Can My Boyfriend Tell if I Slept with Someone Else?

Co-authored by Moshe Ratson, MFT, PCC and Nihal Shetty

Last Updated: August 9, 2024 Fact Checked

If you cheated on your boyfriend, you may be feeling a lot of anxiety, confusion, and fear of being caught, regardless of the reasons you cheated. We’re not here to judge you, but to give you all the information you need to know about ways your boyfriend might find out you were unfaithful. We’ve put together this guide answering how your boyfriend can tell if you slept with someone else, along with advice on what you should do next.

Can a Man Tell If I’ve Cheated On Him?

Your guy might not be able to tell if you've been sleeping with someone else by how sex feels with you. However, STDs, hickeys, bruises, or the smell of someone else's cologne or perfume on you might make him suspicious. He might also be able to figure it out if the way you act around him suddenly changes.

Section 1 of 3:

Can my boyfriend tell that I had sex with someone else?

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Your boyfriend won’t feel a difference sexually. No matter how many other people you’ve been with, your anatomy won’t change. There is no way to tell that someone had sex with another person purely through how sex feels with them.^{[1]
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- If you’re having vaginal sex, the “tightness” of the vagina (its elasticity) has to do with a number of factors: how aroused you are, your menstrual cycle, and any medications you’re on. It has nothing to do with how many partners you’ve had.
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STDS or other signs can make him suspicious. If you transmit an STD to your boyfriend, he notices hickies or bruises in suspicious places during sex, or he smells someone else’s cologne or perfume on you, he might be able to connect the dots.^{[2]
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- If you’re having unprotected sex with a partner other than your boyfriend, it’s extremely important that you test yourself regularly. Transmitting an STD to your boyfriend isn’t just a way that you can get caught cheating, but puts his health at risk.

Section 2 of 3:

Ways He Might Be Able to Figure Out You Cheated

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Texts and e-mails are the most common way cheating is discovered. If he’s noticed that you’ve been acting suspiciously when it comes to your phone, especially if you used to be more open, he may become suspicious. Finding proof of cheating on your phone produces evidence that’s difficult to deny.^{[3]
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If he asks you to explain where you’ve been and your explanation changes, it can be a pretty clear sign that something is up. Not being open, straightforward, and consistent in your communication with him can cause him to become suspicious.
Once someone else knows your secret, it’s no longer something that you can totally control. If your boyfriend knows your friends or lover, he might notice that they’ve been acting strange around him, or they might even let the secret slip to him. This is another pretty common way that cheating gets discovered.^{[4]
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He’s noticed changes in your behavior. Although you might not express much remorse externally, it’s hard to not feel any guilt and sorrow on the inside. Feeling these kinds of emotions can cause you to turn into a shadow of yourself, something that your boyfriend might notice in your moods and behavior.
- Intuition can be a very powerful sense. Your boyfriend might have a hunch that something feels off or different in your relationship, even without any obvious signs. This can lead him to suspect that you might be cheating.
You might have cheated because, whether you knew it or not, you wanted your boyfriend to feel the threat of losing you or you wanted to end the relationship with him. If these are some of the reasons you cheated, you’re not alone—some researchers think that many cheaters want to be caught for exactly these reasons, and so they aren’t particularly careful hiding evidence, or you might even end up confessing.^{[5]
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Section 3 of 3:

Should I tell my boyfriend I slept with someone else?

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If you slept with someone else while your boyfriend and you weren’t together, or if you have an open relationship where you don’t have a responsibility to disclose your partners, you have the right to maintain your own privacy if you choose to.^{[6]
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If you did cheat, confessing might help your relationship. Good relationships are built on honesty. Though there is a very real chance that confessing that you cheated could end the relationship, it’s generally better to confess than it is to get caught. If you feel like it’s impossible to deal with the guilt and anxiety of your infidelity, it may be best to have a hard conversation, even if it means the end of your relationship.^{[7]
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- Confessing that you cheated doesn’t have to end the relationship. Many couples are able to move past this and have an even stronger relationship than before.
- After you confess, you’ll have to spend a lot of time rebuilding trust with your boyfriend. Understand that you’ve hurt him and work with him to make amends.
- Going to couple’s therapy can help you move past what happened. Couple’s therapists are trained to deal with the fallout from infidelity, and can facilitate important conversations between your boyfriend and you.
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You may decide not to tell your boyfriend if it won’t happen again. If your cheating was a one-time thing, you know that you will never repeat it again, you used protection, and you completely regret the encounter, it may be better to keep quiet. Although you might feel better after confessing, you’ve put your boyfriend in a really painful and difficult situation.^{[8]
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- If you feel like telling him could pose a serious threat to your physical safety, keeping quiet might be the best option for you. Your safety is more important than anything.
Figuring out what to do after you’ve cheated can be really difficult, especially if you’re doing it on your own. Take feelings of guilt, anxiety, and confusion seriously. A therapist can offer you a non-judgmental space to process your emotions and figure out how you want to proceed in your relationship.