    Have you done this before?

    The answer to this changes what you are dealing with more than any other question here. A single episode and a pattern require different responses, and asking it directly makes any later discovery a separate and clearer breach.

14. 14

    When did you decide not to tell me?

    This gets at something the affair itself does not. There was a first day of keeping it from you, and often a specific moment when she chose silence. That decision is frequently the part people find hardest to forgive.

15. 15

    What were you getting from him?

    Ask this only when you are ready to hear the answer, and do not treat it as a list of your own failings. Answers usually describe how she felt about herself rather than anything about him, which is more useful information for both of you.

16. 16

    Did you ever think about telling me, or about ending our marriage?

    This separates an affair someone was hiding from a marriage someone had quietly left. Whether she considered leaving, and what stopped her, tells you where the marriage stood before you knew anything was wrong.

17. 17

    What do you want now, honestly?

    Ask for what she wants rather than what she thinks she should say. Someone who is staying out of guilt, fear of upheaval, or the children will usually say so if the question is put without a threat attached to it.

18. 18

    What are you prepared to do, specifically?

    General remorse is easy and costs nothing. Ask for specifics: changing a job, ending a friendship group, counselling, open access to a phone, and for how long. Watch which of those she hesitates over, because that hesitation is the real answer.

19. 19

    How would I know if it started again?

    Turning the question around forces her to describe her own behaviour from the outside. It also produces something concrete for both of you to work with, rather than asking you to run on trust you may not have yet.

20. 20

    Is there anything else I am going to find out later?

    Ask this at the end of every conversation, in the same words each time. Slow disclosure over months does more damage than the original facts, and asking repeatedly makes clear that later revelations are a separate breach and not a continuation of the first.