I also told her again this morning that I don't want to be her warden. I don't want to and never wanted to be a toxic POS who asked for her phone, or demand that she text me every hour about where she is. I have to respect her autonomy and as person who needs her own space. But this once, I will ask that she show me again that his number's blocked, and deleted.
I get this, I really do. In 26 years I had never looked at or snooped through my wife's phone or tablet.
However, during those first couple of weeks after d day some things just weren't sitting right with me. I had that gut feeling she wasn't being honest, so I got into her tablet and checked her messages. She had given me her passcode a long time ago when I was helping her figure something out on her phone and it was a number that was familiar and easy for me to remember.
I uncovered quite a bit. I was stunned, gutted, and extremely hurt. She had rewritten some of our marital history and had basically told most of her friends what she'd been up to. A couple of good things that came of it were that I got confirmation of how many times she had been physical with her AP, so I knew she didn't lie to me about that part. She was lying about having no contact with him, and her true feelings about him.
One night I was triggering and unable to sleep so I got out of bed and sat in the living room, in the dark, with my ear buds in so as not to wake her up. Well, she did wake up, and she got very angry at me for not coming to bed. I told her "just go to bed and I'll be there in a while." That wasn't good enough for her. She got angry and chewed my ass for the next 2 hours trying to get me to come to bed. I remained calm and collected. I kept saying "just go to bed." She made it into an ordeal and wouldn't let me just have some space. I never raised my voice and refused to engage in an argument, but I did refuse to come to bed when she wanted me to. She got very, very upset. Eventually we did go to bed but it was late and she had to work early.
She told one of her friends on messenger about that night, but her version was quite different from what actually happened. According to her I kept her up all night fighting and "he wouldn't leave me alone." Uh, WTAF? That's not what happened, it was her who wouldn't leave ME alone! It wasn't only that, she also talked about how she saw her AP that next day and ran into his arms crying because I had "kept her up all night fighting" to which he said "I'll be getting my own place soon."
I also found out that they had exchanged "I love you's," something that she also lied to me about. Holy shit. There was supposed to be no contact at that point! She had been spinning stories like that throughout her whole affair. I was devastated, but at least I now had the truth. It was right about then, after she threw a fit about me "invading her privacy" that I started calling divorce lawyers, right in front of her.
That was the turning point. She apologized profusely for lying to, and about me, sent AP an ACTUAL no contact message, blocked him on everything, messaged her friends and admitted she wasn't always entirely honest with them about our relationship and disagreements, put in for a location transfer at work, and rolled up her sleeves and began real work on fixing what she had broken.
I know I went on a bit of a tangent there, but part of her doing "real work" was not changing her passcode and giving me free and unfettered access to all of her devices. Before I had seen her messages I believed she'd gone no contact and I had no clue she was rewriting our history to the extent that she had. After seeing those messages there was no way I could trust her without at least some monitoring. After some lengthy discussions she understood and freely gave me access. There hasn't been a repeat of anything like that since. I checked periodically for a little while, but I honestly can't tell you the last time I looked at her stuff. It's been several months, but she still occasionally offers to let me look if I get triggered or have a bad day.
Did I feel like a shit-heel for looking? Yes, absolutely. Do I regret doing it? Absolutely not. She left me no choice if I wanted the whole story and the full truth. It was the catalyst that made me find my balls and take a real stand.
Like I said, I haven't even looked in quite a while, but just knowing I have that access does a lot to reassure me. Her phone and her tablet are connected, so even when she's not here I can see her notifications and I could read her messages in real time if I want to.
The moral of the story here is, I believed her. I had no idea she was twisting things and still keeping secrets. I think a big part of our recovery was her volunteering to share her passcode with me and allow me access anytime I want.
Brother, you don't know what you don't know. It's very, very rare to have a WS who demonstrates complete honesty and doesn't hold back details or keep secrets upon discovery. Sometimes big details and big secrets. Your wife might be one of those unicorns who is being straight with you about everything, but a 3 month long affair with plenty of opportunity for hookups almost always means things got physical somewhere along the way. I'm not telling you this just to shit in your cheerios, but you might want to brace yourself for more revelations, and don't feel too awfully much like a POS for wanting to know the truth. She broke your trust. I think you're entitled to a little discovery, and if that means looking through her devices then she should be more than accommodating if she's serious about making amends.
[This message edited by Pogre at 9:20 PM, Friday, June 12th]
