No! Don’t do that! That’s worse than snooping. Basically, you’re telling her you’re snooping. It’s saying “Hey, not only do I not trust your fidelity, I also don’t trust you to answer my accusation. Prove your innocence.”
If you feel you can trust the answer, then confront her. If you can’t take her at her word, then you have to snoop. It’s stupid to confront her if you can’t trust her. You have nothing to gain. Either she says “I’m clean” and you have to snoop anyway, or she says “I’m cheating” in which case you might as well have investigated.
If you’re asking to see the emails, then you obviously don’t trust her answer. So you should just snoop in secret.
I have the same philosophy. If trust has broken down to the point that you feel snooping is a must, then what is the point in staying with them? It’s simply not worth it. Whatever evidence of innocence that turns up will not be convincing enough to someone who has already decided to doubt their partner’s honesty.
It doesn’t sound like the OP has actually confronted the girlfriend about what’s up yet. I agree that her behavior is suspect, and he should tell her how it makes him feel. If she tries to turn it back on him, lashes out defensively, or acts indifferent to his feelings, then the OP needs to consider letting her go. Because even if no cheating is going on, that kind of selfish insensitivity is poisonous to a healthy relationship.
That is the ‘nuclear meltdown’. When someone (man or woman) is thinking about leaving their partner they will waffle for awhile. Eventually they will reach a point where they will grab onto anything, however minor, and make it into this HUGE DEAL and wont let go. They will then leave you for this reason.
The poor guy or gal subject to this is left standing thinking WTF?
I think some of us are forgetting that she’s the one violating the trust, here. She’s the one chatting all day with some guy over the internet she just met. She’s the one taking phone calls at 11:00 pm and purposefully going outside of earshot to have long, late night phone conversations. She’s the one who’s being disrespectful to both the OP and their relationship with this obnoxious behavior. And finally, she’s the one who is likely going to deny, deny, deny when confronted with her behavior.
The trust has already been violated here. I admire everyone who’s saying “if you can’t trust them, leave them!” That’s a good option for those strong enough to exercise it. For a lot of people, however, a mere hunch is not worth walking away from a relationship over. Some people really need to see that smoking gun before packing up and leaving in order to avoid the whole “maybe it was all in my head” aftermath. Especially when faced with a partner who refuses to shed light on their newly erratic behavior.
You have to put it in context. Why is his girlfriend going off privately for hours late at night to talk to a man she hasn’t met yet but is quickly becoming closer to? Who broke whose trust first?
Most people on this thread suspect that if she’s guilty of anything her most likely response is to deny. So, the OP won’t know for sure if he’s getting a straight answer when he confronts her. She’s innocent and says so or she’s guilty of something and lies. And because this would be a make or break deal for most relationships getting the truth is pretty important.
Unfortunately for the OP, it really sounds like this girl is quite unhappy with being in Cali and enjoys having the assurance of someone being there for her if/when she decides to go back home.
I agree that it’s unacceptable what she’s doing. Having friends and talking to them is one thing, a 3 hour midnight conversation that she goes out her way to keep you from hearing is another. I think you’re handling it well and I hope it works out for you.
No you don’t. You have a right to end the relationship if you aren’t happy with it. That’s about the limit of your ‘rights.’ The person is your partner, not your child or your possession.
For the snoopers, if you snoop and find nothing at all, do you tell them about it? I mean, since you have a right to know if they can be trusted than surely they have a right to know that you can’t. Or is breaking faith with somebody only ok when you do it? I just don’t get it. I mean, I understand the desire to know what’s going on but it seems to me that once you start behaving as though your SO is your adversary it’s well past time to cut ties. Why continue a relationship with somebody you don’t trust, why become somebody that your SO can’t trust? It doesn’t seem like a very fun or fulfilling relationship to have.
I’m with those who think this looks grim. I agree that snooping is wrong, and that when you come to that point, the relationship probably isn’t worth saving anyway. But let’s be realistic. I wouldn’t be able to stop myself either. I’m impatient and I thrive on information; I’d want to know right away instead of waiting on a confused female to make up her mind and tell me the bad news.
On the other hand, is there anything you’d find in IM logs or emails that would be sufficient evidence that NOTHING was going on? I doubt it. At that point, you’ve pretty much made up your mind, haven’t you? Isn’t that like trying to prove a negative?
In other words, no matter which way you jump, it’s off a cliff.
There is no context in which snooping is a good idea. As has already been said, if you’ve already reached the point of distrust in the person that you think you should be snooping, why are you staying with the person? Why on earth would you want to have someone as a partner that you don’t feel you could treat as an equal and adult? It’s no longer relevant at that point whether the person is actually cheating or not – you don’t belong with that person. And as has also been said, even if you come up with NO evidence of cheating from snooping, that’s not going to magically restore your trust in the person. The suspicion is already there, and it isn’t going away. Time to find another partner.
And none of that is directed at the OP, whom I believe has already said he doesn’t think snooping is a good idea.
This OP is so familiar to me, I feel like I could have written it. My wife and I are currently separated due to a situation almost identical to the one described. We were living in Indiana, and I was the one that was alone and struggling while she had all of her old friends back. One night her and some buddies went to a local bar, and it turned out an old boyfriend of hers was the guy working the door. They started hanging out a lot while I sat at home with nothing to do. She’d even bring him along when she took our daughter out to play at the park.
Needless to say, it didn’t end well. I handled things poorly and she threw me out. It had gotten to the point where every time she left the house I wondered if she was with him. (Most of the time, she was) Now that I’m back in California with our daughter, she spends her nights at the bar waiting for closing time so she can give him a ride home. The moral of the story is that emotional cheating hurts almost as bad as physical cheating. However this turns out for you, I wish you nothing but happiness in the future.
Two wrongs don’t make a right, though. Cliche but true.
A friend of mine used to snoop on her chronically cheating boyfriend (who is now an ex). She knew he was cheating, but still felt it necessary to go through his emails. But all this did was get her in the habit of snooping rather than relying on her own common sense and intuition to make decisions. Instead of just confronting her boyfriend when he did suspect things, talking it out, and looking for evidence in his responses, she kept falling back on unethical tactics to extract information on him.
No harm no foul, right? Afterall, he was cheating. This is how she justifies what she did. The problem is that she is will likely continue to do this kind of thing in future relationships whenever her partner does anything that she perceives as suspect. And because her ability to trust is impaired because of her ex, her threshold for suspect behavior is unhealthily low. The tiniest seed of doubt will tempt her into snooping, which means that one day she is going to snoop on an innocent person and risk that relationship in the process.
To be honest, if a prospective dating partner told me that he had dumped an ex- after snooping on her, I’d strongly inclined to write him off as an insufferable insecure person. Especially if he was unapologetic about it. Because it would mean one of two things: 1) he doesn’t trust himself to know or find out that something is wrong without resorting to subterfuge or 2) he has major trust issues that will make him difficult (and possibly dangerous) to live with.
So I don’t recommend that the OP add snooping to his track record.
Snooping isn’t right but it can be the only way to find out the truth and leave a relationship without any doubts you did the right thing. Say you’re with someone you suspect of cheating online. You don’t have any proof but something just seems off, you’re SO says all the right things but still you suspect something. It eats away your insides and makes you not sleep. You can leave and always have doubts and think you left someone you loved for all the wrong reasons or you can snoop and find their guilt and leave clear of doubts. Liars are often manipulators who can make you doubt your own feelings.
If you don’t find guilt you’ll always be looking for it, so that situation doesn’t work as well as the one above.
I agree that it’s unlikely that she will confess to cheating if she is in fact actually cheating, but that doesn’t mean her response means nothing. If she says nothing untoward is going on, but she understands why it looks that way and she won’t continue that kind of behavior and she says it like she means it (i.e. no tell-tale signs of lying), that should count for something positive. Especially if the 3 hour calls in the middle of the night stop and things resume to normal.
If she says nothing untoward is going on and “HOW DARE YOU ACCUSE OF ME OF CHEATING, YOU JERK!”, well then that should count for something negative.
I don’t get the whole snooping thing, either, especially those who would never fess up about it. I mean, you don’t want to be with someone unethical and dishonest who keeps things from you that you have a right to know, so…you do something unethical and dishonest and keep things from them that they have a right to know. Congratulations, you’ve just become exactly the sort of person you don’t want for a partner.
And if you wouldn’t want to be with you, why the fuck should your partner want to be with you?
Don’t even get me started on this whole “But he started it” horseshit. That wasn’t an acceptable excuse for misbehavior when you were in kindergarten, it’s sure as shit not an excuse for misbehavior as an adult.
This is the problem. If you don’t find evidence of their guilt, you are now the unfaithful party. If you tell them there is a pretty good chance that they’ll dump your ass. If you don’t tell them you’re a hypocrite willing to mislead somebody you love. Are you ok knowing that they think you’re somebody that you aren’t, somebody that wouldn’t betray them? That they love you only because they don’t know what kind of person you really are? If you have any shred of a conscience at all, how do you live with that?
Exactly, you talk like adults. If she gives you a good reason that you can believe, great. If she can’t give a good reason but is willing to stop, that’s not great but workable. If she refuses to give a reason and won’t stop, well, it’s probably time to move on to greener pastures. Even if she’s not cheating, if she’s unwilling to make reasonable concessions for the sake of your relationship you’re better off without her. Either way, you can reach a resolution and maintain your integrity.
I snooped. I posted a thread about it, in fact, pretending to be posting it for a friend.
I installed a keylogger, and got her email and facebook passwords, after she came kinda out of the blue and said she didn’t love me and thought we should split up.
I immediately had some niggling suspcions. She had been contacted by an ex-boyfriend/stalker who had messed up her head pretty bad. He wanted to “make amends”. He wanted to apologize. Shortly after this she started to pull away.
I asked, she said nothing was going on.
So I snooped. I couldn’t shut that voice up.
Facebook and emails were full of “I love you” “I think about you” and finally, the last straw, titty pictures from her to him. And a cyber session.
We are getting a divorce (her choice, not mine. I can forgive, and I love her more than I can possibly express) but she doesn’t feel that way about me.
You have good reason to be suspicious, and I hope it works out.
But if you snoope, be prepared to find things you don’t want or don’t think you’ll find.
Disclaimer: Haven’t read past the first few posts here, so if what I have to say has already been said, tough shit.
I think the OP should get in touch with dragongirl of this thread because neither of them will be in their current relationship much longer. Well, shouldn’t be, as far as I can tell.
Disclaimer 2: Haven’t read the linked thread at all, so if all has been resolved with dragongirl or some such, nevermind me.
Dunno if you read my response in the “Boyfriend not interested in sex” thread, but running parallel to my wife’s unspoken anger and frustration with me, and an overall feeling of loneliness, she became reacquainted with an old childhood friend. They were hanging out a lot, and she always made sure I knew when they were going to be hanging out.
I was perfectly fine with the situation and had no feelings of jealousy, other than an occasional pang. Then one day, I got an anonymous phone call asking if I was aware of her relationship with him. Not knowing what to do, I confronted her about it that night. She denied anything untoward going on, then let me know how she was feeling about our relationship. I told her we could work on it, but she had to cut contact with him, as while she was not sleeping with him, it was at least an emotional affair.
She said she would cut contact with him, but this turned out to be, “I’ll not bother letting you know that I’m still talking with him/hanging out with him.” I won’t say this is what led to the final decision to separate permanently, and if you read my previous account, you’ll see where my selfishness played a big part, but this certainly did not help.
My advice to you is if you wish to salvage your relationship with her, you need to confront her about this, letting her know your feelings, without being accusatory. Let her know that you feel things cannot be as they should between the two of you while he’s still in her life in any capacity, but don’t set an ultimatum unless you’re prepared to lose her, because you probably will.
