Oh, please. You don’t just leave a 2-year relationship without a backward glance or a few pangs of regret, and if you dump someone by email, even if you say “don’t contact me” there is going to be some type of reaction. If she could turn off her feelings as quickly as you would seem to want her to, then I would be less inclined to be on her side. And as she said, they are a part of each other’s family in a small community. Even if you are not “waiting for a reaction”, a reaction is bound to happen, from him, or from his family, or her family, or their friends. “Moving on” doesn’t happen instantly unless you are a callous jerk (and I know, I dated one of those last year). To accuse someone of gameplaying or being a drama queen under these circumstances is ridiculous.
In my poor understanding of computers, I would think her reading that email wouldn’t flag it as “read”, because she wasn’t reading an email sent TO him, but rather one he sent to his friend…so it would be in the Sent Mail file.
And I don’t think he was winding her up for reading his email…if he were, I would think he would pick another topic that might catch her out…like what gift he’s bringing her, or a comment about her she’d be hard-pressed to ignore…not an admission of something that any man is his right mind would have to know would cause a world of hurt for him. What if she had gone to his family and said, “this is why I’m breaking up with Jerk” and shown them the email? If his parents are in anyway financing this little junket of his, I’m sure they’d be less than pleased to find out what he’s spending money on. No, I think that while he might be bragging, or a typo ($70) occurred, this is not the kind of fake email to send, even if he knows that she checks his mail.
Thailand is kind of hooker central. I haven’t been to Thailand for years, but many of my coworkers have (we have several factories outside Bangkok), and yes, everyone at least knows the price - and it ain’t $350 a hooker (and I’m female). Amsterdam and Thailand are sort of the “hooker holiday” locations - and its probably wise to look twice at any guy who wants a “guy vacation” in those spots. Thai hookers are also notorious for carrying AIDS - or were - as I said, its been years.
I think this is it exactly. GQ, Esquire, Maxim, and all the other “men’s” magazines all seem to agree that a man should visit a high-class hooker once in his life. Just to say he did and just to be reasonably safe about it.
In every conversation I’ve had with people about the idea, $500 seemed to be the low end for “high-class”.
I diasagree that there’s anything wrong with snooping. Those who have nothing to hide have nothing to worry about. If the OP hadn’t been snooping she might have ended up married to this syphilitic scumbag. If people think they need to hide things from their SO’s, then they don’t have a real relationship anyway.
If people think their SO has something to hide in their privacy, they don’t have a real relationship. My husband and I have separate E-mail accounts and don’t know each other’s passwords. We wouldn’t dream of checking the history on each other’s cell phones, or even web browsers. I don’t have the slightest doubt about his fidelity and love.
She already had doubts about him, and whether those were fueled by pure jealousy or actual problems surfacing, that well could have been sufficient to break it up sooner if she didn’t have this idea that it would be a “waste” to lose the relationship after that amount of time invested. That she had this thought even after learning about the hooker thing, and that she had to come here to ask if she should drop him, drives this home for me.
If the $700 was a typo, then he made the same typo twice, so he probably meant to say $700 (and went on to clarify $700 US). As others have said, that’s about 10x too much (I’ve been to Thailand twice – no, I didn’t indulge – really, I didn’t!). At any rate, two points from me:
He cheated on you with hookers. The relationship should end. (plus, he’s an idiot for paying so much – or he’s an idiot for lying to his friend about any or all of it – either way, he’s an idiot)
You snooped in on his email. The relationship should end.
Both are deal-breakers in and of themselves. Learn, move on, and do better next time.
Married people have no right of privacy from each other. Grow up. Learn how to live in an adult relationship. My wife and I don’t have any separate emails or feel the need to hide shit from each other. That’s the way it should be. These days it seems like everybody views their SO’s as the enemy. Neither one of us snoops because there isn’t any reason to, but if you feel like you need to have secret, sneaky, private shit that your SO isn’t allowed to see, then you don’t have a mature relationship.
Yeah, elbows I’m thinking the same thing. :dubious:
Maybe he’s just trying to be the whole “I’m such a studly badass” kinda guy in front of his friend? Seems that maybe he’s lying to gain man-clout with his bud.
In any case, be it him cheating, or him being a compulsive lier, I’d say chop that connection quick.
I guess I can’t get married, then. Because even though I agree that marriage means openness and unity, I still would need to know that my partner respects the independent part of me enough to let me have something of my own. Like a diary or a livejournal or a book that I’m writing and not ready to share yet. A trusting person knows the difference between private thoughts and secrets. And I can’t be with a person who thinks they are entitled to everything about me.
Which is neither here nor there, since the OP and her boyfriend were not married.
If she is the kind of girl who snoops into private places, she is doing him a favor. The story may or may not be true. However suspicions are enough for her. She was looking for excuses before. Just found one now. Relationships and marriages have been known to survive cheating throughout history.
You do realize that the same reasoning has been used to justify wittling away all of those pesky constitutional protections that many of us hold dear…right?
Maybe you have the kind of relationship where there is no such thing as privacy. In those situations, there would be no such thing as snooping, so reading a password protected email would be no crime. But in other relationships doing stuff like spying on someone while they’re using the toilet, reading their diary without permission, or hacking into their email account would be violations of trust, respect, and privacy.
In none of the relationships I’ve had would it have even crossed my mind to snoop. It’s as unthinkable as cheating to me. I think the very minute I felt it was necessary to do either one of those things, it would be time to break up. Trust is everything. Snooping is either a symptom that there is no trust, or it is a reason to lose trust.
It’s the idea of hiding communications with other people that bothers me, not stuff like private journals’ etc. My wife and I don’t have separate email accounts or anything, so “snooping” would be superfluous in that regard, but we each do have personal writings and things that we respect and don’t snoop in. I do think that hiding communications with others shows a lack of trust, though.
That’s it. I’m out. I don’t want a pile up and I’m sorry I hijacked this thread.
Married over 25 years here. And giving the spouse some personal privacy is paramount to any happy relationship.
To expect that just because two people are married, that they must have free access to know everything about the other’s writings and actions, and any deliberate action which impedes free access to information between spouses indicates that someone needs to grow up, is a recipe for disaster for all but sainted folk.
My wife doesn’t have access to a lot of my correspondence. Some is under patient confidentiality shields, some is privileged communications between staff, and some is me blowing off stress and frustration to friends and confidantes about issues that she (by her own admission) would not understand and might be stressed to read about.
I know she has similar correspondence and communications with some friends of hers; she’s told me so.
Yes, you are overreacting, but still, that doesn’t mean you have to like it. But based upon the price it sounds like he really didn’t do it, in which case he now has a good reason to dump you as you are a snoop. It’s even possible that was a test message to see what you’d do.
Thoroughly conceded. And I say you would be an idiot to think it doesn’t happen anyway. Sure she looked, but he did it and bragged about it. Bad points all around.
Though you must admit 2 hookers for $700 is not every little thing.
I reiterate that socially we have become so acoustomed to anonymity and privacy that we tend to act as if it gives people license to misbehave. And my point is that those who are nevertheless caught misbehaving, regardless of how, are not a victim, but rather a fool.
The example of innocuous emails to previous ex-girlfriends is well taken. I know such a simple thing would not be well recieved in my home. So for the ease of all involved I don’t do it.
Well, I’m glad I’m not the only one in this thread going to hell. Upon my first reading of the OP, the first thought to jump into my head, “he’s overpaid…”
No, he definitely meant $700 because his friend wrote back asking for clarification. He responded " US, and totallly worth it". I read an email that was not bolded, so he’d have no idea. He has had tons of innocuous emails to old girlfriends, and I don’t bat an eyelash. It certainly could be unconcsious trust issues but it was really just because I missed him. I like corresponding with him, and by reading his other emails it was like getting more. I like the other people in his life, and I like to see what theyre up to. if Im a horrible snoop, so be it, but I really was not looking for anything. I also freely share everything of my own. He has the password to every single account I have.
It was definitely not a setup either. He don’t think he would ever be that crafty. I could see him cheating, but not orchestrating a plan to catch me in the act. Not him.
I wrote in the email that I was just as much in the wrong as he was, and that there was no point in playing the blame game. We were both wrong, so let’s just be done. I still honestly haven’t accepted that this could happen to me…it just doesnt seem real. Its one thing if it was a girl at a party, totally wasted, and made a mistake. This was a whole different ballgame. I guess the good thing was that it was purely sexual.
The most ironic thing is that the last time we talked a few days ago, he was getting pissy about how much the phone call was costing…
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