From YourTango.com

By Michael Howard, Wendy Kay, Donn Peters, Susanne Jorgensen

Every woman in a relationship worries about infidelity, but unless he stumbles in late at night smelling like cheap perfume, it can be tough to tell whether your man is having an affair. Thankfully, our experts are here to help. Below are some of the ways you can discern whether you’re just being jealous or he’s actually up to no good.

1. He takes or makes phone calls in private. Although there may be a need for privacy when taking or making phone calls, if your partner retreats to the other room every time the phone rings, there may be something more going on, especially if this behavior is new or has suddenly become more frequent. —Michael Howard

2. He deletes the text history on his phone. Most people do not bother deleting old text messages … at least not until the phone is full. If your partner makes sure that old messages are deleted — or worse — he deletes them as soon as he finishes a conversation with someone, there may be more going on than just texting. —Michael Howard

3. He maintains multiple e-mail or social media accounts. If you discover additional or hidden e-mail or social media sites, things are almost certainly not good. Simply put, people in committed relationships have no need to maintain accounts that their partners don’t know about. If you discover one of these, it is time to be concerned. —Michael Howard

4. He avoids family or other social events. Infidelity, whether physical or emotional, will always result in lost time with friends and family. If your partner avoids social gatherings or activities, leaves early or arrives late because of some project or task, there may be a strong chance that he is spending time with someone else, whether on the phone, the computer, or in person. —Michael Howard

5. He suddenly spends tons of time with another person. If your partner is suddenly spending a lot of time with a colleague, co-worker, friend or even an acquaintance, particularly if that person is of the opposite sex, you may want to learn more about this relationship and the possibility that there may be an affair going on. —Michael Howard

6. He gives gifts or frequently volunteers to help another person. Although it is nice to give gifts and do kind things for friends, family members and even strangers, if your partner frequently gives gifts, especially those that are costly, take time and effort to prepare or have significant meaning, or volunteers to help out with projects around the home, this may be a sign that he is having an emotional affair. —Michael Howard

Check out the other 15 signs on YourTango.com.

*Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.com.

More on Madame Noire!

• True Life: I REFUSE to Do That in the Bedroom
• He Wrote That? Part II: More Surprising Songwriters Behind Some of Your Favorite Jams
• Strength, Great Skin and 5 Other Black Girl Privileges
• Looking For Trouble: The Day I Hurt Myself By Snooping on My Man…
• My Story: For Colored Girls Who’ve Considered Suicide When the Law Couldn’t Protect Them From Incest
• Ask a Very Smart Brotha Live: What’s With All the Diva Dudes?
• Noire Naturals, Episode 1: The Natural Twist Out

I’ve done a few drive-bys in my day—no, not the kind where you shoot up someone’s house. The ones where you and your girl take a ride past her man’s house in your car because he doesn’t know what you drive and you don’t want to get caught, she just wants to know if he’s really at home like he said he is—yeah, those kind.

I’ve also checked a few emails, a Facebook message here or there, but I never went through a man’s phone. There was only so far I was willing to stick my nose because I knew at some point I would drive myself crazy, and if I had to do all that, it was probably time to go anyway.

A paternity lab is breathing new life into the word snoop with infedility DNA testing that allows men and women to send in their partner’s underwear, boxers, tighty whities, panties, etc. for DNA testing to determine if they’ve been faithful or not. Creepy, right?

“The process is real simple” says Kip Charles, the man behind the operation. “Just provide us an article of clothing, preferably underwear or panties and we will do the rest. We can identify if semen is present, make sure it’s viable for dna extraction and then do a final comparison to make sure the DNA belongs to the correct person.”

“Most of the men callers want to check for someone else’s semen in their wife or girlfriends panties,” according to Tashunda H., one of the lab’s “specialists,” “but the women all want to know if female DNA is present in their husband or boyfriends underwear.”

The price for whatever piece of mind this testing could provide isn’t cheap either, running slightly under $200, plus it just isn’t practical. Your partner would have to have unprotected sex, stain their undergarments, and leave them somewhere in your home where they were accessible to you. By the time you packaged them, sent them off for testing, and got the results, you could have a disease. Probably makes more sense to stick to the tried and true method of simply asking: where were you last night?

I’m assuming none of you has ever gone this far to prove your man was creeping, but what is this craziest thing you’ve done to see if a man was faithful or not?

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.

More on Madame Noire!

• Six Fashion Trends Sistas Need to Change. Now.
• What We’ve Learned From Ratchet Reality TV
• Do You Confuse Basic Male Traits as Bonuses?
• Ashy to Classy: Must Have Beauty Products to Curb Head to Toe Winter Dryness
• Ask a Very Smart Brotha: Freshmen Woes & Possessive Types
• S*** Black Girls Say vs. S*** White Girls Say to Black Girls

You’re looking through his pockets, scrolling through his recent cell phone calls, and wondering where he was for those five hours of unaccounted time. When you confront him he tells you that you’re just paranoid. But that niggling feeling that he’s not being completely honest with you won’t go away–and probably for good reason.

You might be unconsciously picking up the subtle body language that betrays him. “The difficulty with lying is that the subconscious mind acts automatically and independently of our verbal lie, so our body language gives us away,” says body language expert, Allan Pease, author of “The Definitive Book of Body Language.”

Pease outline’s the most common lying gestures here…

Read the rest of this entry »

by Sherrie Bain

The World AIDS Day theme this year highlights ‘Getting to Zero’, as the optimistic goal for reducing the number of AIDS-related deaths in the future. Thanks to life-saving anti-retroviral therapy (ART), many more individuals are indeed living with HIV, instead of dying from AIDS.   Yet, there is a growing HIV crisis within the African American community.

Across the board: straight, gay, or just ‘bi-curious’, Black men and woman are becoming infected with HIV at alarming rates. One of the most devastating aspects of this growing HIV crisis is the fact that young, Black women are a large percentage of the primary statistics.  Overall, African American females make up approximately two thirds of all new HIV cases.  A recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed that HIV diagnoses were 20 times higher for African American adult and adolescent women in comparison to non-Hispanic white females.

Not only are more Black women being diagnosed with HIV, many of them are also dying from AIDS related complications.   AIDS is now the leading cause of death for African American women between the ages of 25yrs – 34yrs.   African American women are 21 times more likely to die from HIV/AIDS than non-Hispanic females.  These statistics reflect the fact that many African American women are becoming infected with HIV when they are still teenagers. It also highlights the fact that getting through to our young women about safe sex is going to be essential if we are to prevent them from becoming future HIV statistics.

One of the young, Black women working to do just that is Teniecka Drake. She represents our sisters, our best friends, and for many, the person staring out from the mirror… the person who was once a young teenage girl, naïve enough to believe the big, bad wolf in disguise. Even grown women sometimes have a hard time admitting when their Prince Charming is really a toad. For younger girls who are about the age Teniecka was when she became infected, it’s often even harder to assert themselves about safe sex, especially when they’re in a relationship with an older man. Teniecka hopes that by continuing to share her story she can help other young women to take the necessary precautions to avoid contracting HIV.   

Anyone who has ever read my love and relationship column knows I am a martyr for monogamy; but, I would be lying through my teeth if I acted as if it was a walk in the park.

Naturally, relationships go through cycles like the people involved. The first six months of dating tend to differ from the 24^th month, and, for many, the newlywed stage of marriage is quite different than year seven. However, the idea of long-term monogamy is not to blame. It is our inclination to subconsciously hit cruise control when we have reached particular levels of comfort. And, that comfort is what gets us stuck in mundane patterns of behavior.

As people, we evolve and so should our relationships. The same way we reinvent our “look” every so often, we should also reinvent our relationships in an effort to not only keep things fresh and interesting but to also grow together. Are you wondering if your relationship is in need of reinvention? Here are a few signs you and your honey are coasting:

Read the rest of this entry »

Darlings, who told you that you weren’t good enough for the best? Who said you should accept mediocrity and be happy with it? Was it you?

Ladies, lets’ stop settling for the things we know we don’t deserve. There are too many of us who are scared to speak up and demand that we get treated better because we are battling with our own insecurities and shortcomings. It’s so easy to accept something rather than to try and change it – but you can’t fall victim to this easy way out. Stop being afraid to be alone; stop assuming that you wont’ find anyone else; stop allowing your so-called physical flaws or current circumstances to hold you back from receiving what you deserve. The reason why so many women settle is because they feel as if they don’t have any other options. Once you limit yourself to your immediate surroundings, you’ve automatically been defeated.

You should never put yourself or your feelings on the back burner for anyone. Don’t you think you deserve happiness like everyone else? The secret to not settling is being clear on what you want and not being afraid to demand it. If you don’t know what you want in a man or from a relationship, than you shouldn’t get involved with someone. Don’t try to figure it out as you go along because you will only end up hurt and confused. Even if you know what you want, what good is it if you don’t demand the respect to receive it? If you say you want to be loved and to be number one in somebody’s life, why are you sitting around waiting for a man to leave his “situation”? That doesn’t make sense right? Think about it – why settle for good when you can have great? Woman to Woman – stop settling.

Want to talk to me Woman to Woman or have a topic you would like addressed? Email me at rhooks@madamenoire.com or you can follow me on twitter @rashanahooks

So he told you he was unhappy and that he wished he met you three years ago. He says that they sleep in separate beds and he is only with her for the kids.  He even told you he was looking for a place and asked you to help him.  Sweetheart, I’m sorry to break it to you but he is lying. He is not going anywhere and you’re being played for a fool…

Ladies, let me tell you a few secrets about men.  To begin with they crave stability. Even if he is so called ‘unhappy’ at home its unlikely that he will uproot himself and go look for another place to live alone, his woman will have to leave him first. Men are also smarter than we think. They can sense weakness and desperation a mile away and take advantage of a woman if she allows him too. If he can have his cake and eat it too, trust me he will.  Men who cheat are also very good at making you feel special without making you a priority in their lives. Don’t fall for just sweet talk; let his actions speak for him. Also, men are very practical creatures. They know it’s cheaper to keep her, so you do the math.

While some of you may think, you don’t owe his woman anything by considering her feelings or family because you’re not the one with or married to her; you may be right, but don’t you owe yourself the respect to not be a jump off (yes – it is what it is)? Quit playing that card, it’s old and tired. You deserve much more than that. Being someone’s secret, side piece or second choice should not be your agenda, please understand that.

Always remember, a man will never do anything that he doesn’t want to do. So if he’s still living at home ‘unhappy’ it’s because he wants to. And trust, that “unhappiness” is only for the moment. You can expect ups and downs in any relationship. So, stop falling for the oldest line in the book, because woman to woman, he’s not leaving her…

Want to talk to me Woman to Woman or have a topic you would like addressed? Email me at rhooks@madamenoire.com or you can follow me on twitter @rashanahooks

Ladies, trust me I get it – it’s hard to find a good man so when you get a hold of one you are not trying to let him go. But that is no excuse to think and behave as if every other woman wants your man too. Stay with me here…

That attractive woman who just walked in the room is not thinking about you or your man. There is a very good chance that she has a man of her own and doesn’t even notice yours. But while you side eye her and squirm closer to your boo because you feel somewhat threatened by her presence, she is shaking her head and thinking – “I don’t even want your man”.

Insecurity is so unattractive, especially when it comes to relationships with men. When we expose our trust issues to the world by doing shameless acts like that, all we are really doing is reinforcing the fact that we are unhappy and need to evaluate why we are with someone who we don’t trust. Most of the time these issues stem from deep-rooted problems within our relationship such as – when you met him he wasn’t quite “single” yet and now you fear the tables will turn on you; you’ve caught him cheating before, forgave him but didn’t forget and now you are always on guard; your confidence and self-esteem is at an ultimate low resulting in feelings of inadequacy and insecurity; and/or your man is simply no good and you know it. Regardless of which issue you may own, that jealous attitude needs to be checked at the door.

You can save yourself the embarrassment of making a fool of yourself in public because if your man is going to disrespect you and cheat on you, he will do so regardless of how many times you try to intercept and control the situation. But treating your fellow sister as if she is out to get you and take your man is just wrong. Now let’s not be a fool and think there aren’t some women out there who behave that way.  There are some trifling ladies in the world who don’t care if your man is with you or not because they have an agenda of their own. So rightfully so you may have to keep your eye out for them, but in any other case where you feel like a woman may want your man or your man may want her, trust me she is not interested and woman to woman – she don’t want your man…

Want to talk to me Woman to Woman or have a topic you would like addressed? Email me at rhooks@madamenoire.com or you can follow me on twitter @rashanahooks