SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

http://www.survivinginfidelity.com/forums.asp?tid=619807

So above is the thread I posted in Just Found out if you want more of my story but the basics are that I am currently separated from my STBXW and we are 3 months from being able to legally file for D and there is no chance for R.

STBXW was very abusive during the relationship and as I have become mostly detached from her through our separation. During our marriage, I had a few minor suspicions that I had a WS but no confirmation. The reason I choose D was that it was abusive in general and not because I discovered A.

So if you were in the situation I described above and had the opportunity to snoop into your STBXW email exchanges from when you were married

what would you do?

Find out for sure?

Or pass and go on with your life?

Would be hugely tempting, if only to validate your gut feelings from before.

There are a few things I need to find out once the D is done but that can be done with DNA and I suppose that is a little different.

But yes, I suppose, once all the heat is off and WS has no hope of getting you back and knows it (do they ever know anything?). Then yes, it would be good to get the full and final truth.

Won't ever happen though.

Snoop away.

Almost everyone wants the truth.

IMO it's the best form of closure you can get.

I'd want to know. In fact, when I discovered my WH's emails, along with the shaking and sweating and shock, I was almost overcome with an urge to laugh. I WASN'T crazy! It WAS him!! The truth was so validating, it was as if a huge weight had been lifted. All the things that didn't add up, that I explained away, or allowed him to turn around onto me...the truth right there in black and white.

Yeah, I'd want to know. Even 10 years after the fact.

I don't know. I would be tempted, but would it give you closure or just hurt more? Would knowing answer questions about whether divorce is right for you? If you found that she didn't cheat, would you consider R?

Those are questions that only you can answer. Sometimes I think that once you know enough, you don't need to know anymore. Perhaps that's where you need to get. I know for me, finding out that my STBXH had slept with his girlfriend was hard. When I found out that he was texting another woman and hiding her under a man's name, that was all I really needed to know. At that point, I knew he would always cheat and lie. It made my decision really easy.

So I guess figure out what you hope to gain from finding out more. And is it worth the heartache?

I'm sorry that you've put up with so much, but it sounds like you're heading down a healthier road.

I would. I have already come to the conclusion that I will never know everything or even half of everything and that’s been really tough for me.

Even if every single email in her inbox where conversations she wrote to people had been telling me much she was in love me and how badly she knew she had hurt me and it killed her that it was her fault etc. etc......(which it did not) It wouldn't have mattered one bit as when I moved out I knew in my heart that any backsliding was only going to prolong the pain.

So I was going the D route without any chance of R. I had also accepted that she had been unfaithful to me at some point a month or two after I moved out when I connected some dots that made the outline of the puzzle fairly clear. Even if I found nothing at all in those emails it wouldn't have changed anything. I knew she had stepped out I was just short on details.

The mystery of those details only began to gnaw away at my attention about a week ago and I felt compelled to access her mailbox. It was pretty traumatic and I know that part of me realized that it was going to be that way and yet another part of me was so obsessive about what I might uncover that I went through with it.

I am thinking now that I may have done so as a way of sabotaging myself again. Self Sabotage used to be a hobby of mine and what I did here feels a bit like I may have been doing just that. I knew all I needed to know but I chose to hurt myself by opening Pandora's box anyway. and I'm really not sure why a part of me would want me to be in pain right now.

[This message edited by MrMagnolia at 10:14 PM, March 30th (Friday)]

I would just move on. Not worth the headspace to go digging.

[Poster before I read everything] did something similar. Hacked ww's old phone. Gnawing gut feeling for a couple of years. Got what I needed, obsessed. I couldn't put the damn thing down. Constantly something else. There is a point at which its counterproductive. Sounds like you've damn sure hit it. I quit asking questions, quit picking the damn thing up. It's in my possession should I need it. I know the divergences among what im told and what ive seen and read. Youve had more than your fill. If legalities dictate, have a printing party and never look at the damn things again. Dont do that shit to yourself.

[This message edited by OuttaCoffee at 11:12 PM, March 30th (Friday)]

OuttaCoffee, yep I had my fill. After what I posted earlier I thought about it some more and my actions were absolutely an attempt to harm myself. It's a terrible habit of course and one I've broken many times but if I'm not careful my urge to beat myself up will resurface in some form or another. I rarely understand that's what I'm doing until afterward.

However, in this particular instance, I am not sure it was such a bad thing. It helped me bring to light a lot of pain I knew was within me but have been struggling to access and therefore struggling to be able to heal from.

I am fully aware that I both subconsciously and willfully repressed a good deal of the emotional abuse during this time as a means of survival. I was unexpectedly cut off from many of my previously effective coping mechanisms. I suddenly had a very full and growing family to take care of, along with a broken heart, a high-stress job, and I was left without being able to devote time to myself and my own emotional needs were not being satisfied. In summary, I was a giant fucking mess and in order to be able to function, I had to take my own well being for granted. I couldn't deal with the pain from the terrible things I was told by my STBXW then and it's never really gone away. I

[This message edited by MrMagnolia at 1:30 AM, March 31st (Saturday)]

I would, MrMagnolia. Adultery is abuse. I would want to know. Was there periods that the abuse was worse or more noticeable that corresponded to periods of adultery. It would add further evidence that D is the right choice. I'm a Christian. By my belief there are only 2 reasons that D is tolerated with one of them being adultery.

I hope you have been tested for STDs. If you suspect adultery you should see if you were given any "gifts" to take with you.

For me, I found text messages that unless you were completely brain dead you could figure out what was going on between XWW and AP. But for me I still wanted to hear the words from her own mouth. I wanted her to admit it. Her exact words “Yes I’ve cheated on you and I want a divorce. I don’t love you anymore....but I still want to be friends. I think you’re a great guy”. She said it with zero emotion, zero regret and zero remorse.

The hardest thing I’ve ever heard. But I needed to hear it from her to confirm I “wasn’t crazy” and it was true....my wife of 10 years strayed and dumped me out like garbage.

If your marriage is 100% over, I’d probably just move on. If you found out this information on your own I’d confront and confirm and then move on.

If posed this question 6 years ago when I was still raw and hurting, I definitely would have read through everything, pain-shopping, even though all it would do was hinder my healing.

Now, healed and with no bad feelings toward my WXH, my advice would be to let it go. Finding out doesn't change anything, and can only hurt you (give you mind movies you'd rather not see, make you ruminate more and give her head space...)

You've made your decision. Whether or not she cheated, you are getting divorced. The best thing you can do for your future self is to move on, which means going as NC as possible, in actual life as well as in your head.

I would want to know the truth, but forego the details. My D was finalized 3 months ago and while I know a lot of what occurred, there is a lot that he lied about regarding the timeline. I'm not far out enough to be indifferent yet, but slowly coming to terms with the fact that I'll never know it all, nor do I want to at this point. Take care of yourself!

Part of me says yes just to give myself validation, but I'm so happy to be divorced now from XWH that it's all now the proverbial water under the bridge.

Still, all those years wondering had me going crazy.

Congratulations on leaving abuse and stepping into safety.

Not exactly your situation or question, but STBX was planning to leave me and conceal his "exit affair." If his story is to be believed, he was outed the day before he planned to walk. The pain has been hard to survive, but, after 13 years, I deserved to know why my marriage ended (there were wider, deeper issues that I thought we were working on, but this was the specific cause).

[This message edited by ninon at 8:54 PM, March 31st (Saturday)]

I would read them (for a short duration) probably out of obsession and curiosity...that is until I got that feeling in my chest that doing so is a pointless exercise. What am I doing? Trying to convince myself that she didn't cheat? I turned off the mindfuck channel. Would I like to know the truth? Of course I would. Does it change anything? Nope.

I printed out the phone screenshots from my WW's phone before confrontation. I recently reviewed one from Feb last year. It was obvious to me now- it had more impact. More so than when I was in total shock and Dancing the dance for the first few months after Dday. Look at it just like that. By reading their garbage, she's making you dance. And you're doing it on your own. It's kinda like being 'saved", when you know it, you know it. Nuff said.

If I never received confirmation that he cheated, I would. However, I did find out but had the chance to find out how many affairs and with whom. I passed because basically he was a cheater in the M and I'd filed for D. How many women and how many times was no longer relevant. Seeing as you never received confirmation, it would be understandable if you wanted the confirmation. Just be prepared for the worst. Even though you are divorcing, finding infidelity is another painful mind F. Make sure you can handle that first.

My exWW had an exit affair. It kind of hit me out of the blue, and most avenues of investigation were immediately closed to me, since she was no longer in the house. So I never really got enough information about it. She subsequently alluded to a few other dalliances before the last one, but didn't provide any details.

I think about it less and less as the years go by, but I'm still bothered by how much I don't know (and likely never will).

I was in limbo a bunch of years, so was already mostly detached by the time the D happened. I accepted long ago that I will never know everything or everyone he was involved with. Since the D, I've allowed ex to store some things in a room in my basement, but I'm rearranging his mess because I need to use part of the space. Emptying a shelf into a box, I ran across what looks like a pillowcase and letter and a couple other mementos from someone in another state that I never knew anything about - postmarked around the time of other affairs I caught.

My son was with me and was a little perturbed by it, but I felt nothing and just laughed to my son that it just confirmed that I'd done the right things. I'm a little sad that DS seemed bothered, but I'm truly over it. I'm curious about who she was (she used a nickname, not her real name), in the sense of being curious about an ambulance in your neighborhood, but not enough to bother with trying to actually figure it out.

I didn't, and won't ever, know all the things he was up to. But I know who I was then, and now, and he and they are irrelevant.