Unfortunately, cheating is fairly common in marriages, long-term relationships, and the plots of Lifetime movies. So it makes sense that people in committed relationships might find themselves on the look-out for clues of their partner's infidelity—especially on their smartphone or laptop. But even seemingly obvious clues can be misleading. So before you lose it and take a hammer to your spouse's BMW, make sure they haven't been wrongly framed by a false, albeit convincing, piece of evidence.

Someone asked married people of Reddit: "what was something you found on your spouses phone that made you think they were cheating, but turned out to be completely innocent?" These 25 people share stories of a partner being falsely suspected of infidelity thanks to misleading evidence.

Whew!

1.) From davidjricardo:

My wife found a contact in my phone for "Ashley Maddison" literally the week after the hacking scandal.

She's the wife of the new assistant pastor at our church that my wife hadn't met yet. I was texting her because I was going to meet the moving truck at their house for them when they moved in.

2.) From CapitanFlama:

My wife started acting really sneaky for some weeks: having sudden go outs with her friends, having some "private spending" and asking for money, getting home from work really late.

The last straw was that suddenly she blocked her phone, we had our phones unlocked or we knew each other passwords, we were really respectful of our privacy. But she began responding messages on the night, taking phone calls outside the house and that kind of stuff.

The very day that I was going to ask her what was happening she threw me a surprise birthday party like 10 days before my actual birthday because on those days she booked a vacation to the beach, secretly negotiated vacation days with my boss, and got a granny to take care of the kids. All under my nose.

3.) From Dogpicsordie:

I was the one accused actually. We both grew up super lower income and when we first started dating we went to a huge birthday party and started talking about how we never had a big party like this growing up. So when her first birthday of our relationship came around I snuck around for a week I came off super shady i guess throwing her a huge surprise party i saved like 3 weeks of pay from a shitty delivery driver job. I was careful to never text anyone with the word party so i texted a mutual friend who worked at a really nice bakery who was sneaking me a expensive cake for half price " (girlfriend) is heading to work can i come now?" she replied "yeah my boss is gone for a bit so make it quick". My girlfriend came to break up with me and walked into a suprise party. Still together 6 years later.

4.) From wickharr:

I was looking at something on reddit with my girlfriend on her phone, and suddenly this app notification pops up with "You've matched with Tom!" or something...

We've been together for years, so I've not seen Tinder, but I've heard of it. For about 3 seconds I was silently furious. So I tapped the notification, and it brought up Pinterest. Turns out Pinterest matches you with people with similar interests or something. I think that's the quickest I've gone through such a range of intense emotions.

5.) From Count_de_Ville:

Wife texted "I love you John" to me. My name is not John. So I just stared at my phone in disbelief until I realized that 'h' , 'n' , and 'j' are all next to each other on a keyboard. It was all just a typo. She actually tried texting "I love you hon" but she misspelled "hon", which was autocorrected to "John" and she didn't catch it before hitting send. Or after hitting send for that matter. My wife and I had a good laugh when I pointed it out that evening.

6.) From sheldonator:

Not me but my aunt and uncle. When my aunt got her first phone with a camera, my 12 year old cousin loved using it to take pictures and one day decided to take a picture of his junk. Some time later my uncle was looking through my aunt's photos to find a picture of the family he wanted to have printed, and he saw the pic of my cousin's johnson and immediately got upset, started yelling, crying, the whole nine. My aunt had no clue how a picture of someone's junk ended up on her phone. They were arguing in the kitchen when my cousin walks in, sees the picture (my uncle was holding the phone while yelling), casually says, "hey, that's a picture of my penis!" and then walks out of the room. My aunt and uncle just stared at each other for a few minutes before going to have a talk with my cousin.

7.) From beltfedshooter:

a buddy of mine and his wife had this text exchange, he at work, her in her car using voice to text (that reads it back to you before sending)

her: What are we doing for dinner? Should I stop at the store and get something or order sandwiches?

him: That works

her: Do you want me Paul?

him: who's Paul?

her: meatball, meatball, do you want me Paul?

they laughed and laughed

8.) From NachoManSandyRavage:

Not married but had an ex that confronted me about cheating and how my friends had told her about "Silvia". Silvia was a Nissan Silvia I was looking at buying.

9.) From beeeeeford:

Not on his phone, but on our computer. It was a picture of a woman with her back to the camera. She was wearing a long, flowing black dress, holding a glass of wine on what appeared to be a large boat. I had no idea who this woman was, and why my husband had taken a picture of her. While I didn't think he was cheating, I was really confused. I finally asked him about it. He said "honey.....that's you from our cruise." I had no idea he'd taken the pic and totally didn't recognize myself! https://imgur.com/gallery/BnPIN

10.) From ramos1969:

I once suspected my gf was cheating and I looked at her phone bill (horrible idea) and became suspicious at a number she texted hundreds of times in the middle of the night. It was MY number I had recently changed. Idiot.

11.) From luetm:

When my grandparents were young, my granddad suddenly used to come home late, having weird excuses for it. My grandmother was sure he had 'another' , but didn't say anything - kids and all. One day he came home with a car, as a surprise. He was learning to drive.

They've been happily married until he died two years ago, age 97.

12.) From rakshala:

My husband and I traveling separately to meet in a shopping mall. We both thought we were talking about the same place when we said we would meet at the food court, but there are two food courts and we were in different ones. I texted him "Marco?". From his point of view I was 20 mins late to meet him at the mall and suddenly mysteriously texting men he doesn't know.

Apparently they don't play Marco Polo in Australia.

13.) From weirdinchicago:

My wife was married before we got together. When she was in the shower her phone rang anf some studdly young guy appeared on the screen with the caller ID. I tried to not let myself get upset, it could be a friend. Then I recognized the face of the guy. It was her son. I myself hadn't seen him in a while and he really grew up in that time.

14.) From electriclobster:

I was at a bar with my friend, when this girl walked up and asked to use my phone to text her boyfriend. Her's was dead and she wanted him to meet her in front of the bar. Her text read, "Hey babe meet me in front of Oteys." Nothing about who she was or her phone being dead. That was a tough one to explain.

15.) From tenni0191:

One night we were laying in bed just having some causal conversation while he scrolls through his phone.

I turn over to look at him and see what’s on his phone screen and it’s tinder messager. I look up onto the corner and see his picture. I jump out of bed and start screaming “ARE YOU REALLY SITTING RIGHT NEXT TO ME IN BED ON F$&@“?! TINDER???!!!” .

He looks at me terrified and clueless and he’s like, “No see, it’s just pictures!!!”....

It was pictures. Of screenshots his twin brother sent him of his own tinder conversations asking for advice.

I’ve never experienced such intense rage and intense regret as I did in those 2 minutes.

16.) From SuzQP:

He had a text from an unsaved phone number. It said, "His isn't as big as yours. Yours was GOOD and HUGE" His reply was, "Bigly, eh?"

Turns out it was a guy he works with talking about tamales.

17.) From NOTkristenstewart:

Not married, but had been seeing this guy for a few months and he was showing me something on his phone. As he was swiping across the home screens I saw a flash of an icon that looked like tinder. I got the hump a bit but figured we’ve not been together that long so I can’t really bitch. Turns out he has a health affliction and it was a medical app to track his treatment.

18.) From Trigger93:

When we were dating I found this guy flirting with her hard. She showed me the messages to prove that they were just friends and he wasn't trying to do anything.

So that's when I found out she has Asperger syndrome. She's not so good at reading people or their intentions. She's also never had a brother and grew up with her mom so I think she has an even worse time understanding guys.

She's oblivious but she's honest, and honestly I love that about her.

19.) From lemcke3743:

Spent a lot of time in a relationship with a chronic cheater. I’m now in a relationship with someone who is actually a respectable human being. When we first started dating, I couldn’t let old habits die and I went through his text messages. Found one going on and on about how beautiful someone named Charlotte was. I died inside. Turns out it was his friend’s newborn baby. Lesson learned: I’m an asshole, he is not.

20.) From epd20:

"Luca sent you a message". Multiple times per week. Icon looks not like any texting app I know (whatsapp, sms, Telegram, whatever).

Being a reasonable person I check with her who is this Luca.

Turns out there's an app that reminds you to perform a mammography on yourself at regular intervals and you can choose a model type who will write you regularly to remind you to massage your boobs. Genius.

21.) From goodfences:

My wife is Spanish and when we first started dating my Spanish was really rudimentary. Well one day I saw that she had posted on a guys Facebook "I can't wait to see you primo!"

Me, not knowing what primo meant, looked it up in a translation site and saw that it meant prime. I, using my not so great logic, concluded that she must me calling the guy her prime(ary) guy.

I was crushed because I thought we had something. So, I asked her about it and expressed how disappointed I was that she did not consider me her primary man.

Then, she kind of rolled her eyes and told made that primo meant cousin.

22.) From kmcgee88:

Found a picture on my husband’s phone of a new born and a message below saying ‘She looks like you!’ Mild panic ensued until I looked a little deeper. Turns out, it was a group chat with some coworkers and the message was intended for the mother. (Kid did, in fact, turn out to be a mini-copy of the Mom.)

23.) From windmilljohn:

Did a find my iphone on my wife because she was very late coming home. She was on the other side of town where we knew no one. Thoughts in my head of cheating. What the hell is she doing over there? She finally came home so I confronted her. She had a startled look on her face which was guilty as shit. Turns out she was getting a botox treatment and didn't want me to know. Ouch.

24.) From pixar-bound:

Not on his phone, so this story may not fit the question. But I was once laying my head on my SO’s lap as he sat on the couch and I was stretched out next to him. He was watching TV and I was scrolling through Facebook. A friend of mine had posted a picture from the perspective of her own eyes, as she laid bikini-clad on a beach chair. I stopped scrolling to look at the picture, and after a second or so my SO says in an incredibly lustful tone “god, I could really tear into that right now.” Boy, I saw HIS life flash before my eyes. I shouted “what the fuck?! What’s wrong with you?!” He seemed shocked and defensive. After a few moments of confusion on both ends, he pointed to the tv. There was a Hardee’s commercial on, with sexy close up shots of a double bacon cheeseburger. He had been lusting after the burger.

25.) From advisor_throwaway181:

My husband has a group chat called “Buttsies.”

After worrying he might be cheating or gay or curious (I’m a woman), I confronted him.

Turned out his friends are just weirdos. It’s the name of the group chat they use to organize when they’ll all play Overwatch together.

25 married people share the clues that led them to falsely believe their spouse was cheating.