DO IT YOURSELF Pre-Matrimonial Investigations

The idea of this test is to train you on how modern pre-matrimonial investigations are performed, so that you are equipped to conduct your own Private Investigations and you are better informed on the role a Private Investigator may play in your Matrimonial Investigation, should you choose to hire one.

Checking Out Your Date, Lover, or Spouse

If you have entered or are about to enter into a new marital relationship, you need to check out your partner. We begin with simple things you can do to learn about your partner’s background without actually being offensive. We then examine various methods for learning about the things he may be attempting to hide from you. Certain methods involve a definite risk of embarrassment for you if he should find out; you will have to decide if you want to run that risk. Given the extreme dangers that women face in relations not only with relative strangers but also with the sweet-tempered spouse they think they know, I believe it is better to risk a little embarrassment now rather than face major trauma in the year ahead.

Your First Steps in Protecting Yourself

You lessen your chances of being involved with the lover or spouse from Hell by being extremely choosy about how and where you meet potential partners. The best situation is one in which a certain amount of pre-screening is involved: Friends or relatives invite you to dinner to meet a man they know fairly well. Some dating services claim to prescreen applicants, but any screening they might actually perform will be extremely superficial.

If you meet a man who is entirely thoroughly examined (as via a classified ad or at a bar or museum), always get his phone number rather than simply leaving him yours. Insist on getting his home number and address as well as his business number. If he won’t give you his home number and address and re-fuses to say why, you’ll know you don’t need him in your life. If, on the other hand, he explains that he’s already married or living with someone and doesn’t want you calling his home, at least you’re forewarned.

If a man gives you his home number and address, take a few second to look in the telephone white pages and/or consult Directory Consult Assistance or True Caller, just to make sure the name, address, and telephone numbers all fit. Also, it’s a good idea to spend an hour or so chatting with him on the phone before the first date; if you begin to pick up bad vibes you can always cancel the date.

In your early dates and phone conversations with him, you should find out certain basic and easily verifiable facts such as where he grew up, where he went to school, what type of work he does, who his current employer is, his marital status, whether or not he has any kids by a prior marriage, and so forth. These are things that will usually come out spontaneously in conversation. If not, you can easily ask about them without causing annoyance to him. (This means staggering the questions over the course of several conversations. If you ask all at once you’ll sound like a cop.) If you’re talking with him on the phone, write down any important names or other details on the spot. If he reveals a key name while you’re on a date, jot it down as soon as you’re alone (you might want to excuse yourself to the wash room to do so, in case you don’t forget what he mentioned).

If subject was a complete stranger to you (and to your close friends) when you first met him, you should without fail check out some of what he says about himself. For instance: Call up his previous job (you can pretend to be from a personnel agency) and verify that he in fact was employed there. Call up his present job to make sure there’s an extension listed in his name. Call up the registrar’s office or the alumni association at the college he claims to have attended and verify that he’s in their records.

One easy thing to find out is his date and place of birth. Simply steer the subject to astrology or offer to read his palm as a pretext for asking this. Also, at some point find out his full name and his mother’s maiden name. If a thorough background check should become necessary, these facts will be important.

Take your time getting to know this man before making any commitment, and get him to talk about himself as much as possible. Fortunately this is something most men love to do. With a little encouragement from you, he may tell you all about his past and present sexual conquests. If he’s a narcissistic personality, he will be quite in vain about this and will talk in great detail. If he gets a clue that this turns you on (what you hear may be enough to decide you against pursuing this relationship).

Whether he’s talking about former girlfriends or anything else, listen carefully and interrupt tactful little questions that can lay the basis for further investigation if necessary. When he talks about “this girl I was once involved with,” ask what her name was; when he tells about the trip he took with her to Lucknow, ask what year the trip occurred. Encourage him to elaborate with as much detail as possible and be alert for contradictory statements and unrealistic stories.

The telephone rather than a candle-lit dinner is the best medium for such conversations, because you can take detailed notes as he talks. But if for some reason he talks best over drinks at a bar, write down afterward as much as you can remember-the who’s, what’s, when’s, and where’s.

Encourage him above all to talk about his childhood and family. Most men who abuse their wives or girlfriends come from dysfunctional families in which abuse was a way of life. If Arun comes from such a family, you have a high probability of trouble unless he’s gone through intensive therapy. Of course, Arun will not open up about the traumas of his childhood during the first or second date (and why should he? he doesn’t want you to think he’s emotionally disturbed), but eventually you should steer him into this area. Make things easy for him, by first revealing a few of your own childhood traumas (if you can’t remember any, invent a few).

If you jot down notes during each telephone conversation and after each date, you will soon have a considerable pool of information for potential checking. (Warning: don’t leave the notes where he can find them if he decides to check on you.)

Don’t expect that what he tells you will be 100 percent truthful. Most people have very imperfect and selective memories; they exaggerate things to put themselves in a better light (or to heighten the humor in a story); they smooth over their failures; they concoct all kinds of rationalizations for things that went wrong. However, you should be alert for any claims or stories that appear to go beyond the normal kind of fibbing that we all engage in. If Arun tells you he majored in psychology (because he knows you’re interested in psychology) when he really majored in business but wishes he majored in psychology (and in fact took courses in psych), that’s one thing. When Arun tells you, he has a degree from Delhi University when he really only briefly attended and then flunked out of a local college, that’s more serious. When Arun tells you he spent a year traveling around the world in the early 2010’s he really spent that year (as you learn later from a mutual friend) in prison for burglary, that should be the final straw.

You can never know for sure at first whether or not your new lover is hiding something from his past. One way to induce him to disclose it (if in fact exists) is by casually remarking that your best friend’s husband is a private investigator and that he checked out a boyfriend to yours a couple of years ago. Your new lover may then, upon reflection, start volunteering information so he can put a spin on it and thus minimize the damage or even make himself look like a martyr (ex-cons are often geniuses at this). For instance, he may tell that a girlfriend once filed assault charges against him but it was really just a “misunderstanding” and besides she withdrew the charges. Although his story may sound plausible, you should remember that the woman in question isn’t present to give her side of the story (nor are the cops who answered her 100 call or the emergency-room doctor who treated her injuries).

If Arun fails to talk about his past much on the first date or two, this might just be a natural cause. But if he continues to be closemouthed about himself, try to discuss with him the reasons for his being reserve. It he flatly refuses to recognize it as a problem beaware that he’ll probably take the same attitude to other problems in your relationship later on. This, as well as the possibility that he’s hiding something, should be considered if you’re trying to decide whether or not to continue to see him.

If you decide to get romantically involved with Arun, don’t let it become a relationship that revolves exclusively around your own house or apartment. Insist on spending much of the time at his place, and while you’re there keep your eyes open. I’m not talking about overt snooping, just the kinds of things you might normally notice. For instance, are there any prescription medications in his bathroom medicine cabinet? Don’t ask him about this (he well regard it as a highly intrusive question, and even if he doesn’t display any anger he’ll hide future prescriptions that you might have an even greater interest in). If a medication arouses your suspicion, go to Google and look in the name and symptoms of the medicine. The information by brand name, generic name, and picture (color/shape of pill), will tell you exactly what a given medication is used for. If it has multiple uses, you can sometimes figure out which condition your friend is taking it for by the physician’s name on the prescription label. This physician’s specialty (if he or she board certified) can be learned in The Official website of IMA. If the physician is not listed there, you can learn his or her specialty via the guide to physicians (divided by practice) in the telephone yellow pages or via call to his or her office.

If you notice women’s clothing in plain view one of Arun’s closets or cosmetics on the dressing table, this is something you should feel free to ask him about. It may be that another girlfriend spends enough time with Arun to keep some of her belonging there, although this is a matter you and he should have already resolved (You should have asked about other women, and he should have answered frankly before you ever set foot in his apartment). Of course the presence of the clothing and makeup may simply mean that Arun engages from time to time in a harmless bit of crossdressing.

You may notice other things that are not quite as obvious; for instance, the sudden appearance of packages of herbal tea in his kitchen when you know he drinks only coffee and has zero interest in holistic medicine and health foods. Whether to ask him about such things is a tricky question. On the one hand, you’re dying to know. On the other hand, if you ask him he may give you an extremely plausible (but totally dishonest) answer-and the only result will be that you’ve alerted him (as in the case of the prescription bottles) to the necessity of being more careful (i.e., more systematically deceptive). In general, you should not ask him about something you observed unless it was something in plain view and that you could have possibly spotted without overt snooping.

Keep an eye out for pornographic magazines or CDS/DVDS that indicate kinky sexual interests he has failed to tell you about (for you to look at any magazine that’s lying around or to examine his collection of CDS/DVDS is not regarded as snooping, even if it is, kind of).

If you really must do aggressive snooping, offer to cook dinner at his place-and then send him out with a list of things to purchase that should keep him occupied for a half-hour or more (i.e., things that require going to more than one store). Make sure he’s well far from the house before you start your search. The main things you should look for are his address book and his appointment calendar, and his checkbook register. These will quickly give you a sense of the basic pattern of his life. Are there a large number of women’s names in his address book? What about doctor’s appointments in his appointment book? And, appointments with lawyers and/or court appearances? Checkbook registers are not as important in this era of plastic credit, but you might find a record of child support payments or payments to a psychotherapist.

If you see a phone bill on his desk, your might look quickly at the call records. If you see any “1-800” numbers or audiotex numbers listed, write them down. If you call one of these numbers later, you might find that it’s a phone-sex line specialization in practices or proclivities that you weren’t aware your partner had an interest in.

Observe Him in Action (Re-marriage case)

You can often learn more from observing how he interacts with his ex-wife, children, parents, and siblings (both in person and on the phone) than by any snooping. Does he see his kids frequently? Does he talk with them on the phone in caring manner? (Also, does he pay child support regularly?} Before committing to this guy, you’re well advised to spend some time with him and the kids and see how he interacts with them in person, not just on the phone. Does he lose his temper easily? Is he over-critical? Do the kids seem afraid of him or excessively withdrawn in his presence?

If possible, you should go with him to pick them up and observe how he interacts with his ex-wife. Does she seem afraid of him? Or do the two of them still seem to be friendly? Some women get jealous if their new lover is still on friendly terms with an ex-wife or ex-girlfriend, but you should view this as a golden opportunity to observe his behavior in situations that offer vital insights into his personality and character.

Also, note how he deals with his parents and siblings. We have already discussed how you should encourage him to talk about them. But talk is cheap: The man who says his mother is the world’s greatest mom may demonstrate the most grotesque loathing for her when you go with him to visit her. Before committing to a long-term relationship, insist on meeting any of your partner’s parents or siblings who live within practical traveling distance. (Among other things, this is a good way of checking that he’s really who he says he is and not a con artist using false ID.)

When you have dinner with his family it is important to observe not only his behavior toward the others (with you there, he may be artificially on his best behavior) but also their behavior towards one another. Do they appear to be warm and affectionate as a family group? Or is there tension in the air? The interaction at the dinner table may provide your first clue that he comes from a dysfunctional family (he himself may be blithely unaware of this on a conscious level and therefore may have given no indication of it when talking to you about his childhood). Of course, if you are not a mental health professional you can’t really make a final determination on family dysfunction (in some families, yelling and screaming serves a healthy purpose). But you do have two eyes and two ears: If subject’s mother through verbal intimidation and put-downs, you have grounds for concern that subject might try the same tactics on you at some point unless he has been through years of therapy.

Cultivating Informants

Always try to make friends with your lover’s best buddies’ girlfriends or wives. At least one of these women may have learned many of your lover’s secrets during pillow talk with her own partner. If she likes and trusts you, she will pass much of the gossip (unless, of course, she’s the one secretly involved with your lover on the side).

Checking Out His Paper Tail

How deeply you want to look into your lover’s past depends on many circumstances: If he’s someone from out of town who was unknown to any of your friends and acquaintances prior to your meeting him, or if some of his stories don’t quite add up, or if you just have an instinctive feeling that something’s wrong, then you would be well advised to do some checking in public records.

First, see if he has a criminal record. To check this you must know where he has lived in past years, his date of birth, his Adhar Number , and his full name. For tips on how to conduct such a search, see CNCS Guidelines; but be aware of the pitfalls: (1) National and state court records often are inaccurate and/or less than current; (2) a sloppy search can conjure up false links between an innocent person and crimes that in fact were committed by someone else with the same name; (3) Natural accessible to the public include only convictions (if Arun’s ex-wife chose to drop the assault charges against him before trail you will not learn about it through a routine public–records check, nor will you learn about his rape trail if he was found innocent on a technicality); (4) a criminal records check will be worthless if Arun is living under a carefully crafted false identity and has not revealed to you his real identity.

If Arun has lived in many different places and you are becoming increasingly, suspicious of his past, You might consider hiring a private investigator like me to verify his identity and do a through check for a criminal record. This advice is not just for new relationships but also for situations in which the guy you’ve been with for a couple of years suddenly start to act verbally abusive or strangely secretive. Hiring a private investigator can be expensive, but if you’re afraid subject might turn violent (and if you have kids in the house), do it.

If Your lover is someone who’s lived in your metropolitan area for a number of years, It’s feasible for you to check out his financial stability on your own. You may already have questions on this score because of letters from credit collection agencies you’ve seen lying around in his apartment or because of mutilple phone calls he’s received while you were in the apartment. You can search at CIBIL rating for tax liens, wage garnishments (the latter may be for child support), and listings in the judgement docket of money judgments obtained against him in court cases. You can search in the bankruptcy files at the local court to see if he (or any businesses he owns or used to own) has ever filed for bankruptcy. You can search the fillings to see if he has a heavy debt load. You can search at the register of deeds office for any foreclosure actions against his home.

Also check the local court indexes and those for any jurisdictions in which he lived previously to find any cases in which he is listed as either plaintiff or defendant. You may find that he’s been sued for fraudulent activity or for harassing a former girl-friend (be sure to get the full court record on any case in which a woman is the plaintiff and he’s the defendant).

This brings us to the question of his divorce. If you’ve listened carefully while he talked (and talked and talked) about it, you’ll already know where it was obtained and approximate date. If court records in divorce cases are open to the public in the given jurisdiction, check to see if there’s any allegations of spousal abuse (either physical or emotional ) or of child abuse, any restraining order against your lover, and whether or not he has to pay child support or alimony under the terms of the divorce. If the court records are sealed, you can at least get the name of the ex-wife’s attorney. It is probably, not wise, however, to contact an embittered ex-wife directly while you’re still involved with her former husband, but you might ask your best friend to call her on a pretext of concern for your well-being.

Just because there are no divorce records involving your lover does not mean he doesn’t have an ex-common-law wife or has not otherwise fathered children. Indeed, a man who has never been formally married may still have a string of paternity suits, restraining orders, compensations, judgments, etc., in his past. Always check for such cases in the relevant court indexes, and also check with the state office of child support (or whatever state agency serves the same function) in every state in which he has lived to see if he is wanted to failing to pay child support. If he has not told you about any children, you may still find pictures of them in his wallet or in his bed-room drawers.

If You Thinks He’s Not who He Says He Is

Let’s say you’ve checked out his paper trail and don’t find anything, dating back more than a few months. You might search his wallet while he’s in the shower, or look in any desk drawers where he’s likely to keep other I.D. while he’s gone to the market. If you find I.D. under another name or multiple names, don’t bother to confront him about it. He’d probably just tell you he’s a government secret agent (the-worn excuse of con men and other users of false I.D.). Simply walk out the door and never return.

You also might try shadowing your wayward lover. Again with the borrowed or rented car and the sunglasses, stake out his place of work in the afternoon and follow him when he leaves (or park near his house in the morning and follow him on his sales route). If you have only the evenings available, park near his home and wait for him to come out after dinner for his tomcat prowl. A camera is essential if you want to confront him with your evidence, but you should also take along a tape recorder with a microphone clipped to your blouse so that, without taking your hands off the wheel, you can dictate a record of the address he visits. Also essential are binoculars so you can read off license plate numbers of other people who arrive at those addresses (like the woman who arrives in her own car and goes into the hotel room with him) as well as the names on the mail-boxes of any houses he visits.

In tailing your lover, stay a couple of cars behind him and don’t do any-thing to draw attention to yourself (like jumping a red light to keep up with him), even if it means losing the tail. You always can try again another day unless he realizes he’s being followed.

If he goes into a bar, you can inquire later about this establishment to determine if it’s a gay bar, a pick-up spot for heterosexual singles, or simply a friendly neighborhood bar.

Finding the women in His Past

In general it’s not a good idea to seek out the women from his past while you’re still involved with him. But if you’ve made a decision to leave him (or are strongly considering doing so), a chat with one or two of these women might strengthen your resolve. Perhaps this might be the time finally to have that heart-to heart chat with the ex-wife he’s always raving against. If you don’t know where she lives, you may be able to locate her through her divorce attorney.

If you had the foresight early in your relationship to encourage Arun to talk about his ex-girlfriends, you will already have a string of names to contact. But if you didn’t, or if you suspect that he withheld certain names, you can look in his little black book and his regular books from years back. You can also get the names from his best friend on a pretext (or from his best friend’s girlfriend or wife without a pretext) or by looking in back-issue phone books, city directories, or crisscross directories (and campus student directories form his college years), or voter registration listings, to see with whom he previously shared households. Also, his shoebox files may contain old letters or birthday or cards from ex-girlfriends, or he may have a book that one of them gave him with her signature and expressions of undying love on the flyleaf, or there may be pictures of ex-girlfriends in a photo album (if a picture doesn’t have a name on the back you may be able to match it against the picture and name of girl in his college yearbook).

As noted above, an ex-girlfriend or common-law wife may have sued him and possibly obtained a judgement against him. Or he and she may have jointly owned real estate or a business (look in the register of deeds office and the property tax rolls). In general, the more carefully you have listened to his ramblings about previous romances, the more pointed the questions you have asked, and the better the notes you have taken, then the easier it will be for you to find his previous victims.

Note: If you have any reason to believe your lover at this stage in your relationship could turn violent if he knew you were following him or if you find that he’s traveling into dangerous neighborhoods (after drugs or prostitutes, perhaps), do not attempt to tail him; hire a private investigator or, better yet, just get out of the relationship.