Technology has made it easier than ever to cheat. With all of the dating apps and match-making sites, it isn’t that hard for your partner to manage to carry out an affair without ever even knowing about it. I personally started to become suspicious of my boyfriend the second he got top hooked to his phone. He always said he was just playing games, but still had no problem quickly locking his screen whenever I got near him. With me working so much, I am hardly ever home -making it easy for him to find the time with another woman. This also means I have a lot less time to figure out what’s going on with his life.

I was reluctant at first to turn to technology to investigate my boyfriend’s habits. I thought I was crazy, but I was a little drunk the first time figured that if I looked through his phone once, I would have the peace of mind that I didn’t have to worry about him cheating anymore. While he was passed out in bed, I took his cell phone that he normally protected with his life and used his finger prints to unlock it.

To be honest, everything checked out and I just felt stupid. No dirty pictures or dating apps or anything like that. I was about to the phone back when he received a text from a “Derek.” Let’s just say the contexts of the texts were certainly not from any man that I knew. Along with graphic images were a detailed description of what she was going to do while “the wife” was at work. I was fuming. I deleted one of his fingerprints and replaced it with mine so I can keep it open just in case it locked again without him being able to notice it.

I moved my investigation over to my laptop where I did a quick google search on how to recover deleted media stuff. While I had no clue about the login to his iCloud account, I was pretty sure that this was not some random text. I had a hunch he had to be on some kind of dating app or something, it was just a matter of where to find it. A quick google search led me to a simple method of how to recover recently deleted apps. To my horror, he had just recently deleted an entire collection of dating and hook-up apps. From popular ones like Tinder to other things I had to google to figure out. It was safe to say that he was not only cheating but on the prowl. I was hurt, but I knew that I needed to fully catch him in the act. I texted “Derek” that they should expect a call from me a noon and to not text until then because “the wife” had worked at 11 (promptly deleting all of the other messages).

I devised a plan to finally bring the three of us together once and for all. Lucky for me, my husband had an Amazon Echo he was rather fond of to keep up with games and play music (as far as I knew at least). Well, when we were sitting at breakfast that morning, I decided to give Alexa a much different use. I finally confronted him over all of the doubts I had. I asked him directly about his whereabouts, if he was texting anyone and so on. Like the other times I had discussed my insecurities with him, he shot them down and complained about how paranoid I was about everything. After somehow twisting the story into me being worried because I was probably cheating, I sprung my trap.

I decided to see what would happen if I went away from the weekend. I told him I was going to my mom’s house for the weekend. And I was. I packed my bags and left on Friday morning.

I suspected he would call her, whoever she was. I bet he would make plans.  In the house we shared! It hurt, but this is what I had to do to catch him red-handed. Because here is my big secret: I controlled the app that controlled our Alexa. And it records everything. Every time someone speaks to the Alexa, the device records what was said in the app on your phone. That was the basis of my secret trap. He would have the mystery woman over, they would put on music, saying something like “Alexa, play All American Rejects”, or whatever cheesy songs they like. He would say it first, then she would play with the Alexa, and boom! I have her voice, I have my proof.

So of course, it all went down exactly as I’d expected. He had her over, I had recordings proving he cheated, I recognized her voice (a girl from his work, of course). I knew who “Derek” was. And I let him go. Most importantly, I let him go.