SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Everyone is different. I will only say be careful how much you read/see because you can't unsee it.

So I saw a few emails between my WS and his AP but read just enough to figure out what was going on. I really want to read them all because I have this strong urge to learn all the details so I know the extent of it. Is that a bad idea? Just wondering what others have done and how it impacted any RC.

I had my WH's phone "forensically" recovered (with his permission). His A went on for a year and a half at that point and they had sent something like 30,000 messages back and forth including pictures and videos, including all kinds of sexting and other sexual and horrible things to see/read. When I first got it back from recovery I devoured the first 4 months, reading all the time. What happened was that I read and saw things that I still have trouble reconciling with my WH as these were behaviors we have never shared in our relationship. Some of it was honestly just revolting - the stuff that really got me was how morally fucked up they were. AP, WH and the OBS all work together - apparently they would sit in the break room and sext back and forth until one of them would excuse themselves to the bathroom (they have individual bathrooms like a family bathroom at the airport so there was no danger of someone else hearing them) - the other who stayed behind would put on headphones and listen to the other pleasing themselves - then they would switch places and do the same thing. And sometimes the OBS would also be in the fucking break room with them - so my WH would be sitting, chatting with OBS while listening to his wife the AP masturbating in the bathroom.

That was when I stopped reading. To me, little was worse than that, and I'm guessing that WH likely listened to her doing that while in the house with me - maybe even while I was present, and the excused himself to our bathroom to do the same. I have no idea - I don't need to know that. I just don't. He is CAPABLE of that, and for my purposes that was all I needed to know to realize how must I did not know this person like I thought I did, after 15 years together part of him was an absolute stranger to me. If I were to keep reading I know it would be pain shopping in my case - I didn't need anymore.

So, just be careful that you are not crossing the line from needing to know and hurting yourself - as it's easy to do.

I can’t imagine not knowing all the truths and all the facts about anything to be able to make a decision.

I can’t imagine not knowing all the truths and all the facts about anything to be able to make a decision.

I couldn't either when I had the phone recovered. I can only tell you that I saw so much in what I did look at that seeing more was just repeating the misery with no gain. IDK how to explain it but with the sexting, honestly it seemed repetitive - like the same weirdly pathetic routine repeating itself over and over and over again. I skipped around over the 1.5 years that were available to me and it was just more of the same. Sure, was there likely some other thing I missed that was said - said about me? Undoubtably. If you read this forum enough you will see advice to BS's who already know horrible horrible things like "what more do you need to know" to make a decision about staying or going. Basically, I wasn't going to find anything to change my feelings - just more mental images and mind movies (and some real ones) which would just mess with my head more.

I had to know everything, because if I don’t know the whole truth, my mind will run wild and make it even worse. That’s just the way I am. What I learned and found hurt like hell, but at least I had the actual truth, and it actually was not quite as bad as what I had imagined.

I had to know everything, because if I don’t know the whole truth, my mind will run wild and make it even worse. That’s just the way I am. What I learned and found hurt like hell, but at least I had the actual truth, and it actually was not quite as bad as what I had imagined.

Maybe I stopped because it was actually WORSE than I imagined - like worse in ways I could never even have thought about. That and WH was not really one for trickle truth - so everything I learned just confirmed what he already said so I felt I did know the pertinent things already. For example re the sexting, he admitted that they sexted "a lot - like almost every day for a year" and about the masturbation stuff and ultimately that he knew I was going to "be disgusted with what I read." He also agreed to the phone recovery so he knew what I was going to find out - and honestly I didn't glean anything really more about what happened just the gross and disgusting nature of their conversations, which alternated on boring (they talked about work a lot like normal people would) and the same nauseating descriptions of what they imagined doing to each other and what the each one allegedly was doing during the discussion. Barf barf barf times a million - there was nothing I needed to read more than like 1 week of that shit. It was all the same revolting versions of the week before.