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I am close to 9 years out. Its rarely spoken about, I feel that things are going as well as they could be. OM is out of the picture (even out of the country), he is divorced now and last I checked his SM, he's shacked up with a slut half his age. Open phone policy, passwords, etc.

So I was a little surprised when she asked me about Whatsapp. Asked me if I knew how it works, do I have it, etc.....

A little backstory on Whatsapp - when I first busted her, I hooked her Android up to my computer and went through every single file I could find. I came across Whatsapp and tore it apart, I found several sent pics, showing super revealing cleavage with her face included. I was livid, but never mentioned it to her at the time, since I was dealing with so much other crap found.

So I played along and asked her why she wanted it. She said her friend uses it and friend wanted her to use it since that's the only way friend communicates. (Friend is an older lady who is very tech challenged). So I wound up telling WW that I'm not comfortable with her having it because of her affair. WW was like, what are you talking about? So I told her the whole story about how I picked apart her old phone, file by file, and came across her whatsapp folder and found pics on it. She's like, "I had whatsapp? Do you still have the pics? I swear, I don't ever remember using it or even having it." Of course, the phone and files are long gone, so there's no evidence now. "I've been an open book for almost 9 years, why would I blow it now? Why would I even ask if I thought this would be a trigger? I swear, I had no idea I used it, if I did, I just don't remember....it was 9 years ago...and what I DO remember is everytime i tried to lie my way out of something, you caught me, so I've been as honest as I can be. You have my fuil permission to look through everything whatsapp related on here if you want" - and handed me the phone.

Is this possible? I mean, tbh, the further away this affair goes, the less I'm remembering. Whats everyones thoughts on this? Oh yeah, I let her add whatsapp to her phone, but she hasn't even used it yet.

She doesn't remember something like the specific date or time that something happened 9 years ago? Sure, I would buy that.

But not remembering downloading and using a specific app to clandestinely send sexy pictures? Buuulllllshiiiiiiit.

She asked you about WhatsApp because she wanted to download it again but suspected that doing so would trigger your suspicions, even if it was for an innocent purpose. She assumed that because you never confronted her about using WhatsApp, you didn't know she used it in the past. She won't admit to anything that she thinks you can't prove.

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 7:19 PM, Wednesday, September 11th]

My BFF wanted me to download WhatsApp specifically so that she could easily communicate with me while she was out of the country.

Does your W usually need help with apps? WhatsApp is pretty straightforward.

what I DO remember is everytime i tried to lie my way out of something, you caught me, so I've been as honest as I can be.

Oh, is that why you've been honest? Hmm. I sometimes tend to see danger where there is none, but this statement, and her asking you about how to use it has me thinking maybe she's setting it up so that the usage looks innocent when it's not.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if she was doing something shady with WhatsApp, couldn't she easily hide it even if you have access to it? And if she were to use it to communicate with both her friend and an AP, the increased screen time could be explained away by chats with the friend.

On the flip side, I've used apps that I've deleted and forgotten about.

Everyone calling bullshit on her? Add me in.

+1 on the rank BS claim she doesn’t know what WhatsApp is.

Maybe she forgot because she was using Snapchat more to cheat and WhatsApp is just the one you caught and recovered?

My first instinct is I could believe that someone could forget that they use an app 9 years ago. Details that get seared into the betrayed’s brain could genuinely be forgettable to the wayward.

What would her motive be to come and ask you permission to use this app if it was somehow nefarious?

Hmm, I would be skeptical. If you're not okay with it then just say so

Her reaction may speak volumes

My original reaction was 9 years, it’s possible that she forgot she used the app. And then this came

. it was 9 years ago...and what I DO remember is everytime i tried to lie my way out of something, you caught me, so I've been as honest as I can be.

The defensiveness in this statement sets my teeth on edge as a Wayward so I can’t imagine how it is coming across as a betrayed. I have owned up to everything you have specifically called me out on. Give me a break

I once forgot about an app I had in my phone until I tried downloading it again... but it was an obscure parking reservation app I used in a city I had only visited once.

Maybe other people are different, but I'm damn sure that if ever used an app to secretly send boob shots to a paramour, I would remember that... not unless I was sending so many boob shots across so many different secure messaging apps that I lost track of them all.

Or I was just full of shit.

What would her motive be to come and ask you permission to use this app if it was somehow nefarious?

As I said in my first post, OP's wife knows that he monitors her device and that downloading WhatsApp without consulting him first would arouse his suspicions. She mistakenly assumed that OP didn't know she used it in the past because he never confronted her about it.

The question really isn't about whether she's using the app for nefarious purposes; it's about whether she's lying to the OP when she says she doesn't remember ever using it. The evidence is gone so she knows OP can't prove it.

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 3:03 AM, Thursday, September 12th]

I am embarrassed to say this has come up a few times in my little mess.

My WH’s affair was also 8 years ago so the time frames is the same.

On a number of occasions (more than I would like to admit) I found apps from 8 years ago only to find on further digging I was the one using them. I mean ridiculous right. But I swear I do not have dementia, just a whole lot of trauma over the last 8 years. So I do think it is possible (if what someone else said above is true—that her primary cheating mode was some other app and this was something that just came up once or twice). You know better than the rest of us whether that storyline has legs.

I just now had to look on my phone to see if I had the Whatsapp app.. Turns out I have Snapchat on the phone. I have never used either, of that I was sure without looking.. Sometimes I'll download an app but never get around to messing with it.

[This message edited by Adolfo at 3:07 AM, Thursday, September 12th]

Maybe it's an age thing, but I am in the camp of finding it reasonable that she could have forgetten which app she used. Hell, I forget the names of some of the apps on my phone now. She may have spaced on it because she was so high on the illicitness of the affair at the time that tech stuff like that just didn't register.

Is she tech-savvy?

ETA: I just reread one of your old posts from a few years ago. So this isnt the first time she played innocent when you called her out for wanting to add WhatsApp on her phone. It seems like you two had a similar conversation then. Let me re-assess my opinion: she's up to no good. You're right to be suspicious.

[This message edited by 1994 at 4:02 AM, Thursday, September 12th]

Mechanic,

After reading 1994's post, I went back and read your previous posts for context and found one comment in someone else's thread from December 2022 in which you relayed almost the same exact story about your wife asking if you knew what WhatsApp was and if it was OK for her to download it; the only difference was that she said she wanted it for business reasons and didn't explicitly deny using it when you confronted her.

So what's going on here?

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 4:32 AM, Thursday, September 12th]

I've used this app on a couple of occasions to facilitate texting and communicating internationally whenever I or family went abroad.

Very possible to have forgotten. Especially something you don't use or discuss.

Long Term Memory is like that, most of it is fragmentary and stitched together to make a "story" that we can use.

If you don't use a portion of it, you really do lose it.

Forgetting you used WhatsApp, normal.

Forgetting you had an affair, not normal.

First, I don't believe what your wife is telling the truth you unless she was sending so many images, using so many of these platforms that it was another day in her life.

My experience with such apps is unless you are traveling extensively for business around the world and communicating with a large number of people there is little reason for it. Whatsapp is good for India, South America and Africa the other WeChat almost exclusive to China. Snapchat is for kids trying to hide something (my opinion).

Most phone plans have world wide texting options/calling plans for very minimal fee (unless you are outside the places I would expect). Also Facebook has a messenger system which goes right to your phone as well (but if you have access to her facebook, she would not be able to hide much I suspect).

I wrote this because after my X pulled her little stunt, I dug into everything and I found some things that to this day I keep in my mind. I've kept what I know ambiguous and during one of those ambiguous moments I watched her deny something that she thought I didn't know about.

BLUE is most likely correct in your WW motivations, and even if she is not, for your WW to even ask such a thing is to me mindboggling.

"I don’t remember" is such a trigger for me, because it was used interchangeably with lies, and once I even got him to admit that he didn’t want to remember….at least that is something resembling honesty.

Once I found the chronology of downloaded apps on his phone, I found several messaging apps I didn’t know existed. They used many means of contact, including yahoo mssgr, dust and confide to name a few. I never thought to look in the app store until a few years downstream, but they are all there. He tried to blame some of the downloads on the kids, lol, but they were linked to his account not theirs. Love the iPhone family plan for that truth buster.

I have given up trying to separate what is a true inability to remember vs an inability to tell the truth. That your wife was open and handed you the phone to check was a good thing. That she was tone deaf in not realizing the trigger asking you about a messaging app post affair…. Not so good.

Hope this is nothing and you can continue to move forward. Best of luck to you.

We had the family accounts but for many years around the cheating time the younger kids would sometimes use our phone, so it will have like Poptropica or Barbie Makeover or 20 other crazy little kid apps. So it gets very confusing. Some of those would appear as if purchased by myself or my husband not on the kids own accounts so I find it difficult. On one messaging app I did reach out to my now adult son who confirmed that he had added the messaging app in 2017 to communicate with our old Nanny who had just moved to Canada.

However, the fact that she asked you about whats app 2 years ago and then again now does seem very weird.

There is a big difference between "I don't remember" and "I don't want to remember"
I think your scenario falls in the latter category.