Hi all,

I'm hoping to recover with my WW, have another thread on that.

Something just hit me... about all the snooping I have done to uncover the details of the A leading up to confronting my wife, and now ongoing to be sure the A does not resume.

Isn't this just more deception? Isn't it wrong of me to have invaded her privacy to find all the facts I "needed" to bring it out? It just seems wrong, and of course should be unnecessary in a healthy relationship, but I'm struggling with what I have done as well.

Er, 46. Haven't you read all the basic concepts and stuff? If not, why not? There is no reset button and no magic wand. It takes work and more important, knowledge to take the path to recovery. People here can answer your questions, sure, but not spoon feed you. Get SAA and read, read, read that and on this site itself - see the right hand menu of most popular links?

Privacy in a partnership is when you go in the bathroom (without your cell phone) and close the door. You have a right to know what is going on that can change your life in horrific ways.

Larry

L46, is it deception and an �invasion of privacy� for the vice squad to spy on drug dealers and prostitutes in order to bring them to justice? It is the same principle as adultery. Logic would dictate that it is BAD to deal drugs and sell sex; but GOOD to CATCH them and stop their crimes. It is wrong to have an affair and lie about it, it is not wrong to CATCH someone engaging in such profoundly destructive behavior behind your back.

Your post is an example of the saying that "feelings are not truth." First off, your wife does not have the right to the privacy to destroy you behind your back. As her husband, you have a right and a need to know every thing she does because her every action affects you.

An affair, for example, is a direct threat to you in each and every way. It is a threat to your health [STDs, psychosomatic illnesses], your financial security [affairs cost money and many affairees wipe out the family finances], your emotions, and to your children�s family. As a husband and father your obligation to protect your family supercedes any imaginary �right� to privacy. She has no such right in a marriage. No one has the right to the privacy to destroy you behind your back.

In a �healthy� relationship, there is complete transparency and GOOD BOUNDARIES. If you had snooped a little more in the past, your wife would not have had the ability to carry on a secret second life that is necessary to conduct an affair.

It is not "dishonest" to CATCH someone committing adultery; it is "dishonest" to lie and commit adultery.