SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I first suspected my wife was cheating when I overheard a phone conversation. I confronted her and she denied it. I knew she was lying but did not have a ton of proof.

I then resorted to spying by looking at her phone when she wasn't around. I also tracked her whereabouts with her phone.

I eventually put a recording device in the bedroom because I knew she was calling the OM when I wasn't home.

Everything I found out proved she was cheating on me. I confronted her again and this time she admitted it.

My pain is still unbearable 1 month later but many of our discussions revert to her anger at my invasion of her privacy.

What could i have done differently? Should I have done anything differently?

I couldn't sit around all day knowing she was cheating on me but she was never going to admit it. I could barely function and had to do something.

You had every right to look.

This is a common cheater script. No one has the privacy in a marriage to cheat.

It's totally ridiculous.

Why are you even listening to such nonsense is the question?

You should inform the other mans wife without warning immediately. Just because you found out doesn't mean this will end. Exposure is the best way To try and stop it.

Why are you so affraid of your wife ????

there are no secret relationships in M. There are no secrets at all in M.

you have nothing to regret. She's trying to make you feel bad for catching her cheating. Just think those words over and let it sink in.

There should be no secrets in a marriage. When I discovered an unknown woman’s name on my WH’s iPad this led me down the spying path. If you ask a cheating spouse questions and you are continually lied to then you often have no choice but to use detecting methods to find out the TRUTH about your marriage, a truth the cheating spouse will do anything and everything to deny.

Some of my greatest fights with my WH over his cheating have been about me asking questions and him challenging me over how I know these things and how I found them out. He has always been really mad at me for “spying” on him. But the way I see it is, that if there was nothing to find then the spying would stop.

They only get upset because our spying reveals the truth of their lies and cheating and deception. If they didn’t commit these sins against the marriage then there would be no need to catch them.

They are only pissed off because they got caught. They are not sorry about what they were doing and how it hurt you.

What annoys me more than the cheating is the lying and blaming of us for catching them out. It intensifies the sin of cheating by covering it up. When you do wrong by someone you need to own up to your mistakes and try to make amends. Most cheaters don’t though they lie and prolong our agony.

It is called blameshifting. It is basically saying you did just as bad a crime as me. So is it wrong to find out your being put at risk for STD’s in this day and age that can be life threatening, let alone the breaking of your marriage vows.

My point is your gut told you that she was breaking her vows, what is more important your physical and mental health or her privacy? The vows at your wedding or her privacy? My wedding vows included honesty not privacy.

For the betrayed the answer is always clear. For the people with true remorse they do not blame shift. For people who regret getting caught they blameshift, gaslight and trickle truth or some combo of both.

People who are regretful and not remorseful are not ready for recovery.

Yeah- they are angry they were caught and talking about HOW they were caught is an easy tactic to put them attention on your choice verses their betrayal. And that is what it is. A betrayal.

I’m not sure what the disconnect is. I don’t know about you, but I have no problem with video-audio recorders anywhere in my life. Tracked on my phone. Reading my texts. All of it is free game. The difference is that i have nothing to hide.

So, did you invade her privacy? Sure. Betting she has done the same to you. But, the rub is she gave you a reason- was untruthful and turned out to be a betrayer.

I’m sorry you’re here. You’re not alone. There isn’t a whole lot you could have differently and still value your own worth and intuition.

No, it’s not wrong at all, it’s recommended.

The next time she gets angry tell her this:

I respected you enough to confront you and ask if anything was going on. If I needed to be concerned about anything. You CHOSE to answer me with a lie. And you continued to lie and cheat.

Since I wanted the truth I was left with only one choice and that was to obtain the truth in some other way. So you forced me to behave in a way that makes me sick myself. I don’t like having to mistrust you.

But you left me no choice AND I don’t want to discuss this again.

And then leave the room. And shut it down. If she brings it up repeat the above. She will eventually get the message.

IMHO, no, not even close to wrong. 2 wrongs don't make a right, unless one of those wrongs is likely to stop the other wrong from happening. We have many examples of this in our lives, is it OK to shoot someone? No, absolutely not. Is it OK to shoot someone who breaks into your house in the middle of the night and threatens your family with a gun? Yup, sure is, even though "shooting someone" is a universally recognized wrong.

Now, thing is, you will pay a price for this. Just like the man who shoots an intruder and kills them, yes, he protected his family, but, yes, he's still likely to live with flashbacks and regret for what he did. That's where I am, I used all means, both ethical and clearly NOT ethical to get at the information from my W's A. I'm not at all proud of what I did, and it too me to a bad place. I suspect you will find you feel the same when it's all over, you will become a liar and a sneak to try to catch a liar and a sneak. It's a sad realization, and a sad reality.

I did it, I'd recommend you do it, and I'd do it again if I had to. Just realize that it comes with a cost, the first lie is hard (I'm not monitoring your phone), the ones that follow get easier and easier until, very quickly, you realize that you've got a lot of lies out there that you have to keep straight.

Those with nothing to hide, hide nothing.

Next time she tries to manipulate you into silence or guilt, bring down the hammer.

"I wouldn't have snooped, if you weren't a lying cheater, that lies and cheats." Comes to mind as the most up front, in your face, back the fuck off response I can think of.

Prtdot,

Some people just have a really alert gut.

It's just unfortunate that some people chose to ignore their gut because they are too afraid of what they will find.

"Did anyone just know immediately that something was off? "

http://www.survivinginfidelity.com/forums.asp?tid=587035

You had every right to find the information you needed to verify her cheating. She is blameshifting you. Nip it in the bud. What I told my wife was "Your lies and your deceit brought us to this point. Not my spying to find the truth. I will not apologize for it and I will not argue about it."

What privacy? She lost her right to privacy when she cheated. If she wants to save the marriage tell her that blameshifting needs to stop. She needs to take on the full responsibility of her affair and be 100% accountable. It seems that she does not want to do that.

It is not wrong.

In my case, I discovered things about my wife, things from her past that she needed to face to heal.

I also found an anger at me that she wasn't expressing openly. That hurt.

Which is to say--you may get more than you bargained for.

It's not spying, and you have no reason to feel guilty about it.

You have the right to investigate the details of YOUR life, so you can't protect your physical, emotional, psychological and financial health. You have a right to be safe in your marriage.

In a reasonable world, you'd expose the evidence and your spouse would say "you're right. I have done wrong. I have hurt you. How can I make this right?"

If this were a reasonable world, you wouldn't be in this situation.

Cheaters feel privileged. They rationalize their way into affairs, often including a lot of privilege. That feeling doesn't end when the affair is exposed.

Sad thing is that the heavy lifting to repair a marriage falls on the injured party.

She had an opportunity to come clean about her cheating and chose not to.

Many WS react angrily to invasion of privacy. For many it's art of a denial phase or part of the fog.

Which is greater betrayal; looking at her phone or having an A?

It may ve a question of focussing on your "bad" behaviour rather than her own terrible actions

No, it is not wrong. Like 1stwife said, you respected her enough to ask before going into spy mode. My WH said pretty much the same things. He even said he couldn't trust ME anymore because I had spied on him. My response was, you were lying to me, I had a right to know the truth. How else should I have acquired it?

The big point here is this is typical cheater response.

I learned from therapy when involved in these inane ridiculous conversations to say what needs to be said - short & sweet - and then shut the conversation down.

Like my H said for years the reason he cheated is b/c we were disconnected. We took each other for granted.

Until one night I was angry and vicious and told him that was his he felt - not me! And stop using it as an excuse b/c that is not a reason to cheat. There is none.

And he has not mentioned it or said it since. I don’t care if he believes it or not BUT I certainly do not have to hear it any longer.

When your spouse is cheating and hiding things from you, I believe you have the right to find out the truth and to protect yourself. It is common for a WS to try to flip the conversation to how awful it is for you to spy, when the conversation needs to be about his or her cheating.

Married couples should privacy not secrets. Privacy is closing the door when you go to the bathroom. A secret is having an affair and covering it up. There's a huge difference.