Can Long Distance Relationships Work?

Signs Of Cheating In A Long-Distance Relationship

Being in a long-distance relationship can be extremely alienating. While most relationships are filled with time with your partner and time spent on group dates, your long-distance (and perhaps online) relationship might be hard for people to understand.

With long-distance relationships, not only do you miss out on seeing your partner whenever you want to, but you also lose special moments with friends. You might even lose a best friend because so much of your time is committed to Skyping, texting, Facetiming, and any other way that allows you to connect digitally with your partner. Instead of being on the same groups dates some of your friends are on, you're more than likely at home, Skyping with your man/woman about their day.

Here’s the thing with online relationships: you have to make the effort for the relationship to work. With all the extra effort and commitment it takes to make long-distance relationships work, it’s easy for the relationship to start slipping.

When Trust Is Missing In Your Long-Distance Relationship

Long-distance relationships can be even more complicated when one or both partners have a lack of trust for their significant other. Trust is hard in any relationship, but putting your trust in a relationship where there are hundreds or perhaps even thousands of miles between you and your partner is even more emotionally demanding.

If you're questioning your long-distance lover, it’s understandable. We’re here to help you. To start, let’s look at some of the signs of cheating from both genders.

How To Know if Your Boyfriend is Cheating On You in a Long Distance Relationship

His phone is always “shut off” or “upstairs charging”. While this is a good excuse sometimes, most of the time if they aren’t working or sleeping, he should be able to answer the phone.

He has no time to text or talk when your away from each other. However, the very little time you spend together he’s always on his phone. How does he not have the time for you but time to text all of his “friends” and be creepy on Instagram?

He never wants to video call you on the spot. If this is true, he doesn’t want you to see where he is or who he is with.

He’s on a dating site. This is a clear indicator that he’s still keeping his options open or meeting with other girls.

He only wants to come to see you, which means he’s hiding something back home. Perhaps he has a family and you are his side piece.

He gets easily paranoid. He’s either paranoid at you, or paranoid when you ask questions. If he’s cheating, he’s going to get paranoid that you are doing the same thing. If you ask questions, he’s going to think that you are investigating him or trying to catch him in a lie.

Signs She is Cheating in a Long Distance Relationship

She has a random new guy friend that you’ve never heard of until now. While this might be harmless, it’s more than likely that she’s either thinking about leaving or wanting to leave you soon. Most loyal women do not make new guy friends beyond their high-school or early college years.

She posts flirty stuff on social media, looking for attention. If she’s looking for attention, she probably wants to move on.

She doesn’t want to talk to you on the phone. Most women love to talk on the phone. If she always tries to hang up the phone after only a minute of talking, she’s no longer interested in the relationship, or something major is going on in her life that she hasn’t told you yet.

She doesn’t communicate, and when you try to talk to her about something serious, she brings up something in the past or something little to try to change the subject. This is a clear indicator that she’s trying to cover up her transgressions.

There’s no urgency for her to see you again. When a woman loves a man, she wants to be near him. If she doesn't care about seeing you soon, you are not important to her.

She doesn’t care where you are or what you are doing. This is a sign that she doesn’t even care about you. When she stops caring and making any effort for you, she’s pretty much done with the relationship.

Use these signs to help you determine if your partner is cheating on you while you're miles away. If you want to make the relationship work (whether or not your partner is cheating on you) read the tips below.

How To Make A Long-Distance Relationship Work

Long-distance relationships require just as much work as regular relationships. Time is spent texting, on the phone, sending cute snaps, making sure they know how much they love you, sending gifts, etc. You need to make just as much effort in a relationship whether your three miles away or three-thousand.

Keeping this in mind, look out for the signs above. If you want this long-distance relationship to work, both partners need to make an equal effort in the relationship. With the difficulty of long-distance relationships, each couple needs to fight to make sure their partner feels comfortable. Again, it doesn’t matter how far away you are, a relationship requires almost constant love and attention.

Think about it this way. Whether or not your job is at-home or at an office, you spend the same amount of hours working. In fact, I’d say you have to prove that you're working hard at an at-home job more than an office job to ensure your boss that you aren’t goofing around. Conference calls, emails, check-ups are constantly required to maintain your position with an at-home job.

The same goes for a relationship where you aren’t always face-to-face with the person. You need to maintain the relationship by making the extra effort to let the other person know that they are special and that you would never do anything to hurt them.

If your significant other is behaving in an irrational or questionable way, check some of the tips above to help guide you on finding out what is going on. You can ask them about their behavior, but be prepared as you might experience some backlash. If your partner is unwilling to talk about the problem and brushes it off, makes excuses or tries to put the blame on you, that is a bad sign. If they threaten to leave you, it is more than likely time to call it quits.

The only way it can work at this point is that your partner is open and honest about their behavior so the two of you can work it out, or they do everything to prove that they have nothing to hide. Perhaps your partner is having a tough time at work, or something else is causing them to behave in a certain way. Regardless, you need to get to the bottom of what’s going on to try to make it work.

How To Catch A Cheater In A Long-Distance, Weekend Relationship

Lot’s of long-distance relationships are weekend-only if that is even possible. How can you catch a cheating partner if you aren’t in their area most of the time? There are some sneaky tools to help guide you if you really need to. Keep in mind though that if your partner is innocent and finds out that you are snooping, it could put a damper in your relationship.

A Confidential Way To Check On Your Cheating Partner

To check what your partner is up to without them knowing, use a people search service like National Cellular Directory. Here are a few ways you can use their service to know for sure if your partner is cheating.

Use Their Reverse Phone Lookup

Step 1:

If you have any phone access to your lover’s phone when you see them, quickly check for any numbers that look unfamiliar to you. Save those numbers.

Step 2:

Quickly take a picture of each of your partner’s saved contacts and the number associated with that contact on their phone while they are in the shower/otherwise away from their phone. Even though the name associated with a contact number may look familiar, sometimes people use pseudo names for numbers to trick their partners to believe that who they are communicating with is someone else.

Step 3:

Once you have the numbers you want to look into, use National Cellular Directory’s reverse phone lookup to find out who owns that number, their age, physical address, and more!

Bonus Reverse Phone Lookup Tip: If you are able to stay at their place, try to find their phone bill to see if they are talking to any mysterious numbers, or if they own more than one phone. Look up any unfamiliar numbers using their reverse phone lookup tool.

Performing A Background Check On Your Boyfriend/Girlfriend

Background checks dig deep and find significant information that most people try to keep hidden.

Background checks reveal information that your partner (long-distance or not) may be keeping from you.

Some things that you can find out about your partner that you might not have known:

Criminal records Social media activity Bankruptcies Judgements and Liens Secret Email Addresses

Let’s discuss this further.

Criminal Records

You can check your partner’s criminal records to find out if they have any criminal history. This can include anything from getting a DWI to being a registered sex offender. This information is very useful to help you determine if you are safe with your partner and if they have a minor criminal record if they are being honest with their past mistakes. How you react depends on what you can forgive, how honest they are and how big of a crime they committed.

Social Media Activity

If your partner has any social media accounts and activity that they are hiding from you, it might pop up with a background check. If your partner is keeping social media activity hidden from you, it’s not a good sign, no matter if their hidden activity is a clear indicator of cheating or not.

Bankruptcies

While a bankruptcy isn’t a deal-breaker for some people if your partner is not being able about their financial history, who else knows what they are hiding. Your partner might still be having financial problems or other problems. Additionally, if you have money, your partner may have ulterior motives for dating you.

Judgements And Liens

A judgment lien is a ruling of the court which allows a creditor to legally take possession of a debtor's property if the person in question fails to complete their contractual agreements. This is also a good indicator of your partner’s level of maturity, responsibility, and honor.

Secret Email Addresses

Note: National Cellular Directory does not offer a background check, but there are plenty of sites that do offer a non-fcra background check option that may be able to help you.

The Takeaway

Long-distance relationships are tough, no matter how strong of a couple you and your significant other are. Make sure that both you and your partner are always open to communicate your feelings with one another, and to be transparent with sharing your life and history.

The more secrets you and your partner choose to hide, the more likely there will be issues or that infidelity can occur. Being in a relationship is always a choice, so choose wisely.

Additionally, if you feel like your partner may be hiding something from you, you need to be open and honest about your feelings. If there is a chance that they could be cheating, it might be time to do some discreet investigating.