SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

There are many ways to check on what a cheating or potentially wayward spouse is doing. You will get many suggestions if you ask. What people seem to forget to say, time and time again, is that SOME OF THESE METHODS MAY BE ILLEGAL WHERE YOU LIVE.

Many places in the U.S. allow people to record their own conversations, but it is usually illegal to record other people's conversations. If you plant a voice-activated recorder in someone else's car and use it to record conversations you took no part in, you could be breaking the law.

DO NOT GET YOURSELF THROWN IN JAIL OR GET YOURSELF IN TROUBLE WITH THE LAW RIGHT AT THE POINT YOU MIGHT BE FACING A DIVORCE.

It will not end well for you. Trust me on this.

Contact a lawyer who knows the ins and outs of the local laws where you live. Or hire a private investigator if you can afford it. Because even if you don't get in trouble for it, what's the point in having recordings that you can't afford to show anyone and cannot be used as evidence?

If you are going to be getting a divorce anyway, you might actually do better just getting the usual records in Discovery. Phone records and financial records can reveal a lot.

Best of luck to all of you.

Recordings made in this way do not have to be shared with the Wayward or disclosed at all. If you need evidence for your own peace of mind that doesn't mean you have to tell the Wayward what you know and how you know it. Most states are "no-fault" so it doesn't matter any way in the divorce. I agree that you need to be aware of the laws in your area but also be smart about how you know anything. Looking at someone's email because you know the password might also be illegal but people do it all of the time. Doesn't mean you can enter that into evidence.

If you live in one of the few fault states for divorce and actually want to go through with that course of action then I agree you are going to have to discover evidence in a way that it can be entered into court.

If they're marital assets then you can put whatever recording devices you want in it, as you both own it.

If the car/house is from before the marriage or can be argued as a non martial asset, it could be a problem but only if that.

Edit:. It's the same for phones, if it's all under s family plan our jointly owned you can put whatever spyware you want on it, and most account access needs to have some important component tied to it (like a financial component) to even be kinda illegal to access without asking. A TOS is not a law and most account are not given some legally protected status.

[This message edited by Skadu at 5:32 PM, December 7th (Friday)]

If you need all that to decide whether you have a marriage or not take my word for it.......you do not have a marriage.

Just like CatsEye says, installing monitoring software on somebody´s phone or other electronic device, tracking their vehicle, recording their conversations etc., is illegal in all of Europe as well as parts of Northamerica. I hope this site isn´t being used to promote illegal activity. As mad as I am for being cheated on, I would never engage in illegal activity to find out what the cheater is up to.

You cannot use these devices as you like even if owned together with your SO. They can still not be used without their consent.

[This message edited by Wifey34 at 8:21 PM, December 7th (Friday)]

It's true that VARs are illegal in some cases but the main objective is to find out the truth and not for taking it to court as evidence, now if your spouse wants to take you to court for putting a VAR on the car or for reading his/her mail then the M is not strong enough anyway and should end, plus they would have to prove it was you (and not themselves) who put the VAR in place if they want to take you to court, VARs an an effective tool and we've seen it here and other forums thousands of times.

[This message edited by Buster123 at 12:10 AM, December 8th (Saturday)]

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[This message edited by Broken5152 at 9:03 AM, January 11th (Friday)]

You shouldn't put spyware on a work phone.

In all of the years I've been reading here, the hundreds,if not thousands of betra d spouses who have used a VAR to find out if there was is cheating, I've not read one instance in which the BS was charged with anything.

And if your name is on the title of the car, then who says you can't forget your voice activated recorder on your car?

Many BS's have found out about an affair using a var. Many have found an affair has gone underground, by using a VAR. It's a very effective tool.

Coming on these forums and lecturing people and telling them you would never use such a tool is rather condescending.

[This message edited by HellFire at 8:30 AM, December 8th (Saturday)]

So far she has lectured on polygraphs and VARs. She has given no alternatives though.

We don't recommend vars to be used to gather proof for court. It's used to find out if the spouse is cheating,or still cheating.

Here's an alternative... waterboarding.

All this lecturing makes the OP sound like they are possibly a WS and not a BS. Sorry, but I don't give a rats ass about the legality of it all. Adulterers are criminals in my mind. I'd do anything it takes to "catch" a criminal destroying my life. I've NEVER heard of a BS "getting thrown in jail" for using any of these methods. Stop with the scare tactics.

Actually, cases do come up in the news from time to time about BSs who overstep their legal authority and get charges filed against them. Exactly what the original poster was warning about.

Just because someone posts an unpleasant truth in JFO is no reason to insinuate that they're a WS.

For those confused by the use of OP here on SI it is defined in the Healing Library Abbreviations as "other person", but other sites use it as Original Poster.

kaygem, you have a pm.

Europe may be black and white but the US is much more free when it comes to balancing personal protection and privacy.

Actually look it up because most of the US it's perfectly legal to bug to any capacity most martial assets, and even cases of simply having shared a password at one point can imply consent to view email accounts.

Europe and the US have radically different approaches to these things, so if you're in Europe and trying to give legal advice to us Yankees, crack open a law book first, and vice versa.

[This message edited by Skadu at 12:00 PM, December 10th (Monday)]

Tell it to Alexa. She recording you right now.