He’s Mad I Went Through His Email to See If He Was Cheating
She went through his email to see if he was cheating. He was. But now he’s angry that she was snooping, as if invading his privacy was the greater sin.
***
Dear Chump Lady,
I wrote to you a while ago when I discovered that my husband and best friend were in love. That went down like a hydrogen blimp in a fire storm and though I was getting my ducks in a row, our marriage continued.
I tried therapy. My therapists were horrified and told me that it was not my fault though my weakness of character probably is. I got a full time job, after being a stay at home mom for many years. Unfortunately, I also felt entirely incapable of maintaining my friendships or connecting with my family. The betrayal had broken me so deep to my core I become hopeless.
Turns out that this was not his only love affair.
There had been a smattering, in the past, of women with whom he had found himself in a relationship. He described it as if it were somehow by accident.
And then as we moved forward, and I tried to repair my life, there were weird friendships with women. I tried not to worry. I tried to find strength. And just recently I thought I had almost managed to get past what had happened. I wasn’t comfortable in my marriage but given we were putting several children through college, I was content enough.
Imagine my surprise when I just had a feeling and investigated his email. I hadn’t done that in years. I guess surprise is an overstatement, but I wasn’t expecting to be so thoroughly duped again.
He had been meeting a friend, who I had an issue with, in secret.
There were no heart emojis or kissy faces or poetry inspired pet names this time, but it was still secret. I do not know what they got up to, if anything, except I know he enjoys time with her. More so than managing to celebrate our anniversary (it was six months ago and we still haven’t marked it). Seems appropriate now.
He made his choice I guess.
When I told him what I knew, he was appalled that I had gone through his email.
I do hate that I am like this now. However, he felt justified in keeping it a secret as I ‘had a problem’ with her: the single woman he would go out with to all hours and have deep conversations with. So, he’s done nothing wrong folks.
Signed,
Guess I’m Crazy Then
P.S. This is yet another reminder to trust that they suck.
***
Dear You’re Not Crazy,
Your husband has a long pattern of disrespecting you and cheating on you with other women. Being mad that you went through his email to see if he was cheating is just a standard fuckwit diversion tactic. It’s blameshifting. He’s not the bad guy for cheating — you’re the bad guy for looking.
He’s behaving as if snooping is the greater sin, because that leaves his entitlement unquestioned. Of course he can do what he wishes, unchallenged! because that is the natural order of things! He fucks around, you take it.
I suggest you stop taking it.
Don’t spend one second feeling guilty for looking at his email. It’s all about context. There’s a trope that chumps — especially straight women chumps — are irrationally jealous. (Ironically, I find that cheaters tend to be irrationally jealous and often accuse chumps of cheating. Projection, much?) The stereotype goes that you’re insecure and controlling, and the poor man has to put up with your hysterical suspicions.
I ask you, what is more statistically probable — that you’re mentally unbalanced with insecurity, or that your partner is shady AF? Seeing as we have an epidemic of normalizing cheating, I’d say it’s more likely that people act shady because they are, in fact, shady.
Clearly, in a healthy relationship, you respect each other’s privacy and have personal boundaries. You’d work from an assumption of trust.
You are not in a healthy relationship. You’re in some failed reconciliation hellscape. Going through a serial cheater’s email to see if he’s cheating is what the RIC unicorns call “transparency.” He’s the one who is supposed to be at pains to prove he’s trustworthy.
Duh, he’s not trustworthy.
What has he done to earn your trust? Forget your anniversary? Seems to me he’s leaning into his disgusting entitlement and daring you to take it.
There were no heart emojis or kissy faces or poetry inspired pet names this time, but it was still secret. I do not know what they got up to, if anything, except I know he enjoys time with her.
Leave the triangle (quadrangle, dodecahedron… I never tire of this line…) He can spend all the time he wants with her, minus you, his wife appliance.
You’ve lined up your ducks long enough. Go see a lawyer. You have absolutely nothing to work with here. Unless you want to spend the rest of your life as the marriage police, snooping to uncover fresh horrors.
You know enough. GET OUT. And don’t tell him. Just act. If he gets incensed, hey, you have your secrets too.
Wow, this is part of the FW playbook. “Snooping” is the biggest offense, far more than cheating!!! I got the same from exFW. Forget about lining the ducks up perfectly, because it will not go easily or quickly (usually). Just lawyer up and get out!
FW fought for two years and we had all the evidence in the world (including videos of Schmoopie and FW in all their naked glory). Yet, I was the one who invaded his privacy. Fortunately, the retired judge who did our settlement agreement did not agree with FW on spending marital assets on Schmoopie and massage parlor hookers! I got a great settlement and my peace for almost three years now. As to FW, I have no clue he does not even keep in touch with our son anymore either. He rode off into the sunset with his bevy of Schmoopie and hookers.
Please get out! Life will become serene and peaceful once he is gone!
lol. Sounds like there was no privacy to invade! 😳😱🤣
“including videos of Schmoopie and FW in all their naked glory“
“we had all the evidence in the world (including videos of Schmoopie and FW in all their naked glory”
Ohhhhh nooooooooo. OMG. I thought my FW was contemptuous to download pics of Mrs. Bendover on their beach weekend to my computer (I think by that time he wanted to be caught), but your FW takes the cake. Pardon the pun.
A oh yeah, he was a piece of work. He let his home grown porn get downloaded to our dob’s photo sharing account (fortunately our don was 26 and in the Navy and the account is how shared pictures with us wherever he was). My son doesn’t speak to FW and FW of course blamed me. I had no idea that I had superpowers whereby I control people like that!!!!
I was shocked at the time but now it is pretty much just a source of amusement to me. I am doing well and will even retire this year!
We mere mortals bow down before your magical prowess.
Seriously, if we had that kind of power, wouldn’t we use it for saving starving puppies, putting out fires in LA or playing the stock market?
Ah yes, the equivalency wars. Mine told me that my leaving the lights on when I left a room was the same as his having a secret sexual world, because both were disrespect. Then he was unpleased when I laughed like a hyena at that statement.
I am going through the divorce meat grinder now. May I ask how a retired judge did your settlement agreement: was he your mediator? Because a retired judge no longer serves as a judge, correct?
Anyway, I am very happy you made it out and got a great settlement. The whole system seems rotten to me so any news of success is good to hear…though I still want to burn it all to the ground and build a better way.
Me too!!!! But now out of the marital home and feeling free!!! I feel like I crawled out of a hole in the ground and I’m being reintroduced to civilization. Shell-shocked!
“I am going through the divorce meat grinder now.”
Yes, it was a court ordered mediation. They are most concerned about money being spent on Schmoopies. The great thing is FW lied to the guy and the evidence showed it. Good luck. These cheaters act so desperate to get out but then they fight like crazy to drive you insane.
Thanks. My FW does nothing but lie and violate court orders but there seems never to be a penalty. My opinion of lawyers, never high, has sunk to the depths of the ocean.
The whole system seems rotten to me. We get abused by our spouses, then abused by the RIC, then by our lawyers, then abused by the judicial system. After a divorce, the ending of the marital contract, a man’s standard of living rises appreciably and a woman and her children’s decreases significantly. What the hell kind of contract is that? It is evidence of systemic injustice.
I’ve see the same stats and agree which is why I think cheating being officially viewed as domestic abuse and legislation against coercive control could help victims financially by allowing them to sue for pain and suffering. For good measure, I’d like to see the current legal definition and penalties for “receipt of stolen property” applied to Schmoopies and higher-end escorts compelling them to return the value of payments, gifts and amenities when paid for with stolen marital assets to chumps or face prison.
There are certain considerations that make the criminalization of adultery a big unlegislatable mess (like the slightly elevated and arguably forgivable statistical tendency of severely battered women to “monkey branch” if just to have a bodyguard on hand while they make their harrowing escapes. Or cases of gold diggers offering an open arrangement and then claiming adultery when they wanted to cash in). But it would be great if there were ways to make cheating more risky and less attractive for intentional douchebags while also providing victims with a bit of financial compensation.
Totally on board with the coercive control and can hardly wait until it is more known in the US.
I think all adultery is abuse but also that there is a whole different level of abuse when you are dealing with a narcissist or anti-social. My ex was diagnosed as both. These people are malevolent and I think their pleasure is primarily in hurting people they have power over….way more powerful to them than sex. I’ve looked into what this is criminally and it seems to be Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress and also has elements of Callous Indifference to Human Life. I wish we could have a few obvious and egregious cases tried in each state and make new case law, so that the Chumps that come after us only have to face the abuse from a partner, and not the RIC and the courts. I also want the licenses pulled from any therapist who does not have a cheating partner assessed for it BEFORE the wife is further abused in years of marriage counseling.
Here’s my Johnny Cohran impression: “When it’s Narc ABUSE, therapy ain’t no use.
As soon as my divorce is final, if my husband doesn’t kill me, I want to change the system.
I’m with you about changing the system. Some experiences drive us so far over the border of ever feeling “normal” again or living a mundane existence that so-called “radicalization” seems like the logical next step.
At this point I don’t actually think it’s all that radical to rattle the cage, just common sense given the reality. I embrace it and even enjoy a lot of it. For one, the company is fab. 😉
Whenever I see these “how dare you snoop through my emails/texts” posts about angry FWs, I can’t help but think “what would I do if my significant other snooped through my email?” And guess what? When you aren’t doing anything, it’s not upsetting! My email is one boring read — filled with ads and spam I never delete.
But it would also make me want to sit down with my partner and ask why they are concerned. This would open a conversation. If they don’t trust me, what’s going on?
My point is — if a FW is reacting with anger, it’s because they are hiding something. And you know that already. You already know they are a FW. As CL said, get out now. Lawyer up and free yourself. Sounds like your therapists agree too.
I somewhat disagree with this. If my partner wanted to know what I was up to, had concerns for whatever reason, I would not be okay with snooping, and I would get upset. I absolutely would be okay with him saying “I feel insecure about ABC for XYZ reasons.” And I would consent to him looking at my email and texts. The important thing is the communication about his insecurity, as you say. Snooping is only half effective anyway because you can snoop his email. but what about the email address that you don’t know about? What about the burner phone? FaceBook, Whats App, apparently you can hide communication using Words With Friends…. Some FWs are amateurs while others have deception down to a science.
That being said, for a FW to get furious by snooping is BS. What they are furious about is that they got caught,
I’m rethinking my comment. It’s probable that if you are dealing with a FW then an honest conversation is out of the question anyway. I was thinking about how I would react, not about how a FW lives his/her life.
I found out about XH’s final affair partner by checking his phone. I was an idiot and confronted him immediately, sobbing.
It took him less than five minutes to go from hugging me and saying “I’m sorry” to upbraiding me for “invading [his] privacy” and checking his phone. He said I was a disgusting person for it, and he would never, EVER invade my privacy like that. I’d just literally caught him cheating and now somehow *I* was the one feeling like crap.
A few weeks later, he gave me divorce paperwork, but accidentally left something in it I wasn’t supposed to have. It was a photograph of my desktop screen open to something on my FB page that might have been legally useful to him. Again, I confronted him with the photo. “What was that you said about never invading my privacy??”
“Oh, I didn’t take that picture, someone else took that picture and sent it to me.”
“You let someone else into my apartment, they got on my desktop, went through my FB, took a picture, and sent it to you?”
He shrugged. He hadn’t thought through his dumb lie.
Months later, he admitted he took the picture himself. He also told the sidechick sensitive things about our sex life, so so much for not invading my privacy.
Cheaters don’t actually give any damns about “privacy,” they would snoop on you in a heartbeat. They just don’t like getting caught. Classic DARVO.
Just as an afterthought, bear in mind that some of the backstabbing complaints about chumps might have a value to cheaters beyond blameshifting and contempt. It might be intended to “dog train” Schmoopies out of having any agency or ever daring to stand up for themselves by using chumps as the “heads on pikes” showing the consequences of “displeasing” a FW. It might also explain FW’s tendency to fabricate baffling charges against chumps: because the charge was originally meant to scare a Schmoopie out of doing some particular thing they were prone to do.
That makes more and more sense if you really think about the kinds of things that FWs typically charge chumps with… like being independent, refusing sex, demanding accountability, responding to anger with anger, etc., etc. By the mere act of cheating, cheaters are demonstrating to the people they’re cheating with what the consequences of displeasing them are so the complaints about chumps are essentially edicts with bullets in the chamber.
Plus if you consider the fact that cheaters have an agenda to frog-boil primary partners into accepting shit sandwiches, it’s only logical to assume they’d have to double down on this effort when trying to get side pieces to accept the extra mega shit sandwich of being “dirty secrets,” keeping affairs under wraps, never holding hands in public and spending every holiday alone.
I think there’s even an expression for this in psychology– “influence by association” or something.
This is just it! The whole affair with a Schmoopie involves invading a chump’s privacy as the cheater talks about all kinds of sensitive, private things with the AP (true or untrue). They might reveal private things about us for years. It’s such a betrayal!
Looking in a cheater’s phone or computer after sensing something is off but you know your FW wouldn’t tell the truth if you asked about it? Kinda necessary for one’s sanity and fueling action steps to move forward, and not.at.all equivalent to cheating.
I’d like to expand this invasion of privacy argument a bit further. My idiotic FW recently again accidentally or who knows could be on purpose to get attention shared all his photos and videos on my son’s ipad from 2018 onwards, so I could see various bits and bobs pre and post separation and join the dots of his shenanigans. None of the x rated stuff, that would have been on the burner phone, but creepy stuff nonetheless. What really pissed me off was the way he used our son, who was 3 or 4, has autism, as a prop for selfies which I assume he sent to AP to make himself look like father of the year. He wasn’t a selfie taker, but a pattern emerged as time wore on. Including a video of him playing handball with our son who in the video who was so happy his dad, who was too busy to spend time with him during covid lockdown (had to go to office to cheat as i later worked out, creepy videos of that on there too), was playing with him, and his dad was just using him to groom his AP. His creep dad walks toward the camera to turn it off, satisfied he has the footage to fool the AP he is a wonderful person. That is an invasion of something beyond privacy, he invaded my son’s autonomy, dignity and well-being just to get a root and some narc supply. But no, the issue is I looked at his messages. Disgusting human beings, the lot of them.
So disgusting! I’m sorry your young son was used as a prop like that. My ex never took selfies until he was in a romantic relationship with his AP who lived long distance most of the time. Yep, needed narc supply.
To cast us as jealous fishwives ergh. I couldn’t care less where he put his pickle. I was done with my FW years before, but he never wanted to separate. To see the smile on my son’s face believing his dad loved him so much. He is still being gaslit. It is abuse, plain and simple.
So sorry to everyone.
🙁
“He also told the sidechick sensitive things about our sex life, so so much for not invading my privacy.” My FW did the same, and it was one of the most upsetting things that happened duirng the whole situation. I had suffered a bad birth injury that had some bad (and embarrassing) side effects. I hadn’t really talked to ANYONE about it, but HE felt like he could tell MY COWORKER about my damaged body *in the context of how it affected HIM*. Oddly, he told me this during an “apology” and when I heard that, I stopped listening to him and left.
Holy smokes! What a terrible person! You were right to shut that down.
See my comment above. The complaints about your birth injuries may have been basically warnings to the AP that she had better not have any health problems or present any obstacles to sex or have human needs in any regard because… look how he treated you.
That’s not to provide some kind of alibi for trashing you behind your back but just to suggest that part of the motive was to make an example of you in order to control someone else. It’s hardly a consolation but it sort of shows how FWs treat everyone as hostile opponents who need to be contained and threatened into compliance.
Mine did this. His ex was supposedly a maniac. Super, super bitchy. Always picking fights. Guess who in turn NEVER picked a fight, raised my voice or got bitchy? Ding Ding Ding! Some of that was also learned behavior, I watched my mom walk on eggshells my whole life. So I was the perfect candidate for that type of control.
I can’t remember the psychology term for it but I think it’s listed under the heading of “cognitive fallacy” but more specifically something to do with “inducing fallacies” in others for the purpose of manipulation and was called “influence by association.” Or “fallacy by association”?
Something like that. It’s common enough that there should be a little nugget of a term representing what it is so more people recognize it as a thing. I started calling it the “heads on pikes tactic” or making someone a “cautionary tale” but that’s more clunky. I’ve noticed it sometimes works by inducing terror and sometimes by appealing to competitive hubris. In your case it sounds like fear was the accelerant. What a prick.
“Heads on a Pike” Tactic may be a mouthful, but it really drives the point home.
He definitely used fear to control me in many ways. But in the case where he made his ex sound awful, it absolutely worked by appealing to my competitive side. Idon’t think I ever felt like I was actively competing, because she was the ex. But more that the more he talked about her being mean, the more it made me want to be extra nice.
I felt good about what a great fit we were because WE didn’t fight like that. I’m not neccessarily proud to admit that, but in early days of our relationship that absolutely was a factor.
The joke of it is that sure, we didn’t fight. But only because I didn’t say boo about anything negative he did, if he got angry/loud, I got meek, I walked on eggshells constantly, to try to keep his mood light. That is not really the same as organically not fighting. There was certainly tension. All one sided. HE was fighting,and I just didn’t fight back. That is not any better.
It is SO clear and obvious NOW. At the time, I thought we were a perfect match. In the meantime, he was always in a one-sided fight, which ALSO then put me on edge and that fear controlled me too. Bonus for him.
What you’re saying seems to be that, in your situation, fear more than competitive hubris was what effectively manipulated you.
I relate. But, come to think of it, competitive hubris can be such a common, benign or even positive human trait. If you think about it, it’s what makes a lot of people good at competing in sports and navigating politics. Some people are able to express it mostly positively and to good effect so I sometimes wish I had more of that instinct. It’s not a bad instinct in itself. Character is more about what that instinct is aimed towards– i.e., help or harm.
I try not to dwell because dwelling doesn’t lead to meh. But there is so much I don’t know. Iknow enough to know this marriage is not safe or acceptable.
And most of the time I can just accept that. “You know MORE than enough to leave, and you are smart enoughtoknow that there is SO much more and the details will not promote healing”
But we all have our good and bad days. And sometimes I really get so curious about what he told her. How much was true? Or semi true but rexaggerated? Did he lie completely? It truly doesn’t matter but I am a curious person by nature, and it is so hard to just swallow the fact that there was all this stuff going on in MY marriage that I didn’t know anything about. They had a long distance, mostly emotional affair. What did he show her even of just himself? Let alone what he may have said about our marraiage.
I know that his “friends” got better treatment. No doubt in my mind.
And I don’t know what he was saying behind my back.
But I truly don’t care anymore. I’m living alone and I love it!!!!
See what I wrote above. If any part of you wonders or suffers over the idea that APs got better treatment than you, you can ditch that notion. Everything bad he ever said about you was solely meant to dog-train the next candidate into avoiding your fate by being as floppy and passive as possible. In other words, encoded in everything he trashed you for is something you should be proud of because it clearly thwarted his agenda of total control. These creeps are kind of like the Omnidroid from The Incredibles. They learn from the defenses of their last victims how to control and coerce their next victims.
It’s actually a hilarious thought to me, that he will try to make his current gf MORE “floppy and passive ” than me. Any floppier and I’d be dead. I’m not debating your theory at all. As I said above I can, in hindsight, see how he did that to me by stating his PREVIOUS girlfriend was really mean and bitchy. I more just find it funny to imagine him looking for someone to be MORE compliant than me.
Same here, with the added delight of him telling me about her private things. I wonder if she even knows how much I know about her and her effed up childhood.
Lol, I got to hear about the little “pig grunts” the AP made while she gobbled up the overpriced grub paid for with family assets. And how her butt stank of shit because Americans don’t use bidets or clean their nethers enough. And how she atonally squawked along with really bad white rap songs on the car radio. And how her thick pancake makeup caked up in her pitted acne scars in the sunlight. And how she had to lie on the floor to violently yank her two-size-too-small jeans over her giant ass and beer gut. And how, for her, the height of culture was naked yoga videos and illiterate, pornographic crime fiction.
Even if I was a sociopathic cyborg with zero scruples or empathy, I’d never want to be a side piece because of how some FWs tend to casually throw the latter under the misogynistic bus during their lame reconciliation campaigns.
That doesn’t even get into how kids regard side pieces once they learn of affairs. Even the coldest psychopath would probably want to avoid that level of mocking bad PR.
Mine did that too. He told me OW’s most private and shocking secrets as well as her messed up family history. This was supposedly his twu wuv, yet he threw her under the bus immediately and told me things I never even asked about. As a result I was able to inform OW’s husband of her many cheating episodes with multiple men. Even after all that he stayed with her, but at least he finally got the truth.
FWs are loyal to nobody.
They are loyal, fiercely loyal to one person, and that is themselves.
Yeah, that’s the kicker, isn’t it? They totally betray our privacy in numerous ways but there’s is sacred. Mine told so many people personal sexual things about me that when I was going through the divorce and STD tests, I had people I trusted make comments that made me stop and go, “WTF are you talking about?” Many of the things he told people were simply made up. So I had to deal with asking women I trusted why they thought that and realizing they had discussed my sex life with my husband. My sister even made a comment about why was I getting STD tests since we weren’t having sex. I had to tell her we were having sex regularly right up until the end of the marriage and she looked so surprised. I still can’t think of where they would have had the conversation about me being frigid and sexless unless they were… I don’t like to think about it. I’ve never had a conversation with any man about how his wife doesn’t have sex with him. I don’t get why that would happen. It’s really inappropriate.
When I was about 19, I heard a few married male acquaintances/workmates complain about lack of sex with their wives or– code for same– how their wives “worked/traveled for work too much.” Even at that age I knew these creeps were creeps and were trying to groom me at their wives’ expense. My response was to be a punk and defend their wives on feminist grounds so I really have little sympathy for grown-ass adults who fall for that line of bull.
I’m so sorry.
I learned the hard way that narcissists attract enablers who are just as shitty, inappropriate, and lacking common sense and decency. Each side are like half-formed people who require each other to form a whole organism. A terrible and dysfunctional one, but one nonetheless.
Example: I dated an abusive guy in my 20s (“dated” is debatable, it was more like a hostage situation) and couldn’t figure out why our mutual friends never stood up for me. I blamed myself and thought for the longest time that I was the problem.
Nope! Years later, people told me he abused every woman he got involved with “but that’s just how he is” and “we just figured you deserved it.” Thanks, assholes.
I hope you cut them out of your life.
I absolutely did. All of them were losers even without accounting for the enabling/co-abuse. Many never went anywhere in life. All were older than me, some in their 30s or 40s.
Learned the hard way that older people don’t befriend college students because they’re “so mature for their age”, it means the older folks are some combo of predators, enablers, or losers who can’t relate to people their own age.
“we just figured you deserved it.”
un-effing-believable.
Schmoopie openly posted memes with little digs that I know came from Fuckwit telling her things about me. You’re absolutely right, cheaters don’t care one fuck about your privacy and confidentiality if it means incentivizing the Schmoopies to do the pick-me dance.
Mine told me that it felt unseemly and beneath me to look through his texts and phone records. I laughed out loud and told him it was in fact beneath me and that was partially why the marriage was ending. His actions weren’t unseemly or beneath dignity, just my method of discovery. Can’t make it up.
“I laughed out loud and told him it was in fact beneath me and that was partially why the marriage was ending.” This is perfect.
When I caught my FW, after receiving a message from some woman thanking him for their time spent together, I walked out in a pandemic no less and left him high and dry, several months later he contacted me, it took him that long to try and dig out of this mess, he told me the woman was a lesbian……..you cannot make this stuff up. He married someone else shortly after, again not fiction, fact. Men are a hair above dogs, not all, but most.
Gotta love that ittook him several months to reach out, and in allthat time, the best he could do was “she is a lesbian”? So much of what we all go through would be hilarious if it wasn’t our life.
The number of chumps that sincerely thought their spouse may have a brain tumor is HILARIOUS. It is SO common. But it’s not so funny when you are living in it. I remember where I was sitting when he was talking and my internal dialogue was “oh my god, someting is seriously wrong here, could itbe a brain tumor?” And then I read here that TONS of chumps legitimately have those moments, and that is scary. The stuff my FW was saying was so wacky and so out of character for him that it was chilling to see how serious he was.
I thought my ex-husband had Alzheimer’s. His mother had it, and some of her sisters. When he got his health insurance and the boat insurance cancelled for non-payment and then had four single car or at-fault accidents in three months which led to the cancellation of our car insurance, I was sure he had Alzheimer’s. He kept falling off the boat, did stupid stuff like working on the propane line with a lit joint hanging out of his mouth or standing up in the dinghy and then falling into the water while the dinghy either drifted away or motored on without him. He fell off the dock a few times, too, once with the dog. We lived on the boat. I was always terrified he’d fall into the water in the winter and would drown before I could get to him. But nope, not Alzheimer’s. He didn’t pay the insurance on the boat or his health insurance to stick it to me. He figured if there were an issue, I’d end up paying for his health care or damage he caused to the boat by running aground or hitting buoys. He actually had a plan to stick me with his messes. The car “accidents”? At least two of them were road rage and one was DUI. Alcohol may have been involved in the road rage incidents, or possibly drugs. Not Alzheimer’s, just a protracted temper tantrum because — and this is something I cannot wrap my mind around — he didn’t want to fuck a woman in menopause, and I *chose* to go through menopause. (Yes, I chose the cancer treatment that was most likely to actually treat the cancer. My bad.). He was also unhappy with how my body looked after my cancer surgery. I didn’t even catch on to the cheating then; his sister told me months later.
Ruby,
Ugh. I’m so sorry. As if the struggles of fighting cancer aren’t bad enough your FW was not understanding about the side effects of your life saving treatment. They truly don’t have bars low enough to measure these freaks.
Absolutely with you on the brain tumor thing. It was frightening. Also it set up in my head a moral dilemma which I took very seriously and really upset me for awhile, to whit: if he has a brain tumor who is going to take care of him after 37 years together? The “love of his life for the past two and a half months”? As bad as the post-separation abuse was could I really leave him alone with a brain tumor? One of the reasons Mrs. Bendover gave for justifying her betrayal of her husband was “He has cancer and I’ve been taking care of him for a long time.” (By which she meant driving him to appointments – he was fully functional otherwise.) So I assumed she would “nope” out. And true chump that I am I figured I would have to take care of him. So thank God it was a case of mental breakdown and not cancer.
I actually had those guilty thoughts in general, even aside from the possible brain tumor. I kept thinking “what if he gets reallysiuckwhile we are separated? Whowould take care of him? *I* would have to take care of him! It was a very upsetting thought.
Me too! He snapped and suddenly had a long list of accusations going back to the 90s!! I was shocked! It was like he had been keeping a list of every slight he imagined in his pea brain.
“The stuff my FW was saying was so wacky and so out of character for him that it was chilling to see how serious he was.“
My husband of 30 years fell in love with his massage therapist on my benefit plan, that one never fails to get a giggle and then people are profusely apologizing to me for laughing, I figure the entire experience should be worth at least a chuckle to someone. He blew up his entire family for a fling that lasted the summer. Yes, men are that stupid…
My FW’s affair lasted much longer than one summer. BUT,it was years before I was aware, and then a few years of pickme dancing/ terror of leaving. But much like your story, when push came toshow and he was actuallyleaving the marital home? They broke upfor good before he was moved into his apartment. So while the affair lasted awhile, he blew up all of our lives for a woman that he never ended up with once he was FREE to be with her. (He claims he dumped her, I’m convinced she dumped him, and think it is possible that once she could have him, really have him, she no longer wanted him because where was the fun in that?)
Well not only did mine cheat, I left the home because he wasn’t man enough to leave and I couldn’t stand to be there with him. He had the nerve to want me to help pay the bills at home while I was out paying rent somewhere else. My female shark lawyer put at end to that. The most hurtful thing for me was my adult son and his girlfriend embracing the new woman almost immediately. That hurt.
“The stuff my FW was saying was so wacky and so out of character for him that it was chilling to see how serious he was.”
The real mindfuck starts when you realize that it wasn’t at all out of character, his true character that is, it just didn’t match the false mask you thought was real, sometimes for decades.
Regular people, therapists, lawyers, the courts, judges are unprepared and ill-equipped to deal with people with NPD, or who are anti-social (sociopaths/psychopaths). In my view. The disordered just burn like a fire through tinder made of decent people…and their children.
Where I come from when a man is thinking with his penis, we call it “drinking the silly water” when all rational thought has been annihilated by his libido. I think my husband thought he was 18 again, and nobody was the boss of him, he was going to do what he wanted when he wanted. His doctor had put him on an anxiety medication called Celexa for stress and once he got on that pill he was invincible I didn’t know who he was anymore. These dr’s prescribe meds and don’t even check up to see how the patient is doing. His entire life blew up and the doctor could care less. I had even gone to the dr about my husbands irrational behaviour. I should have known when he was sitting there with his ponytail and bald spot he had his own problems. When I randomly ran into him in the mall one day and told him what had happened to our family he just shrugged and said “well you’re looking good” ugh what an idiot. He followed it up with “your husband was always a bit out there”. Good grief.
Good for you! You know your worth!
You are NOT Crazy, although staying with a cheat and a liar is not good for your mental health.
You wrote, “My therapists were horrified and told me that it was not my fault though my weakness of character probably is.”
What and whose weakness of character is your fault? You honored your marriage vows, tried to forgive, went from SAHM to working full-time, got several kids into college and paid tuition. Maybe all this effort, plus swallowing down what cheater did, made you depressed as well as disappointed and exhausted, It’s hard to keep connections with friends and family if you aren’t expressing authentic feelings, and instead are pasting on a we’re OK happy face. You could have serious physical and mental indigestion from swallowing down your hurt and rage. You must be exhausted from the effort you’ve made, and his continued disrespect.
And what has cheater done? Enjoyed his life, put his emotional energy into ego-stroking emotional and/or physical relationships with other women, and thrilled to the continued deceit. He probably figures that if he blame-shifts you for finding out, you’ll continue to make your needs small and he’ll continue doing whatever he wants.
Your kids are launched and you can support yourself financially. You can also support yourself emotionally and mentally.
And just a reminder–you only know what you know. When clearing out cheater’s stuff, I discovered boxes and receipts from four or five NEW cell phones and printouts from an equal number of unknown email accounts he’d set up. And hard evidence he’d been draining my personal assets as well as joint marital assets for over a decade, past the statute of limitations to get them back.
Keep some secrets of your own. Find a good lawyer and get as much control of your own assets and evidence as possible before letting him know you’re divorcing. Get tested and stop intimacy. What you’ve been doing for years is probably harder than divorce. You’re already distanced from friends and family, so at this point, what do you have to lose except a lying, unloving, unworthy cheater?
It’s funny how Cheaters act all upset and start to claim that their privacy has been violated when their shenanigans are exposed. In two words ….. “F*ck ’em.” If they don’t like their shady sh*t being exposed and then being held to account for it, then (perhaps) they should cut down on the whole “doing shady sh*t” routine.
I can remember Ex-Mrs LFTT refusing to discuss the texts between her and her AP that our kids found and showed to me on the grounds that “They are private and you have no right to see them.” Looking back now (D-Day was nearly 10 years ago and the Divorce was finalised about 2 years later) it all seems laughable that she really thought that her lies weren’t going to get found out.
She sucks!
LFTT
My first thought that came to mind, as it often does: folks, here we have another chump propping up a fuckwit, ….making the fuckwit seem wayyyy better than he/she is. And you friend, are better than him, way way better. Let the “poor” -said facetiously- man go find his level of fucktardness. He may find another chump to prop him up or someone else that he topples with over into a pile of💩 . However, he’s just not in your class, friend. Not at all.
My thought exactly. It’s not for the kids — they’re launched in college. Our LW needs a little courage; she’s almost there. You can do this, LW.
This is the shit I got. Not just from FW but from damn near everybody around me. “How dare you look at his computer! How dare you! It doesn’t matter what he did, you had NO RIGHT!”
Just to clarify, what I found on my FW’s computer was that he was having sex with girls as young as 16 (legal in my state and many states so spare me any lectures about going to the police, it’s legal, THEY DO NOT CARE AND CANNOT DO ANYTHING ABOUT THAT. Can you tell I’ve had a lot of judgment and blame thrown at me over all this? I have to make disclaimers every time I talk about it.) Anyways, while not a crime, it was enough to sicken me and I don’t think any decent 40 year old screws 16 year old girls. He also would post pictures (but not pornographic pictures) of very young girls on his pervert chat boards and make comments like “She was born to be r*ped.” on them. And he had saved stories about brutally raping young children under the age of 10. But, no pictures on those, so it isn’t a crime. He knew what he could get away with. And it still isn’t a crime even if I go down to the police station and scream at the police about it. Anyone judging me can do that if they want but it’s actually not how laws get changed and they still won’t arrest people for committing non crimes no matter how loud you scream. It’s not like I did nothing, my lawyer told me I had to stop warning people or he could come after me for slander because the parents I was warning because I cared about their children went back to FW and told him what I said. I’m not magic, I don’t control our legal system. It was a shitty experience.
But it was all enough for me to be completely horrified and start thinking about every child we knew and every child we had ever interacted with or babysat. I had to have a conversation with my young adult son that I think left us both traumatized. I’m sharing this for perspective, remember! I was STILL told that my snooping was SO MUCH WORSE than anything he was doing! I was told if I didn’t trust him, I should have just left. I had NO RIGHT to find out he was a literal pedophile. That was such an invasion of his sacred pedophile rights. I heard this from PARENTS of children he had had opportunities to abuse. They still didn’t care. *GASP! HOW COULD YOU LOOK AT HIS COMPUTER!” They would not even consider any of it nor would they look at his publicly accessible social pervert accounts with his pictures and email and facebook attached because I found that information while snooping, therefore it was tainted.
That’s how fucked up and stupid people are about this issue. There are people who would rather sacrifice their own children than look at someone’s public postings on the internet. Because PRIVACY!!!!! They accused me of stalking and “hacking” him. All I had to do was make an account on these websites and read everything he was posting for everyone to see. And hacking? He had the stories saved on his computer. I just had to open a file, which is about the extent of my hacking skills anyways, I suppose. LOL
People who think snooping is the worst thing anyone could ever do are simply evil. If they’re more mad at somebody finding out about the act than the act itself, they’re showing you clearly who they are, and you should worry about what they are hiding themselves. Anyone who acts like this should be removed from your life like the cancerous tumor that they are.
“legal in my state and many states so spare me any lectures about going to the police, it’s legal, THEY DO NOT CARE AND CANNOT DO ANYTHING ABOUT THAT. Can you tell I’ve had a lot of judgment and blame thrown at me over all this? I have to make disclaimers every time I talk about it.”
I am so sorry that people are blaming you for even this too! I have a very similar story. My ex fully sexually assaulted several (then) minors and it IS fully illegal. I had people come after me for not reporting it too. But:
1.) These people are all now fully adult,
2.) I do not have their consent to report the crimes perpetrated against them,
3.) Many of the victims have already frequently been victimized by the police already,
4.) Police DGAF,
5.) Putting someone through an investigation with the police, even with their consent, is a severely retraumatizing series of events and almost never results in any kind of conviction.
I wish people who think they are victim advocates would prioritize supporting victims rather than outing them to police so that only further harm can come upon them. All of that said, I am so so sorry for all that you have been through and thank you for sharing your story.
(I also feel like I could have written what you did about the negative consequences of warning others, which I also had to stop doing as cheater was downright threatening me.)
I hope those enablers are ashamed of themselves now that this asshole is facing prison. (Sadly, in my experience, people who should feel shame rarely do and will just come up with another excuse.)
A 40-year old sleeping with a teenager is revolting and sexual predation. I don’t care what the law says, it was made by old men who probably preyed on kids themselves.
Really sorry this happened to you.
I struggled mightily with whether to employ a voice recorder in an effort to gain truth. I am an ethical person and that was definitely crossing a line that made me uncomfortable with myself. Turns out that I could only take five years of being gaslit until I was willing to set aside my own integrity. I was so crushed by what I learned that I told him how I learned it. (Huge mistake as many of you tender souls know). He reacted with anger. How dare I invade his privacy! I didn’t know how badly I had affected him! Yup, I wouldn’t know how being treated deceptively by the person you trusted the most in the entire world would feel, now would I.
I explained the difference between privacy (ends at a closed bathroom door in a healthy marriage) and secrecy (willfull withholding with the intent to deceive). Eventually I figured out that this is just another example of “Its not what I did. It’s your reaction to it that’s the real problem”.
Five years is a LONG time to suffer gaslighting. Most prisoners of war crack much faster than that.
You say you “set aside your integrity”, but I don’t see that at all and hope you’re not blaming yourself for anything. You could tell you were being lied to and did an audit which to me is fully justified.
“I explained the difference between privacy (ends at a closed bathroom door in a healthy marriage) and secrecy (willfull withholding with the intent to deceive).”
Excellent point.
This I call forgiveness grooming. First he gets away with an affair or 3 of them. You stay, next he can do what he wants cause you forgave him. Now your snooping..it’s not his sneaking and lying its YOU! But now you’re scared he’s right and you let that go. The water is getting hotter but you stay and forgive over and over. This is called Profound disrespect toward you. This is not love, you are of use. This does nor get better, disrespect never does. I’m so sorry. You can get out now or wait till your 70 like me. IT DOES NOT GET BETTER AND HE HAS NO LOVE FOR YOU. You are to be hurt and discarded. Again I’m so sorry. Protect yourself. Listen to CL!!
I first clued in to the fact that they weren’t “just friends” when I found FW’s laptop open and he was logged in to his Facebook and I saw messages between them that were not things that friends would say to each other. Unfortuately, I believed his excuses (it was a one-sided crush that AP had on him, blah blah blah) for awhile. I eventually checked the phone records and could not find any reason in my mind why “just friends” would clock over 50 hours of phone calls a month. Including times when he said he was doing other things (commuting to work, when he said he listened to podcasts).
He got angry that I “invaded his privacy” and that I was worse than he was because of that. It’s ridiculous mental gymnastics. He was so paranoid that I was coming to the house and looking through his things, that he installed security cameras (without telling me – we were separated). A waste of his time and money, because I never did that. If I needed to get something from the house for my kid or whatever, I always contacted him and asked permission and usually came when he was there. Even though legally it was as much my house as his and there was no legal reason why I couldn’t be there except me being courteaous.
Mine sent me a threatening text linking an article that in our state you can sue your spouse for invading your electronic privacy. The irony was, the thing I had confronted him with didn’t even come from his phone. I have never yet bothered to confront him on the far more damning things I screenshotted from there (using the password he had shared with me 1000 times in the past when our marriage was better). We are a no-fault state so it doesn’t even actually matter what I got from his phone, in the end. I just thought it was wild he was going to try to put me in jail (since all my money is his, as a SAHM).
Do you have your own lawyer? Marital money is shared (not “his”). I hope you have someone in your corner who is fighting to make sure you get your fair share.
Yes I do! I meant “his” more from his point of view. And the fact that there’s nothing to sue me for. He’s fond of referring to everything as his – his house, his money, his cars, his retirement fund, his kids, his everything. Even my son’s gaming computer that he saved up and bought with his own money is fair game for FW to claim when he’s mad. It would be laughable at this point if he couldn’t actually put me in dire straights by moving his direct deposit to an account I can’t access. I know he “can’t” legally, but it will still be a mess to resolve if he does.
I hope it doesn’t come to that, and I’m relieved to hear you have a lawyer. You can’t mediate with these assholes and can’t expect them to play fair. I hope your attorney is protecting you financially and is looking into a forensic accountant. Fuckwits often steal marital assets, and you can ask for stolen funds back in the settlement.
My FW was so angry that I found texts between her and schmoppie. Classic blameshifting and diversion. She’s the one that actually handed me her phone, but my sin of “invading her privacy” was worse than her fucking another man. During my too long pickme phase I would ask her questions, trying to get closure and honesty about her betrayal, but she would never admit to anything that I didn’t find out on my own. I’m supposed to just believe that the instances I found, and red flags I ignored were her only indiscretions, that she of course minimized as much as possible. Still working on just trusting that she sucks. Getting closer to Tuesday.
I guess you can feel justified in keeping secrets of your own, LW. Get all the documents, get to a doctor for STD checks, and get the meanest lawyer you can find.
Also, find your anger. What he’s done is outrageous.
I just got a new load of this, years after D-Day and divorce. Sometimes FWs just can’t let it go, like, ever. My FW gave me her passwords. But my actually using them was “grinding her down” without mercy. I made the marriage “impossible.” I kept discovering new contact with APs. She’d still lie to my face about it, even though she knew I had her passwords. When I called out that lying, I became the “Gestapo.” And that’s why I’m happily divorced.
And yeah, like PrincipledLife said in another comment, “the equivalency wars”- they are brutally stupid. I said she broke our vows by having affairs. She said I broke our vows first by not “seeing” her, which caused affairs.
No irony there. FW pleads to be “seen.” When FWs communications are “seen,” it turns out she’s carrying on with a collection of men.
I love the term “brutally stupid,” may I steal it? Your ex-wife wanted you to see her image, not her, after which you were supposed to clap like a seal in adoration. But Gestapo secret agent man that you are you saw the real her. That’s the real sin. My husband will never forgive me…for the things he’s done to me and that I now see the real him.
By all means, steal away. And just exactly so on the image. She talks so much she creates an impenetrable wall. People either think she’s charming and exuberant, or they clam up and think to themselves “what’s with this maniac?” I know that because people came to me after the divorce to ask what her deal was.
“Brutally stupid” is my new favorite phrase! It describes disordered people to a tee. They think they’re smarter than everyone else in the room despite no evidence to back that up, and for some reason are always shocked when they shoot their own kneecaps off.
Your husband is like a white collar criminal stealing money at his job and then getting outraged when he’s caught in an audit. Whose fault is that?
Don’t waste your time arguing with someone who’s arguing in bad faith. There’s no point. He’s not confused, he just doesn’t care. He will never apologize or take responsibility. He wants to blame you so he’s off the hook. Prisons are full of people like this. Courts don’t argue with them, they just enact consequences.
I’m so sorry this asshole betrayed you in such a horrible way. I second Chump Lady, see a divorce lawyer and DON’T TELL HIM. Anything you say can and will be used against you.
Hide the payments to the lawyer and ask them about the best way to protect your finances. If you don’t have your own bank account, open one and reroute your paycheck there.
I attempted (and failed) to get into my FW’s phone. She woke up when I returned it to the bedside, erupted in rage, stomped downstairs, and – discovering that I’d left the computer on and myself logged into my email – proceeded to read all my emails with my family trying to comprehend what was happening to my marriage. She informed of this the next morning without any hint of awareness of the hypocrisy. She was mainly upset that my family wasn’t on her side about her (speculated, but later confirmed) affair.
It is clear to me that the faux outrage is an attack ploy (as in DARVO) and nothing more.
She wanted your family to support her fucking strange? This is next level delusion.
I hope you’re divorced and safely away from this idiot.
In the absence of our poet laureate… To the tune of Aretha’s Shoop Shoop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZLIPmg74p8
The Snoop Snoop Song
Is he cheating I want to know
How can I tell without passcodes?
In a Rolodex?
Sure, if it’s 1965
Or a little black book?
If he’s Jeffrey Epstein
But if you’re (snoop snoop) wondering (snoop)
Where his junk has been
It’s in his cell
That’s how you tell
Oh yeah
Is it in his sneers?
Nah, he’s always been a jerk
Or the way he leers?
He has lots of pervy quirks
If you’re (snoop snoop) worried sick (snoop)
Where he dips his wick
It’s in his cell
So go show and tell
Whoa in fault states you can use his print
To get admissible evid-eh-eh-eh-ence
Pinterest, burners, Google Maps
Credit checks and vault apps!
How ’bout his blameshifting?
Now that’s the biggest giveaway
And if you’re marriage-policing in a no-fault state
It won’t (snoop snoop) boost your settlement (snoop)
To prove where his dick has been
Or hack his cell
Just go by smell
Dump that infidel
Ditch FW hell
Sweet! HOAC are you looking for a job? Weird Al is on line 2
Not Weird A.I. Weird Alfred Yankovic
I don’t think Weird AL has much to fear from being replaced by Weird A.I.
Or me, haha.
I barely had to snoop because she kept making dumb mistakes.
-Passed out drunk while her pager was blowing up. Got AP’s phone # that way.
-Left behind in the car a very incriminating checklist of items and information about a night in a cheap motel with AP. I read this one back to her in front of therapist. She looked like she was going to have a stroke.
-During our separation she made a late call to our teen son. He immediately picked up a valise of hers and slid it under the sofa. I fished it out at 2 AM and scanned the treasure trove of printed out emails and documents. It revealed the depth of her scheming and who were her flying monkeys. Slid it right back under the sofa and never said a word, but very revealing and useful. She had a pattern of using our kids to do her dirty work.
-My therapist brother came in from out of state to visit. He suggested looking at our family computer, as she had been in the house just before I picked him up at the airport. Her recent history was full of porn sites and other gems.
-I got the family home in the settlement. She had free access to remove her belongings, but left a few things behind. In a shoebox, under an old pair of boots was another trove of printed out emails. These confirmed another coworker AP going back years and hinted at even more.. It also gave away her M.O. of using her girl friends as an alibi. It was bitter confirmation of what a tramp she really was.
She sounds sexually incontinent not to mention indiscriminate. I was reading a study a while back about how cheaters have unusually high gross-out thresholds, meaning the things that disgust most people (chewing gum from under the subway seat, gas station sushi, rando junk in their faces) don’t bother cheaters or put them off.
My ex-FW said he would give me his phone, whenever I asked for it. I didn’t ask for it. However, after DD#2 I asked about texts to Schmoopie. Oh – he said. “I just deleted them every day before coming home.” So even when transparent, they are not transparent.
She started going to through my phone every morning after I got back from work.
This was one of her tells whenever she was screwing around, she’d go through my wallet and other things.
So I returned the favor and checked her text messages and her journal.
Oopsies and clown makeup for her.
She was quite outraged over it “how dare you how dare you” and all, very dramatic.
“You mean like how you were going through my phone every morning?”
Her response “I don’t want to talk about it”.
it’s good to read these stories over because it reminds me how dumb my X is, and that’s helpful in the healing process. because these FW’s say the weirdest, illogical, irrational, dumb things.
carry on, comrades.
My FW and I shared an email, so unconcerned was I with him seeing my emails. All he was going to see was stuff from my family and from my doctor. I had another email for girl talk with friends because husbands were being discussed on there and I thought he might be a bit miffed about being talked about. However, I told him about it, offering to let him see it if he ever wanted to. With me it’s always been a priority that there should be full transparency between spouses. However, FW said he didn’t care, because he knew I wasn’t going to say anything disrespectful.
After DDay I found out about his other emails, which of course he had hidden. Not just emails to schmoopie, but incredibly disrespectful, insulting emails about me to his friends.
He didn’t try the faux outrage when I demanded to see his emails and texts, because the moron thought he had deleted them all. Right after he was exposed on DDay, he had immediately run off like a shot and spent a half hour deleting. Epic fail. He had missed quite a few.
IMO if a spouse is acting shady, s/he has no right to act outraged if you investigate. I recommend chumps just laugh in their faces when they pretend to be the injured party.
Btw and most importantly, GICT, please get rid of the cheater. A better life is waiting for you on the other side of this. Trust us on this. The only viable choice in terms of your well-being is to leave. You will be astounded by how peaceful life is without the constant insecurity and fear.
So general life tip here:
If ever you talk to somebody and they go “forget all that, let’s talk about what YOU did”, you are talking to a disordered person and should cease contact with that individual.
In our example here, “yes, I betrayed you multiple times. BUT YOU BROKE INTO MY EMAIL!”(general “shock and awe” at “what do you mean you violated my trust one time after you violated mine so many times! I am a scared little forest creature that is a victim of circumstance and have NEVER done wrong-except when I did, which is all the time BUT THAT DOESN”T COUNT AND OH MY GOD YOU COMMIT A FAUX PAS!”)
Somewhere in their sad little lives they came to believe that they aren’t really at fault if somebody else shares fault. That is not how reality works. Shared accountability is a real thing. That being said-that is only when both people are at fault. If someone genuinely screws up and it is one sided, that is genuinely on them. Their choices need to be to accept responsibility or leave. It is really that simple.
I imagine it’s why those “people” end up so lonely. All the more ironic as most of them are pretty helpless, entitled, and needy to begin with.
Yep I got this too. My sin of snooping was FAR greater than cheater lying, manipulating me, gaslighting, physically/sexually/emotionally abusing me, threatening my life and safety, and repeatedly cheating. I snooped out of self protection yet somehow that was the issue.
Now that I have long escaped that circus and am in a truly healthy and honest long term relatoinship, we are both perfectly fine with the other reading our emails or texts as we truly have nothing to hide from one another. And you know what? I have no sneaking intuition screaming at me to snoop out of self protection. Because she gives me no reason to feel this way.
If it is any comfort, my exHFW would go on “ad nauseam” about how he would never, ever, open any mail if it was not addressed to him. Privacy was so sacred to him that the very thought of it would propel him to his fainting couch for a spell of the vapours.
Of course, my exHFW was a serial cheater with multiple undisclosed credit cards he used for dating apps, Only Fan accounts, phone sex lines, hotel rooms etc… You get the picture.
I often thought about opening one of the mysterious credit card statements that I sometimes spotted in the mail. Never really had a chance because the lazy lout, who never did a thing around the house, was always quick to run down to the mail box to collect all the mail before I got home from the office. He would quickly hide and then shred his credit card statements. I didn’t need to see them – I already knew enough.
I will warn my fellow chumps that the local laws may have some pretty serious consequences if you are caught snooping on your spouse. In Ontario Canada, it is considered an actionable tort under the law. So be careful. And if you do it, never disclose your sources or methods.
introduction-to-spousal-spying-and-the-law-in-ontario
I didn’t think of the credit card until after he left. I called the credit card company and ask for a history to be mailed to my place of work. She couldn’t do that, she had to use the address on file, so I took a chance, for the next week I got off work an hour early, checked for it then put the remaining mail back into the box. (He was checking the mail, because he paid the bills). I also cancelled the credit card. I will never know, but I am betting he was pretty embarrassed in front of whore when he whipped his credit card out after that.
Yes I did a three year history if I remember right, and it was replete with evidence of whoring around.
You have a full time job and your kids are away at college? It’s time to pull the trigger.
Don’t explain anything to him. Get a lawyer and file. You’ve given him many, many, many chances to clean up his act. Let him go have as many emotional/physical affairs as he wants.
The point is he lied to you. My FW did same to me. He had me blocked on FB so I couldn’t see him on there canoodling with his many lady friends. When I caught on, he whined: so I can’t have friends? I was like: you’re a 52-year old white man with adult children. Maybe put some time into your children and not your IG account! Idiot!
He didn’t have time to celebrate your anniversary but has time to have clandestine meet ups with some rando lady? My blood boils!! Again, just like my FW. Missed his own daughter’s college graduation but took a vacation day to go to a wedding with some of his rando lady friends. Didn’t even tell me about it. The god damn nerve!!!
Anyway, the point is the lying! The wasting of marital resources/time! The blame shifting. No one deserves to live with mental abuse.
Say good riddance to all that garbage. You could have peace of mind instead of mind fuckery. Good luck!! CN has your back! You can do it!!!
My blood still boils at how the female therapists didn’t shut that shit down when my FW hysterically said I not only invaded his privacy but committed a crime by finding out about his secret viagra prescriptions. Why hasn’t he died yet from using them with the massage parlor hookers? One can only hope
Same… *I* was the transgressor when I found shit in his texts… mmmkay.. “douchebag” is right. His lying, his cheating, his gaslighting, his financial abuse… not an issue apparently.. he was entitled to do all that. I was not entitled to some basic truths.
I can say I lived that wrecked situation just hoping he’s not cheating again and look how much I’ve invested in this life Who’s going to keep it all together?!?
Except it almost killed me.. I was a pale, ghostly shell of a human being by the time I got out.
Been out 3 years and it is the most peaceful 3 years of my life… wouldn’t change it for any more of that crap.
I sincerely hope you find your peace.. sending gentle hugs.