About 2 months ago I was at our home one day (been seperated since first week of June)by myself and was doing some snooping. My WW has a small box on the night stand next to her side of the bed. It sits out in plain sight and has no lock or anything like that on it. I opened it and found several emails printed out that she had written to OM while he was out of town for about 10 days. In these letters my 40 yr old wife sounds like a love sick teenager. Of course it hurt to read them, but I realized that this was from the fog, so I discounted them somewhat in my mind.

Since then I've seriously wondered if OM ever realy saw these emails. He was out of town on a sort of vacation, and all of the emails were only from her, none from him. In the past she has told me that she sometimes writes down things that are bothering her and then throws them away without sharing them with anyone else. I know that early in our relationship, she used to write some poetry, but would not usually share them with me.

My question is, if she ever confronts me about whether I read these things or any of my other snooping, should I fess up? When she found out the day after D-day that I had read her email (my way of finding out about the A when she wouldn't come clean when I questioned her) she was furious and told me that, that invaded her private thoughts and caused me our marriage.

I know Harley teaches Radical Honesty, but I wonder if this much honesty is necessary.

I have stopped the snooping for about the last 5-6 wks. Only served to hurt me when I found or saw something that I didn't want to see.

Thanks for the help and God Bless.

Biscayne,

I snooped quite a bit early on. I wasn't able to control my emotions when I read her e-mails to him. And yes, I got the same exact response, that I was invading her privacy. The really hard part about me snooping was what I read. I was hurt so bad hearing my wife write things like that to another man. But, after coming to this site I learned really quick that it is just part of the fog they are in. I have quit snooping. Mainly b/c what I don't know won't hurt me. I would rather not know now than to see what she says.

TORO

Bi8scayne,

Radical honesty is a principle to be practiced in recovery. When a spouse is actively destroying the other behind their back, the BS has to take steps to protect oneself. Radical honesty could definately BACKFIRE in a situation like that.

When I found my husband's emails I simply told him what I knew without giving away my source. He asked and I told him it didn't matter HOW I found out because he knew it was true. I felt as long as he was being deceitful and harming me behind my back that I had NO obligation to reveal my methods of self protection. My first obligation was to protect myself from his ongoing harm.

I agree with melodylane -- The snooping you have to do now has almost nothing to do with what you will discuss and confront once you're actually in recovery. Radical honesty is very important, but I don't think you have to go out of your way while the A is still going on. It's purely information-gathering at this point for you to know what is going on and to protect yourself.

Once you're in recovery, that will be a different story and you will need to think about when in recovery you reveal everything. My sense would be well down the road.

Snooping and spying before recovery occurs is perfectly acceptable, you do need information. However, if you do so, be prepared to handle the information and not let them know.