So, you’ve somehow discovered that your girlfriend, or boyfriend (maybe even husband or wife) are lurking around on some dating apps like Tinder or Plenty of Fish and  you’re concerned about it… anybody would be so you’re not alone. It doesn’t really matter how their profile was uncovered, could have been by noticing a notification pop up on their phone one random day or maybe a friend of yours happened upon them and told you about it. The point is that now the cats out of the bag and you want to know what to do about it.

You obviously need to start a conversation about this and it’s going to be very important that you don’t go about it in the wrong way. Giving them the benefit of the doubt will always work in your favor during times like these because it’s going to let them feel more comfortable opening up about their feelings without lying to you.

Who knows, they might not even be cheating on you and that profile could simply be an old profile they had sitting around from the days before your relationship and they’ve forgotten to deactivate it or just didn’t even think about it after the fact because they have you now.

 

How Do You Bring It Up?

Here are a few tips to get the dialog opened in the right way. You don’t want to damage your relationship for no good reason, especially when you don’t even know the whole truth yet, so just hold off on finger pointing for now and see if you can unearth the truth.

 

Be Honest With Them

The feeling you’re being lied to is why this whole situation is happening in the first place. You have to start the conversation openly and honestly. If you don’t tell them how you discovered their profile they’re going to feel like they’ve been spied on and regardless of how entitled you feel to their private affairs the simple truth is that we all deserve peace of mind.

If you were snooping around their computer looking for dirt to dig up and actually found it, that’s going to unearth a whole lot more than you’ve anticipated and you may as well pack up your bags and move on right now. You need to tell them why you’re wondering about their profile, how you found it (or who found it for you by accident) and then let them know you’re only curious if you have anything to be worried about… the truth will still have time to surface with the extra information to follow.

 

Pay Attention To Their Response

You probably know your partner better than most people so you’ll be able to pick up on those signs that something is wrong. Don’t be so quick to point the finger and shout “got you!” at the top of your mountain, there’s still a fair chance if they’re showing signs of distress it could just be for the fact they feel upset at the whole situation and not because they’re necessarily doing something behind your back.

Pay attention to their body language, notice how they may or may not become defensive and see how their speech is affected if at all. Are they showing obvious signs of distress, do they feel the need to throw it back in your face in an aggressive way? Sometimes people will become angry when confronted about such things but they haven’t actually done anything wrong. It’s important to feel out the difference here because your relationship may depend on it.

 

Don’t Demand Anything

It’s going to be necessary to avoid that strong feeling to demand they tear that profile down immediately. Come across as overly jealous or controlling won’t help you in this situation, they still have all the control and will use it against you if they feel for even a second that you’re about to start throwing your emotional weight around.

The best course of action is to let them know how it makes you feel and be honest about it, don’t try to manipulate them by throwing in a bunch of extra woes to appeal to their emotions, you’ll probably end up making them feel manipulated and they might just hold on to that profile out of spite or as a back up plan in case this “fight” you two are having right now turns out to be a relationship ender. Let them know about your concerns and ask if there’s anything you two sincerely need to talk about because you’d like to work on it in order to make the relationship better. You can always follow up later about the profile once you feel things have improved to see if they’ve gotten rid of it and chances are it’ll probably be gone.

 

Turn It From A ‘Fight’ Into A Discussion

Let’s be real here for a moment… this is probably going to lead into a fight between you and them, it’s almost inevitable that someone is going to get upset and start throwing around accusations about whatever, fine.

Do not allow yourself to get upset if they’re the one growing upset and for the sake of your own relationship do not let yourself become the one who gets mad during all this. Take long pauses, just enough to let you both breath and calm down a moment, think about what you could say that gets the point across that you are simply concerned for the relationship and that you also want to know if they’re feeling happy with the relationship.

Maybe they’re dissatisfied with how the relationship is going and feel the only way out is to find a new person to start something new with behind your back. This is clearly a mistake if it’s the case and you still have time to fix things provided they’ve not already mentally and emotionally moved on.

The key to all this is remaining calm and approaching it from a loving and relaxed angle. You need to be the bigger person here and that will help you go a very long way.