Gents, buckle up. I'm about to let you in on a dirty secret us women have known for a long time, but don't want to admit.
We have quietly become far better at cheating than you. Not morally better, not more noble, just significantly more sophisticated.
How do I know? Because I've watched more friends cheat than I care to admit - and not a single partner ever suspected a thing. One of them is three years deep into her affair and her husband is still blissfully unaware.
My theory was confirmed when I spoke to private investigator Oliver Laurence from Periculum Security Group on my podcast. He didn't even hesitate when I asked the big question: who cheats smarter, men or women?
'Women,' he said instantly. 'By a mile.'
According to him, female cheaters are almost impossible to catch because they plan every detail, erase all evidence and think ten steps ahead. Men, on the other hand, leave digital fingerprints everywhere.
As Laurence put it, 'Guys get lazy. They get complacent and they make silly mistakes.'
Over the past six months, he said his firm handled 25 cheating investigations, 22 of which came from men convinced their wives were the ones stepping out.
I've watched more friends cheat than I care to admit - and not a single partner ever suspected a thing
So, while men might cheat more impulsively, women are quietly leading in strategic, undetectable infidelity. Even the professionals can't believe how hard it is to catch them.
And it all comes down to one thing: technology.
Women have become the Olympic gymnasts of digital deception, bending, twisting and arching their way through every loophole Silicon Valley has unknowingly handed them. Men, however, have the digital acuity of an octogenarian, treating their tech like a backpack they leave open on the floor.
When I asked New York divorce lawyer James Sexton why men get exposed so spectacularly while women seem to glide under the radar, he didn't mince words.
Smart phones, he declared, have 'caught more men cheating than every private investigator combined.'
According to him, men get busted because they sync everything. They reuse passwords. They connect their phone to every tablet, laptop, smart watch, TV, and even the kids' devices without thinking twice.
Sexton has seen it play out like this many times: The husband is upstairs in the bathroom sexting his mistress, thinking he’s being discreet, but downstairs his messages are lighting up the family iPad like a fireworks display.
The kids are playing Minecraft when suddenly the screen freezes, and a little voice calls out, ‘Mommy, why does my game keep stopping?’ Moments later, mom is staring at a naughty photo of her husband and a stream of real-time messages about his plans for tomorrow’s ‘boys’ night.’
In fact, these syncing disasters are so common that Sexton calls them ‘the Divorce Lawyer Relief Act of 2025.’
Because let’s be honest, history has shown us that men cheat the same way many of them cook: with enthusiasm, no preparation, and a complete inability to clean up after themselves.
Take one of my male friends, for example. He came home blind drunk, parked himself on the couch, texted his mistress and then passed out, leaving his phone unlocked.
Rookie mistake. His wife swooped on in and had a good ol’ scroll. Safe to say, that divorce came with plenty of (screenshotted) receipts.
Women, on the other hand, cheat like they are working for the CIA.
They don’t allow their devices to sync automatically. They don’t share accounts. They turn off message previews. They cover their tracks as they go.
Digital tools originally built for privacy and safety have morphed into perfect accessories for an illicit romance.
Even something innocent like a phone update becomes a gift - these days, there’s even a hidden photo album that requires facial recognition to access. And many quietly use it for far more devious purposes than storing ugly screenshots of ex boyfriends.
Then there are the vault apps. If you’ve never heard of them, lucky you; you’re probably a good person.
For the uninitiated, these look like innocent calculator or notes apps. Enter the right passcode, however, and the whole thing flips open like a trapdoor revealing hidden photo galleries, messages and contact lists.
A woman could store her entire affair in an app disguised as ‘Calendar Pro’ and her husband would scroll right past it.
Another favorite are apps like Snapchat - the perfect digital confessional. The messages evaporate automatically, doing all the heavy lifting. While I consider myself far too Millennial for such an app, I recently learned a 53-year-old colleague uses it to send her 25-year-old lover saucy pics.
Then there is the art of location manipulation. My girlfriends know exactly how to switch off location sharing without sending an alert to their partners. There are loopholes everywhere - including how to display a decoy location - if you know where to look.
And before they've even stepped back into their home, they've scrubbed the Uber history. Cleared the call logs. Trashed text threads.
They delete deleted messages. Then they delete the deleted history.
In short: women do not leave crumbs.
Men, meanwhile, are so sloppy they DM their mistress from their main Instagram account and accidentally post a boomerang of their hotel room view. They forget to turn off their location sharing before sneaking to a 'work drinks' that suspiciously always involves the same blonde girl from marketing.
worse, they send photos of their mistress to the boys' group chat. (and yes, gents, we check those too.)
but the reason women get away with cheating isn't just the tools. it's intent. men cheat impulsively. women cheat strategically.
that's why many women choose to have flings with married partners: discretion. they're not going after the younger, single secretary who is likely to go rogue at any moment with a confession. they are cheating with a man already entangled in his own family situation.
and relationship therapists have long said that by the time a woman cheats, she has already checked out, planned the timeline, selected the safest partner and ensured the affair won't blow up her life.
one large survey analysis found women are more likely than men to admit to emotional affairs and online infidelity, which lines up perfectly with what i see in real life: by the time a woman cheats, she's been emotionally gone for a long time.
they're only going to get 'caught' when they decide the relationship is over.