IF you’ve ever been cheated on you’ll know it’s easy to wonder whether you missed the signs.
But when my (now ex) boyfriend was being unfaithful to me I caught him out thanks to my expert knowledge of Instagram… and I’m sharing it with you so you can do it too.
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And I’m not just talking about checking for secret DMs sent between lovers – but clues that I found which built up over a period.
I finally discovered that my former partner was messaging other blokes on dating apps after I stumbled across a mysterious app on his iPad.
The app was cunningly disguised as a calculator so you wouldn’t ever give it a second thought when glancing at the screen.
I had heard about these apps and got curious when I realised the one on his iPad wasn’t the same as the usual Apple one – and there were two… who has two calculator apps?
So one night when he fell asleep during a movie I tapped it, revealing – much to my distress – a horrifying trove of messages and X-rated pics he’d been exchanging with other men.
It turns out the cheating didn’t stop there – I found messages on Instagram too.
From that moment, I realised my gut feeling about signs on Instagram were true.
Here’s the hidden telltale signs I’d noticed which gave his other secret life away…
1. Cropping me out of photos
After showing me off non-stop on social media for months on end, my ex’s public affection mysteriously went cold one day.
Suddenly, I was no longer pictured in round-ups of nights out we spent together – nor mentioned in Stories.
I don’t need to be mentioned or particularly care about showing my entire life on social media, but it did create a small twinge of insecurity.
I tried to dismiss it, but then it got worse – I was being actively cropped out of photos I had appeared in.
I accused my other half of wanting to appear single to attract other guys but he told me it was all in my head.
2. Hashtags
But I started to notice other things too.
My other half was always obsessed with getting lots of Instagram likes – which I found quite cringey.
Then I noticed he was starting to use hashtags to become more suggestive, such as #InstaGuys.
He was attempting to hide them too by creating extra lines after the caption so that the hashtags wouldn’t show up unless you tapped to see it in full.
The captions were then edited to delete the hashtags after a few hours, once he’d got the attention he craved from other people.
It set alarm bells ringing.
3. Comments
But it was the photo comments that were probably the most hurtful part.
After using hashtags to get people’s attention, he’d get a flurry of comments from guys who were very clearly interested.
Was I being jealous and insecure? Absolutely – no one wants to see their partner crave sexual attention from others.
But I was told I was “creating drama out of nothing”, even though I later found incriminating evidence from some of these followers.
4. Posting times
The other change I noticed was the time he posted suddenly changed.
And surprise, surprise, it was always late at night when horny guys were on the prowl – and often when I was already sleep so I wouldn’t notice those hashtags come and go.
5. Liking other people’s posts
As I got more concerned, I had a little dig through some of the followers leaving suggestive comments on his posts.
I found he was liking back their sexier pics, such as topless holiday photos.
This is usually code for “you liked my posts, I’m liking yours because I’m interested, let’s chat”.
Trust your gut
If there’s anything I’ve learnt from this period in my life is to trust your gut.
When something doesn’t feel right, there’s usually a very logical reason for it.
Don’t let gaslighting get in the way of your feelings, as I did for far too long.
And if possible, address them with your partner in a calm manner – there might be a reasonable explanation after all.
OTHER SIGNS TO LOOK OUT FOR
Check if your partner has been tagged in any photos – it’s the third tab on the profile page which often gets forgotten.
Here, you’ll see any pics posts by others and you might find people you’ve never heard or seen before posting pics with your other half, which is a red flag.
Another feature love rats don’t want their other halves to know about is the activity tool on Instagram accounts.
This can only be accessed from the person’s own phone – it’s in the settings page and reveals all the likes and comments from an account.
Tap each and a full lowdown appears, starting from the most recent.
There are even toggles to set date range, so people can go back to specific dates.
