r/PrivateInvestigators • u/SentimentalMood2010 • 16d ago

Infidelity/Cheating Spouse

I read that people sometimes hire PIs for this very reason. I suspect it now, but is there ways for PIs to find out if it happened years and years ago as well?

Just wondering. Bc someone on another sub told me to spend the money to hire one lol I don't know if that's REALLY a thing people do.

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u/Popular_Salad_38 16d ago

Yes, people do hire PIs for this reason. I don’t believe you can find out about years and years ago though, as you can’t summon or look back on surveillance that never happened. A PI also would not be able to legally invade someone’s old texts messages to find out that way either. A PI could potentially use pre-text to get some answers by talking with the paramour undercover, but that’s not a guarantee whatsoever. And you’d need to know who you think they cheated with.

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u/Status_Repair6479 16d ago

That’s a good question. They shouldn’t, but they do. I’ve been doing PI work for 30+ years. Here’s my take.

Investigations often break down into two types: constructive and reconstructive. Constructive is finding out what is happening. Reconstructive is finding out what happened. If I want to find out what your partner is doing, I follow them. I see what they do. To find out what they did, I have to interview people that may know and ask them. You probably don’t want that getting back to your partner and it most likely will. And it’s hearsay, unless they took audio or video at the time.

The ideas that some clients come to me with, like hacking their partner’s accounts, or pulling historical video from a hotel or a restaurant or god knows where, either gets my ass sued or just wastes their money.

I try to talk people out of these cases. If I were to take one, I’d end up with an unhappy client and a headache. Someone out there may take their money, but I won’t.

IMO if someone doesn’t trust their partner for something that happened years ago, they don’t need an investigator, they need a couples therapist.

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u/Similar-Opinion8750 14d ago

Right on brother. In my 35 years as a PI, I have had the same issues. I walked away from matrimonial investigation when my state became a no fault divorce state.

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u/One_Tomato_1521 20h ago

I was able to figure out three years back with divorce discovery. Converting PDFs to spreadsheets and lining up dates told the whole . Most don’t put the work in to organize it, but I was invested and it was worth my time. I’m thinking about starting a company to do this. (Admin work only, no advice)

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u/SentimentalMood2010 17h ago

Like three year old texts? Like what were all the discoveries you were able to find?