Being the other woman is a cardinal sin punishable by ostracization and vilifying that would only be made worse by the most righteous of housewives.

“How could you do that?”

“What kind of mother raises a homewrecker?”

“You should be ashamed of yourself.”

And other comments that really aren’t suitable for publication. But there are times when the woman in question isn’t a deliberate home-wrecker. There are times when she is just unsuspecting and in love or unsuspecting and in a sex haze.

That said, it’s always a serviceable thing to ensure that women who don’t want to be in this situation know the signs to look out for.

Here are 12 signs that he’s using you to cheat.

He takes you to secret or unknown locations

This never changes. Your favourite restaurant is probably Trattoria but the fellow will insist on taking you to some backwater hotel in the middle of Tearoom that he swears has the best mokimo in Nairobi. As if you can’t make your own. And he constantly takes you back there.

He keeps making excuses why you can’t go to public places together

Forget taking you to heavily publicised events, he won’t even go with you to a supermarket or a mall food court.

He always leaves the room to take phone calls

And this is always done. We all have phone calls we want to keep private. But he keeps ALL his calls private. Also, whenever the phone rings, he ensures to cover the screen.

He is always unavailable

He can reach you but you can’t reach him. Everything is always on his schedule. It’s always about when he wants sex, when he wants to go out, when he wants to chill. But when you ask, the answer is always No.

He only comes to your place

You’ve never seen his house. You’ll never see his house.

He always cancels at the last minute

Something that had been planned even weeks in advance gets unceremoniously cancelled every single time. And the excuses given are flimsy at best or too well thought out.

He is always secretive about his past

Whenever you talk about his life, he is dodgy. And his stories keep changing. Actually if this happens, you should also be careful that he isn’t a con artist.

He is always paranoid

He constantly looks over his shoulder. He is always worried about something as though he swindled a powerful mganga. He also frequently accuses you of cheating.

He disappears on holidays

You can never reach him on Valentine’s Day, Christmas, New Year’s- it would even be a miracle to be wished a Happy Madaraka Day.

He takes no pictures with you

To reduce the chances of him being found out, he never likes having his picture taken with you.

He rarely sleeps over

Every day he comes over and by 9 o’clock in the evening he already wants to leave. And no it’s not because mats on his route finish business at 10.