Some private investigators and security companies that sell spy cameras and GPS tracking devices report a spike in cheating partner calls in February right around Valentine’s Day. At Mission Possible Investigations, we see it too. Romance and love is highlighted in Feb. and suspicion is higher. Along with handling more cases, the kinds of cheating cases we are seeing has changed as well since we first opened in 2007.
In the first few years in business, the majority of cases we had were married clients headed for divorce and needed the evidence for court. We still get those cases, but we are finding more and more couples who are not married but instead living together or even trying to determine if they will move forward in a relationship seeking our services. They want the information not to decide a division of assets or seek more in alimony, but to determine if they are staying in the relationship or not.
With the rise of social media and dating apps, we are also finding more clients come to us with more information than ever. Some are doing their own research before they come to us. They have heard that their partners are on dating apps. We get screen shots, social media profiles and data directly from our clients – information they have gathered before they even call us. Earlier cases, we discovered for the client who their partner was cheating with. Now, sometimes they know and just want an outside party to confirm their suspicions.
We have always found that if someone has enough suspicion to retain us, then during the course of the investigation, we usually obtain evidence that cheating is actually occurring.
We have also found that more men than ever before are calling us with suspicion that their wives or girlfriends are cheating. Over the years, we have definitely seen first-hand a rise in the number of women cheating on their husbands/ partners. This has also been confirmed by research. Psychoanalyst and writer Esther Perel’s book, “State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity”, has found that the rate of married women who report they have been unfaithful has increased by 40 percent in the last 27 years, while the rate among men has remained the same. She notes that more women than ever are cheating and willing to admit that they are cheating.
While cliché, we find women cheating with people from work and from the gym most often. Some turn to dating apps, but significantly more have met prior to the affair. The affair often starts as flirtation and an emotional affair and then turns physical.
While the clients we see are changing, how we investigate these cases has not. It’s remains primarily surveillance to capture video and photographic evidence. And as always, we offer a free, confidential assessment to better understand the case and give a cost estimate.