Find the owner of a text message number

by Craig
(Brooklyn, NY)

How to find the owner of a text message number?

My wife started receiving frequent text messages from the same sender, someone labeled "Mike" in her phone, about 3 months before we split. I noticed them because she would leave her phone out on the coffee table so I could see the name, but not the content of the message. I had to find out who owns this number that keeps texting my wife.

When I asked her who he was, she told me he was a work colleague who often had a lot of questions because he was struggling with certain aspects of the job. Reading her facial expressions and reactions when he would text from that moment on, I started to feel as if something else might be going on - she seemed rather awkward whenever the phone would buzz on the table.

I felt bad about betraying her trust and spying in this way, but eventually I picked up her phone (when she was out of the room) and read off a couple of the messages from "Mike". Then it was obvious - they were clearly having an affair. I confronted her about it. She did not deny it, broke down into tears, and all I could do was stare at her and question why she had done this.

Fortunately we didn't have kids, but that was the end of the relationship. I moved out that same day, and we got divorced a few months later. In the end, it was more hurtful that she lied about the affair for so long - and left her phone out in a place where I would obviously find it - than that she cheated in the first place. But I did find out who the owner of that text message number was, the person that participated in ending my marriage.