Is My Partner Cheating? A 20-Question Quiz

How the Cheating Quiz Is Scored

The cheating quiz gives each answer a value: “Not at all” scores 0, “A little” scores 1 and “A lot” scores 2. With 20 questions, the highest possible score is 40. You need to answer at least 16 questions to get a result, and any question you skip counts as 0.

The questions fall into four groups. Secrecy covers a guarded phone, a changed passcode, a hidden account or second number. Routine covers late nights, vague stories and a new name that comes up and then disappears. Intimacy covers changes in sex and affection, and money covers charges or withdrawals you cannot account for.

Two questions stand apart from the rest. Question 19 asks whether you have found something concrete, such as a message, a photo, a hotel booking or a gift you never received. Question 20 asks whether your gut has told you something is off for weeks.

What Your Score Means and Does Not Mean

A high score means many of the changes that often come with an affair are happening at once. It does not mean your partner is cheating. Defensiveness, distance, late nights and less sex also fit depression, a crisis at work, money trouble, a health scare or a partner who is unhappy and pulling away for another reason.

A low score does not clear anyone either. Someone who is careful can show very few of these signs, and a partner going through a hard month can show many. What we see readers get wrong most often is treating one sign as proof.

Read your answers by group as well as by total. A middle score built mostly from secrecy items (questions 1, 2, 7 and 16) points somewhere different from a higher score built mostly from mood items (questions 3, 9, 10 and 17). Mood changes have many causes. A hidden dating app has far fewer.

Weigh question 19 on its own. One message or booking you found yourself can matter more than ten small changes, even when your total lands in the middle band. If you answered “A lot” there, skip ahead to the next section and plan the conversation with that evidence in mind.

For context on how common infidelity is: in General Social Survey data analyzed by the Institute for Family Studies, 20% of ever-married men and 13% of ever-married women said they had sex with someone other than their spouse while married. Those are self-reported lifetime figures for married adults. They show cheating is common enough to take seriously and far from a certainty in any one relationship.

What to Do After the Cheating Quiz

We would start with a calm, specific conversation before any detective work. These five steps keep it specific:

1. Write down each change you noticed and roughly when it started. “Since about March” is more useful than “lately”.
2. Pick the one change that worries you most. One clear example is easier to talk about than a list of twenty.
3. Raise it at a calm time, away from the kids and not by text. Try: “I’ve noticed you take your phone everywhere since about March. It’s making me anxious. Can you tell me what’s going on?”
4. Watch how your partner responds. An explanation and an offer to talk is a different answer from anger, blame or turning the question back on you.
5. Line up support for afterward: a friend you trust, or a therapist of your own.

If you are not sure your partner’s behavior crosses a line, read what counts as cheating and the guides on micro-cheating and emotional cheating. Couples often disagree about where the line is, and naming it can be the whole conversation.

Steps That Make Things Worse

Do not install spy apps, read your partner’s messages without permission, log into their accounts or track their car. The federal Wiretap Act makes it a crime to intentionally intercept someone’s communications, with penalties of up to 5 years in prison. Logging into a partner’s email without permission can also violate the Stored Communications Act. This is general information, not legal advice. Laws vary by state, so talk to a family-law attorney about your situation.

Covert checking also tends to backfire. Even when it turns up something real, the conversation becomes about how you found it. The legal, consent-based options are in how to find out if your partner is cheating.

If your partner controls your phone, your money or where you go, the problem may be bigger than cheating. Take the toxic relationship quiz, or call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 (text START to 88788).

If the Answer Turns Out to Be Yes

Finding out about an affair does not force a decision that night. Some couples rebuild and some separate, and both paths start with getting the facts and getting support. When you are ready, read how to rebuild a relationship after cheating or the wider guide to rebuilding trust, and pick one step to take this week.