Is your boyfriend / husband cheating? Here's how to find out.

"I think he's having an affair."

Ever said that to a girl friend over a glass of wine? If you have, you know those nagging little doubts that tell you something isn't quite right in your marriage or relationship.

Women look around these days and see men everywhere getting caught out for having one-night stands, mistresses, multiple mistresses and even secret families and 'love' children. Who knows whether Maria Shriver and Elin Woods suspected what Arnie and Tiger were up to all those years. Maybe as their husbands played at home with the kids from time to time, their wives did suspect that their husbands were cheating and having affairs. But it wasn't till the truth was known that the marriages unravelled and the divorce lawyers got to work.

One of the first things you need to ask yourself if you suspect your husband's cheating is: "Do I really want to know the truth?"

Most women do, but some - with young children or long-established marriages - prefer to turn a blind eye to infidelity in the hope the marriage will continue.

The common signs a man is cheating are these:

He gets noticeably more - or less - interested in having sex with you

He does new 'tricks' in bed or demands some new sexual act from you

He gets noticeably irritable with you, or noticeably detached, or unusually attentive

He spends more time away from you and his reasons don't ring true

He says he's somewhere at a certain time and you discover it's not true

He changes the style of his clothes, often wearing clothes too young for his age

He starts going to the gym and becomes preoccupied with how he looks

He starts wearing aftershave (often to disguise his lover's perfume on his body)

He showers as soon as he gets in

He spends more time than usual on his cell phone.

A few of these signs occuring together will get alarm bells ringing for any woman.

Often it's easy to find out what your husband's up to - and it's important to know. You have every right to expect fidelity, unless your relationship is openly non-monogamous, and you have every reason to fear sexually transmitted diseases as well as emotional hurt if your partner's cheating.

Many women find there's no need to hire a private investigator or buy software to access their husband's email. They can frequently tell if he's lying when they raise the issue and often the man, realising the game's up, will admit an affair. Others find that simply looking in a wallet or on a cell phone will provide the answer to suspicious behaviour.

And sometimes the truth becomes apparent in simple ways.

A friend of mine, long ago, suspected her husband was cheating and dropped in on the gym he was using in the evenings. One of the things she found odd about him was that he'd suddenly started chewing gum all the time, something he'd never done in his life. When she got to the club, the young receptionist had her back turned and when she turned round my friend saw she was very pretty, had very sexy eyes - and was chewing gum. The secret was out!