I am new to MB. I wish I had found these forums at the beginning of my husband's affair. So much great information!

I just wanted to share a feature on Verizon that I used to confirm his affair. For months I used the phone record online to see how often he was texting/calling OW. (pretty much 24/7)

After three months of waiting for him to end it I discovered that Verizon allows you to text message from a Verizon app or via the online account. Bingo! I had access to the actual text of his messages.

We have a shared account on Verizon and he is the primary account owner. We used the same login, so I believe I was logged in as him. I could only see his text messages and none of my own.

Anyway, everyone that I tell this information to had no idea it existed. I think it would be very helpful to anyone in the position I was in 3 months ago. On the online account it is under the "My Messages" area. I hope it helps just one person!

LifeIsBetter, welcome to Marriage Builders. I'm so sorry to hear about your circumstances, but thank you so much for sharing this with us. If you are correct, this would be a HUGE help to a BS!

Question: I am on my account and I'm not seeing any link called "My Messages" - could you tell us exactly where that is located on the site?

I tested this out since I just upgraded phones and was on the website anyway. Three things I noticed that you would want to be aware of.

1. It's only going to show messages for the number you log in as. So you would need to log in with the number you want to see the messages for.
2. You have to "activate" it. So none of the messages will show up there until you do.
3. When you activate it, you will get a text from Verizon on the associated phone telling you it has been activated. This is important because if you can log in to your spouses account, and find that it is not activated, make sure you have access to their phone to intercept the notification from Verizon.

I found it here under "My Verizon":

Sure, here are better directions:

At the top there is a menu - Explore, Shop, My Verizon, Support.

Put your mouse over "My Verizon" and there is a dropdown menu. On that menu there is "My Messaging" and under that you would select "Send a Message". Then you have to click to Agree with their terms. It will go to the Messaging page. You won't get to see any past messages, just messages that are sent from the time you Agree and going forward.

So when I did this my husband asked me if I got a weird text message from Verizon about a Messaging service (it sent him a text about it). I played dumb and said I never got anything. I said, "Verizon only texts me when we are getting close to using too much data. I haven't received any other messages." He went along with it, thank God! In other words, if your spouse is familiar with the online account and how that stuff works then this may not work for you. My husband is clueless with technology - the OW helped him to hide stuff from me. She told him about Facebook chat, Snapchat, etc. All stuff he had never used before and impossible for me to track.

I read their text messages for an entire week. It was excruciatingly painful to see the things he was telling her. It's exactly what I needed though to become stronger and begin making plans to separate from him.

FightTheFight - You posted as I was replying. Thanks for the good pointers!
Your #3 is very important. In my case, my husband guarded his phone with his life. He also has it password protected and the few times I was able to get to his phone while he was sleeping I could never guess the password. So I wouldn't have been able to intercept the text from Verizon. Luckily he didn't pay much attention to the text!

Since I am the manager, can I link all my phone numbers to this? Or do i have to create a new account for his number?

I think you have to create a new login for each phone number. In my case - I was never able to see my own text messages because I was logged in as the manager (my husband). I never tried to create my own login.
If you are the manager I would think you can create an account for his number. It may send a text message notice to his phone though.

can you please explain how you accessed the actual texts. You say you had access to the actual text of his messages. this means the words. HOW DID YOU DO THIS? Thanks!

jonsmith68 - Do you have access to the online Verizon account? If so, follow the directions FightTheFight gave above. I explained it a bit more in the post below Fight's. Also, note that you can't see past text messages. You have to activate the "My Messaging" and then you only see future messages.

I tried this, set up messaging, texted from verizon phone, but there was no message from verizon yet and noting in texts listed in the status list

Ok, irealize what is happening. I did not get to set up the messaging. Whenever I try to go to setup it says my request failed and please try again later. I also tried with the app on the phone and had the same problem. Maybe they have discontinued offering the service. Will check with Verizon customer service.

eden13 - That is interesting. I can't check it out because I don't have access to our online account any more.
I should have noted that only text messages show up for the online messaging. If you have an iPhone and use iMessage then it won't work.

I added that service on 11/05 and it was still available to add then. And it is still working now.

I can also confirm that if you are looking at an iphone, it will only show the SMS text messages, not the imessages(sent from iphone to iphone.).

That's a bummer because OM has iphone also. Oh well.

Did you add the service throught the web or the app. I tried both and neither worked. I have not called Verizon yet, but that is my next step to see if they can clarify why it is not working for me.

I added the service through the web(i think that is the only way). And the phone did get the sign-up notification text(s) within a minute.

Eden, I wonder if using a different browser would give you better success. I was using Chrome when I added the service.
And as reference I see that when I am using Internet Explorer8, verizon's site gives me message saying my my browser/version is not fully supported.

About imessages: I believe the default is to use regular (SMS)text messages. You have to turn on the imessage feature***.
And there is also another setting that can be turned on and off that says if the phone can't send the imessage due to poor data coverage, then send it SMS. (if that setting is off, then it waits until it gets better coverage to send it as an imessage).

So you might be able to see iphone to iphone messages if one or the other doesn't have that turned on...or if they have a momentary bad service.

If you had access to the phone, you could tell at a quick glance by looking at the messages. For the "sent" imessages messages, they appear with blue backgrounds. If it is a sent SMS message it has a green background. BTW received messages all appear with grey backgrounds regardless of if they are SMS or imessage.

***Most people would turn this on, unless they were paying for unlimited SMS text messages or a huge block that they would never use.

Verizon got the messaging working for me. In regard to iphone, what if I turn off imessage in settings? With imessage turned off my daughter can not text to her friend's who have ipod touch, but I'm wondering if imessage is turned off, will the iphone to iphone texts be sent as sms or just not go through at all. I don't have another iphone to test this with but i'll ask a friend to test it out.

If iMessage is turned off then all messages are sent as SMS text messages on the iPhone.

Verizon changed it website. This feature doesn't appear to be on the site anymore...unless I just can find where they hid it.

Can anyone else still find this feature?

I thought walrus' weren't allowed to have phones! Are they salt water proof?