I know your question was directed at another member, but as someone who went through a horrible betrayal myself a few years ago (2.5 year girlfriend who fucked around on me with my own friend and like 10 other clowns), I'll share my experience and hopefully it helps you/others here.
I agree with you that cheating/betrayal at the hands of the person you're supposed to trust most in the world is the worst thing that one person can do to another.
Before I get to the story, I want to
strongly recommend everyone here read these 3 books on body-language/non-verbal behavior as well as verbal cues to detect deception and all other emotions/motives from people. (These aren't some hippie pseudo-science nonsense "hacks" either; 2 are written by Joe Navarro, a former top interrogator for the FBI. The other is written by a few high level CIA interrogators.) All of them are backed by science and real data/experiences. It's some of the most interesting and useful material I've learned for life in general.
Learning this stuff isn't only for being able to detect if your significant other is acting duplicitous either; it's got amazing utility for business dealings and social situations overall.
Anyway, here they are (these aren't affiliate links - just regular Amazon links):
- https://www.amazon.com/What-Every-Body-Saying-Speed-Reading/dp/0061438294/ (This is a highly comprehensive book on non-verbal behavior that covers every part of the body from the eyebrows down to the feet.)
- https://www.amazon.com/Dictionary-Body-Language-Field-Behavior/dp/0062846876/ (This is more like a handbook written by the same author as the book above where he cogently sums up each body part and its associated "tells". I'd get this after reading the book above.)
- https://www.amazon.com/Spy-Lie-Former-Officers-Deception/dp/1250029627/ (Here's the book by the CIA folks. Also very comprehensive; this one's nice because it also covers a lot on the verbal behaviors/responses and shows how to synthesize them congruously with non-verbal behaviors/body-language. For example, you'll learn how to phrase questions properly to elicit a particular set of responses that you can then decipher to start putting the puzzle pieces together on if this person is being honest or not.)
Now I won't bore you guys with all the details of my story, but the first thing I noticed with her was very early on, and it was that she was addicted to male attention and she had an incorrigible proclivity to lie about even the most innocuous trivialities. She also had a rather high body count in my opinion prior to us meeting, and the way she talked about sex was almost the way most guys do (where it's more of a conquest than anything else). This also is what made it a game of seduction/a conquest for myself as well though, because she was a very good looking girl who essentially couldn't be "tamed" by any men up until that point. She used them for sex but would never let it get past that point. All of us here as entrepreneurs can appreciate that the more elusive something is, the more superior it feels when you conquer it.
But from the first time we hung out, she started pursuing me, and not just as a hookup but for an actual relationship. I wasn't necessarily looking for anything at the time, but I wasn't opposed to getting into a relationship either, so I went with it and we started dating.
All throughout the 2.5 years we were together, I never doubted that she loved me, and we had a physical connection unlike anything either of us ever experienced (this is something we talked about a lot), but I kept picking up on things that didn't sit right with me based on all of the behavioral patterns I learned from studying the fields I mentioned earlier. It was one of those things where I was 99.9% sure I was correct and that she either was currently or had cheated on me, but I just never had the hard evidence to prove it.
I'm not the jealous insecure type that ever wants to check my girlfriend's messages, but I also don't want to be with a girl who constantly makes me feel like I need to even do it. So eventually after so many lies and other shit accumulated, I just couldn't handle it anymore and went through all of her texts/social media messages when she was sleeping. I was hoping to find nothing and then I could just say alright I was being paranoid. But it was exactly what I expected: egregious fucking texts between her and like 10 other guys; furthermore, I only got through the 1st year of our relationship before she woke up and saw what I was doing, so who the fuck knows, there may have been 10 more. One of them was a friend of mine since high school that she met like twice and therefore barely even knew.
The fucked up thing about it though is that I never felt like she didn't love me or anything. I still believe she did despite what happened. And that's not me being naive; I was with her for several years and the good moments were indeed real. Our connection in the bedroom was mystifying and it never once felt like it was growing stale; in fact, I believe we became even more physically attracted to each other as the relationship went on. I simply think that just like some people are addicted to alcohol or gambling or junk food, she's addicted to social validation and especially male validation. One person will never be enough no matter how much attention that male shows her, how good the sex is, or how compatible of a partner he is.
So to put all this together and sum it up, the indicators of deception themselves would be broken down into the following for me at least:
- Chronic lying about even the smallest shit.
- High body count prior to your relationship (which signifies they don't take sex as seriously and may be less likely to see anything wrong with cheating).
- A deep psychological need for approval from others, but especially from men. (They feed into all of the guys who flirt with them instead of shutting it down and saying they're with you.)
- Being evasive when you question them about it.
- Certain ways they behave or answer questions that you'll only be able to pick up if you study what to actually look for.
Anyway, I hope that helps someone here. It was a painful lesson to learn, but at least I came out of it much more knowledgable and will be able to detect it exponentially quicker and easier if it ever happens again.