I think this thread reeks of "I have ran my course" Seriously, if you can't trust your wife to talk to her openly and honestly, then get divorced and find someone else.
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Help Me Catch A Cheating Spouse!
- Thread starter nickyj182
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You won't like me saying this, but I think you've missed the point of OP including that information. Therefore, you've drawn an incorrect conclusion about his behaviour.
I think it's less likely OP said that as his evidence for her cheating, and more likely he said it to give everyone information about the system she is on so replies could suggest tools to decode her history, e.g. "FireFox history reveal 0.87 does that and it works on Windows, give it a shot".
AppleMatt
Quote the whole thing then, MacDawg:
NO place in there do I see where the guy expressed any interest in trying to work things out or make his marriage stronger. He wants to know what's been going on with his wife. He's reached the point where he wants answers, and if he trusted her to give him those answers, he'd ask her - after all, that's a hell of a lot easier than to get them elsewhere.
Yes, he has his suspicions. But if you want to quote his post and use it to show me ANY kind of inkling that he wants to fight for his relationship, then by all means, point it out to me.
If you're like me and can't find any such request in his post, then come down from your moral high horse and join me here in a discussion on reality.
Plain and simple, the guy wants help getting information. This isn't about marriage counselilng.
Seriously, what is wrong with you people? Why don't you just talk?
OP, if you find out she did sleep with someone else, tell her next time just to tell you she wants to go outside the marriage for a little sex. Discuss it and work it out. It's silly to expect it never to happen. Just talk about it and figure it out. But can it with the drama. It's ridiculous.
I am not on a moral high horse at all, and I have repeatedly shown deference to your personal pain in how close this situation hits home with you. I do think that colors your perception of what is going on though.
However, that said, I have stated plainly... if he wants to end his marriage, go for it. If he wants to fight for it, talk to her. Only he can make that decision. Not you. Not me.
Agree with the first part BUT:
if you find out she cheated on you, divorce her! That's one of the things you don't do when you are married! If she wants sex outside of the marriage then she doesn't deserve to be married... "Its silly to expect it never to happen." No, Lee, that's EXACTLY what is expected to never happen in a marriage.
Spoken by someone who isn't in the relationship and doesn't have any emotional, physical, or social ties to any of it. This is a marriage, not a bad dinner you can get up and walk out on. There are two sides to every story here. The OP doesn't know if she is cheating, no, but why does he suspect? Has he noticed that the relationship is degrading on other levels? If he has, has he attempted to reconnect with her? There are reasons for infidelity and neither party is without blame, if it is occurring. The simple fact that the OP comes here for help with sneaking around himself explains volumes.
No one here is in the relationship or has any social ties to it but the op. If any spouse cheats, I do not buy the two sides to every story bit. That sounds like every bad excuse by every cheating man ever caught. "Well, if you were more open to this or that I wouldn't have been forced to cheat." Or the women who say "If you were more loving to me, I would haven't banged the pool guy." B.S. You cheat, you broke the number one rule of marriage: NO CHEATING. Sorry, I don't buy the ITS SILLY TO NEVER EXPECT IT TO HAPPEN. What a sad, sad view of marriage in general.
Women tend to go outside of the relationship because they feel their current relationship is emotionally, not physically, lacking. Not saying that is the case here, but it's something to keep in mind.
QFT.
When my ex started cheating, she started to suspect me of cheating. When I found out and called her out, she blamed me for it. Yes, I had stopped loving her, as she had with me - but I was taking steps to leave the marriage, not screwing around. I did not, and will not, take the blame for her infidelity.
It's good to always expect the best; you will never hear me say anything to the contrary. However, no one is perfect. If you expect them to be, you are setting yourself up for disappointment. Don't get me wrong. I believe that two people can be in a committed relationship/marriage and be faithful for their whole lives. But there are those who cheat and come back together and are stronger, because their marriage was strong enough to make it through it, not too weak to bother.
I'll take this one step further. Marriage is supposed to be "symbolic" of two becoming one. My opinion and belief (just mine mind you) is that that "one" is responsible for what happens in the relationship. The two no longer act separately.
No problem as Tomorrow already pointed out that point of view to me.
I read the OP a different way because it was a bit vague. Some more details would help greatly.
To the OP:
I assume the computer is in your house. In the old days, you could install a software keylogger on her computer, which would capture whatever she typed and the window in which she typed it; unfortunately, it doesn't log what the other party says. Today, anti-spyware would probably catch most programs you would use to do this, so it's risky (you might get caught), and it might not work. I don't have any experience with hardware keyloggers, frankly I wouldn't trust her not to see it (and it would be very hard to use on a laptop, if that's what she's using).
Another possible way is to set up your router or a proxy inside your home to capture incoming and outgoing traffic. If you set it to capture certain ports, it will increase your signal-to-noise ratio, so you don't end up capturing crap like music downloads or Youtube videos. You want to get emails and IM's. You'll likely get a LOT of stuff that you're not interested in, and only a little bit that's of interest; it can take a long time to sift through what you get.
If the computer equipment is not in your house, or doesn't at least partially belong to you, you could run into some legal trouble. Common sense tells me that there's no law against bugging your own computer equipment, but I am not a lawyer.
I assume the computer is in your house. In the old days, you could install a software keylogger on her computer, which would capture whatever she typed and the window in which she typed it; unfortunately, it doesn't log what the other party says. Today, anti-spyware would probably catch most programs you would use to do this, so it's risky (you might get caught), and it might not work. I don't have any experience with hardware keyloggers, frankly I wouldn't trust her not to see it (and it would be very hard to use on a laptop, if that's what she's using).
Another possible way is to set up your router or a proxy inside your home to capture incoming and outgoing traffic. If you set it to capture certain ports, it will increase your signal-to-noise ratio, so you don't end up capturing crap like music downloads or Youtube videos. You want to get emails and IM's. You'll likely get a LOT of stuff that you're not interested in, and only a little bit that's of interest; it can take a long time to sift through what you get.
If the computer equipment is not in your house, or doesn't at least partially belong to you, you could run into some legal trouble. Common sense tells me that there's no law against bugging your own computer equipment, but I am not a lawyer.
Oh please. If you marry a robot, you can completely expect it to be "faithful". But we aren't talking about robots, we're talking about people, who make mistakes from time to time. And yes, it takes two to tango.
My view is not sad, it's realistic. Things happen. People make mistakes. The only thing you need to figure out is how you handle those things. It certainly is not written in stone that people in marriages have to be monogamous either. It's hardly the number one rule. I know plenty of people with open marriages.
So if I marry, it is next to guaranteed that I will "mistakenly" cheat on my future wife at least once?
But that should be something discussed before people get married. I'm all for open marriages if that's what both people want and they agree on that. If they don't then it's not ok.
No, it does not take two to tango. Its a lame excuse by those who get caught. And no, one does not have to be a robot to make the "mistake" of cheating. And one more time, no, you are not realistic. To expect cheating in marriage as just one of those things you need to handle is to totally not understand what marriage is all about. We are not talking about "open marriages", in most marriages cheating might not be the number one rule, but it sure as hell in the top three, right next to don't beat your spouse and don't fart in bed.
Farting is usually excusable provided it does not culminate in a dutch oven.
Yes, people make mistakes. But, for me if you don't realize what you're doing by the 3rd time you go out and get in bed with another person is wrong, then it is over( it isn't a you can get away with cheating 3 times card. It is if you had went out 3 times with the same person in short time, etc). You will lose my trust if you cheat even once, but before 4 times I will try and keep our relationship alive. So pretty much if it is a month or longer affair, it is over.
Threads like this always turn into a train wreck on MR. I can't help but rubberneck.
And the OP is some giggling 14 year old.
Perhaps the OP hasn't stopped loving her, or vice versa? In your case, when the love is gone, then no, talking won't fix anything. But we don't know if the OP or his wife is no longer in love. We don't even know if she's done anything suspicious. In that scenario, there are good reasons to talk first. Maybe the trust is already gone, but until he talks to her about it, he won't know.
On the other hand, if she's done nothing, it will be her that's lost trust.
Surveys would seem to suggest that a high percentage of both sexes have cheated on their significant other. Something like at least a third of the population. Granted, that might not make someone expect to be cheated on. But if it happens that often, maybe it's unreasonable to expect every spouse not to.
Once again, all we DO know is that the guy wants help finding out from her computer. And once again, I know from having been in those shoes, that once you reach that point, you're past talking, because it's pretty much over.
Believe me, if I wasn't sure my ex was cheating on me, I would have simply sat down and asked what was going on. But that's not how it was playing out - I knew that something was happening, I just needed the specifics of what was happening.
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