I hate to have to do this, but I got curious about the inconsistencies in what my W has been telling me (or not) about contacting OM. That, plus my IC asked me today whether I believed my W was telling me about any contact or not, and I had to say, I don't know.

W is away on a business trip with "coworker that knows about A" and left her laptop at home. I decided to fire it up to see if I could run Norton Speed Disk on it, and then got curious. Did a search and found screenshots of a few messages and lists of out and in messages. There are a LOT there, several in a day in fact, and one of them says "will you meet me in Paris" (which could easily be an allusion to Perris, CA, not far from where WW works and OM's family lives.

I'm shocked, but amazingly calm right now. I'm also pretty sure I'm done with plan A and ready to move to plan B or D. I will think about it CAREFULLY for the next few days before I do anything. But, I just don't see that my W's "closeness" is anything but a cruel sham.

<small>[ July 21, 2002, 03:43 PM: Message edited by: 2long ]</small>

Yes, I'm snooping. Probably for the last time.

No, I'm not going to stop until I know what else is on that laptop.

Am I going to confront? I don't honestly know right now.

So I am assuming you have Norton Systemworks?

You can retrieve recently deleted files still on the hard-drive, using unerase wizard I believe.

I am actually on your side about the snooping, because you do need to KNOW what is going on before you can make informed decisions about the rest of your life. I did my share of it, and found out just what a lying SOB I had married.

I hope the end result is different for you, I will cross my fingers.

Love and light,

Jacky

Nina Too:

I have the Mac version, which has Norton Unerase on it. I've recovered files with this software before, and will use it tonight if I have to stay up all night to do it.

I could tell my W that I found it during the course of repairing her computer drives and files, as I said I was going to do that for her, but I'd still have to admit to have been blatantly snooping to read the contents of the cache files I saw.

This is awful stuff, to be sure.

2long,

Expect her to get angry, but then they always do when they are found out. All you can do is be honest about reading the stuff, as anyone would 'just coming across it accidentally'.

I will be around most of the night (it is early evening here), on and off, so I will keep checking for updates, and if you need to talk.

Jacky

Nina Too:

Thanks for being there. This forum is great for that. I always try to help my new friends out when I can stay up. Now it's my turn, I guess <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="images/icons/frown.gif" />

I think I'll probably just cool down about this until I can draft a good plan B letter and get feedback on it. But, unless I've misunderstood something, this EA is in full swing via email at least. I did check my W's cell bill from May, and she didn't call HIM, at least. That's been true most of the time, so unless she's using a calling card, the email is it.

She will claim it's work-related, but I see no reason that they should need to exchange meessages several times per day.

2long,

Did you find evidence that shows more than a working relationship? Emailing several times a day does seem ridiculous, though.

Is this search going to give you text of their emails? If so, I would print it out for use later. Chat logs may also be there...

I am sorry you have to find out things in this manner, instead of her being upfront about it. Sadly, we know that WS's rarely confess, and so we BS's must do the work to get the truth.

I will tell you something...when I found evidence, I felt deeply hurt, angry and depressed for a long time. BUT, I also felt like a normal person again, because every time I asked questions I was made to feel stupid, naggy, paranoid and crazy by stbx. When I knew that I had JUST CAUSE for feeling the way I did, it made me have trust in myself once again, because to be honest, his lies had been going on so long, I did feel paranoid.

I am off to make dinner for us now, but I will not be far away.

Nina:

Not much obviously not work related. Their emails are usually one-liners, rarely very many lines. At least there's no sexual content this time. What I've been able to read is a series of messages sent on 7-9, my D's birthday and the day of our last MC session. So within a 4 hour period. This is where my W asks OM if he'd meet her in Paris. It may have been a joke, because she was complaining about her boss and the workload, but it might have been a misspelling of Perris, CA (my W and OM both are dyslexic). So far, I've been unable to read any of the other messages, but one screenshot shows semi-frequent traffic back and forth from late April to July 9.

My W had agreed, at our previous MC session on June 11th (I write them down to keep track), to tell me whenever she has contact. She "did that" or so I thought, until we had an argument after OM emailed my W about a possible collaboration on HER property/research out of state. Since then, she hasn't told me a thing (that was about 3 weeks ago, now).

Hey, I am getting search results, but it won't let me save the recovered files to the hard drive, where the originals are. You know how to do this? I used to be able to save to a "recovered files" folder, but it doesn't look like this version of NU gives me that option.

<small>[ July 16, 2002, 03:01 AM: Message edited by: 2long ]</small>

2long,
Sorry to hear about this. The take from this side of the Atlantic is not to do anything right now. I found out about my WW's A somewhat "accidentally" on her computer, and I think it has been one of the major hindrances to beginning the R process. KEEP IT TO YOURSELF! My W still blames me for snooping, and says she can never trust me again; don't give your WW any excuses to use this to turn to the OM.
Snooping is only to be used for the evidence for planning you next move.

Step back and consider the bigger picture here.
Hang strong!

Sweden

Sweden:

Hi! Good to hear from you again. I wish it were under better circumstances.

Yeah, I know. With Spacecase's recent developments earlier today (or yesterday, here, actually), I realize again that this is the right thing to do. Trouble for me is that we seemed to be doing well, except for no NC agreement, that I was getting all cozy with my "progress." Well, this proves that progress hasn't happened, and that my W is okay with lying to me and our Cs. So, like SC, I guess I've got a lot tougher road ahead of me than I thought I had.

Trouble is that at my IC session yesterday, I told him that I am feeling like I might need to go to plan B in the near future. I had originally placed my timeline at mid-October for plan B, but have been feeling lately that nothing will happen if I don't go to it sooner. But maybe that's as good a reason for NOT going to B right now. I don't know. I feel like the lying is making it hard to believe in the closeness. Actually, I know that it ISN'T sincere. It's an act. Or maybe, like my IC is saying, it's her "conflicting emotions" and at best she's struggling to decide whether to stay with me or go with OM. She SAYS she'd rather be alone than with either of us, but now I don't think I believe she wouldn't run to OM if we split up.

norton just turned up 2700 text files with OM's name in them.

I read a couple, and one is more explicit than anything my W has ever said or done since I met her. This was during her A, by her own timeframe, so I'm not going to be bothered by it.

7-9?

Hmmm... It sounded to me like the workday was hectic and she just wanted to get far away, not like she was serious, just joking with OM about Paris... I could be wrong, but my impression is that you are reading more into it.

But you know better than I do, you're right there... I know it hurts you to read that stuff.

Still, you thought you were doing well and 7-9 is a long time ago since WS's seem to live for each day. If you have had some good days with SF and all, I wouldn't discount those!?

You know your limits, but hopefully you can "detach with love" as in BR's post. I will bump it up and you read it again, if you haven't. HUGS and glad you are able to control the crying now. I'm interested in your progress. Don't give up on yourself! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

Maybe you could/should redefine "no contact" with your W. If it is unnecessary for them to communicate re: work, then she needs to understand this. Perhaps her idea of "no contact" means face to face conversations??? *SIGH* I know, just giving her the benefit of the doubt.

I mean, I don't think she would have left her laptop behind if she really REALLY was trying to hide anything from you. Ya think?

<small>[ July 16, 2002, 03:28 AM: Message edited by: BINthereDUNthat ]</small>

Yeah, I hate when this type of thing happens also. Maybe WE get a little too confortable with the preceived progress we are making, and then we find out that we are not as far along as we thought.

My advice. Go back to the basics. Remember that Plan A is about you and not her!! Keep up with rebuilding your relationship even though you know that she is having a hard time breaking it off with the OM. She's just a bit deeper in the fog than you thought. If she is at the stage of wanting to work on your M, then she is probably feeling deep down that there is not a lot left in their A, although she is still contacting the him (the addiction part).

I was in a similar situation during my W's 2nd A. I knew she was still in contact with him, but she was also showing signs that things were picking things up in our relationship. Soon after this, the OM actually started calling our house begging her to call him!! I knew it was done then...

Plan B and confronting her with your new info might only give her what she is searching for, the excuse that your relationship can't progress further. Don't give her the satisfaction!!!!

Hang in there!

Sweden

Good suggestions guys!

I'm still searching, and either find stuff that I "knew" was during the A (and a lot of that confirms what she told me) and then just the July 9th stuff showing up so far. It takes a long time to read through 2700 files. I notice that Norton pulls up the same file many times, starting at different places (bits?) in the stream, so there aren't really that many times OM is mentioned. So, I'm trying to refine my search.

Yeah, July 9th is the only one I've been able to find of the recent stuff. She hasn't used this computer much since the screen got cracked, although I'd like to think that part of that is her effort to not think about OM. But, she has a computer at work, now, and she could be using that. Sigh.

You are right, Sweden, I can't let this foul up my plan A. I just can't.

BTDT, you may be right about me reading more into it than is there. But multiple messages in a day? She definitely hasn't told me about that. Also, we've never been able to get any timeframe for "no contact." She doesn't believe in it, and says her IC tells her that I can't expect it.

I'm new here. First time posting.
I wanted to say I'm sorry that you found what you found. I agree with the others you need to confront her. If I remember what I've read, you said she was away on a business trip. Don't confront her on the phone. Wait until she returns.
My prayers are with you.
Hang in there

BTDT makes some good points on how you may be reading into all of this. I know that I often have a very skewed view on things I find or overhear.
There are some things that you find that are just going to be plain obvious, but there are also those things that you interpret as a the A, or contact, still occurring.

Give her the benefit of the doubt right now if she is making an effort at working on the M. That's all you can ask for at this point; it is much more than I have, my ticket is booked and I'm slowly packing...

Swede

Hi SA:

It's taking me a long time to get through these files and figure out what's old and what might be new.

The old stuff that I've found that I didn't already know about is pretty graphic, and shocking. She did tell me there "was a whole lot worse" than I found, but insists they only got together a few times in the whole 11 years, so most of this is email sex.

None of the later stuff I've found so far has that in it, but I've only seen one or two messages so far that are post d-day.

Hope I can actually finish this before I have to go to work in 6 hours!

2long,
Hopefully all of this will turn out to be nothing, or maybe something rather positive! The graphic stuff is tough to take. My WW was for example discussing with the OM about where they were going to go on their Honeymoon, where they'd were going to meet to have sex in his car, if he masterbated at work, bla, bla, bla. I view it as a bit humorous now because I knew they never really met. It's sad!

I was just thinking that this is a bit late for you there! Get some rest!

Sweden

Sweden:

Yeah, it's 2:20 in the morning here. I can't sleep. Ihave to know whether there's been any more than what I know about between them. SO far, thankfully, I guess, I have only found stuff from before D-day that is pretty much what she told me about, minus the graphic detail. Since D-day, I've only found the one so far, but I know of others, and then finally the sheer number of emails recently has me bugged.

I will give her the benefit of the doubt, if there is any, in the end. But I NEED to finish this for my own satisfaction. I may not be able to snoop again, even though I don't plan to tell her about having done it this time.

Hi 2long,

I am back from dinner and I see a few others are here to help you along. Some good advice there too.

I did confront stbx with what I found out while we were supposed to be in recovery, but when he left, I found out a whole lot more than he never knew about. I didn't tell him because I was in Plan A. And now I am in Plan B, or Plan D(divorce), it doesn't really matter anyway.

Now she may have left her laptop behind because she left nothing incriminating on it, or she thought she got rid of it all, or as a test. So maybe it is a good idea that you do not plan to tell her you snooped. Funny thing about that snooping, if they know about it, it creates an unsafe place to be for them, and we need to create a good safe place while in MB plan mode.

So, even if stuff turns up, you may have to keep it to yourself. I tried this, and found it darn near impossible while living with him. I was sooooooooo angry. So, BITE that tongue, LOL!

Still here...but if you have to work, maybe you should take the day off tomorrow or call it a night?

<small>[ July 16, 2002, 04:31 AM: Message edited by: Nina too ]</small>