Being a snoop?
 

Uhm, so has anyone ever snooped through a significant other's email, and found something that seemed dishonest? And if so, did you say anything, or refrain because you were being the nosy one to begin with?

I'm caught in a pretty big dilemma right now, after seeing an email in my fiance's account that seems sorta sketchy...

i never have. however, a girl my friend was dating did that. she found an email from me and took it completely the wrong way. then responded pretending to be him and then bitched me out. it was fun. not really, considering she had absolutely nothing to be suspicious about. needless to say, it lead to him breaking up with her since he felt he couldn't trust her. i guess it wasn't the first time that she signed in and read his email.

that's a super tough one :(

i sincerely hope everything turns out ok...i hate these kinds of situations b/c if you say something, he will probably get mad that you read his email... and if you don't, the possibility could be there that he's playing you for a fool.

I really hope nothing bad happens :(

You're not going to like this, but IMHO, once you've stooped to snooping, you've lost the right to say much about what you've found.

Now, if you decide to break it off due to something you've read, I wouldn't fault you for doing so.

The bottom line is, it's a cheating issue.

What's funny, is that there's so many different kinds of dishonestly/cheating. I mean, emotionally cheating seems almost as bad as physical. So, while there might not be any proof of physically cheating, the fact that I read this email from another girl (and I checked the email on purpose, because I did have some suspicions) who is married, by the way, and they are talking about things he's never even told me about... I don't know, it's enough to make me suspicious.

And now what's worse, is I don't want to be dishonest... :(

Re: Being a snoop?
 

I think you should contact the TV show Cheaters and have them follow him around.

I agree.

Also, once you've reached this point, your relationship is already over because you don't trust him. You're just not ready to enter the mourning process that often comes with the end of a meaningful relationship.

I had this happen to me but I wasn't really snooping. He asked me to check his e-mail for some information that he needed and there was an e-mail from some girl. He claimed that he was just e-mailing her to be friends but the boy doesn't have issues making friends on his own, why would be need to make cyber friends. Anyways that was years ago but I confronted him right away because I wasn't about to hang around if that was what he was going to be doing.

Re: Re: Being a snoop?
 

haha this is the best comment. That show rocks.

-Rudey
--All's fair in love and war.

My friend found some incriminating things are her fiance's computer and confronted him. They broke up. You need to decide what outcome you want before you confront him. Is he actually cheating? Do you want to break up? I think that by snooping you lost some credibility, but you seem to have a valid reason for snooping. The whole situation is sad. :(

I found out a guy cheated on me this way. He wasn't too happy about it, but he wasn't planning on telling me using the "What happens in Cancun stays in Cancun" philosophy. Needless to say, we're no longer together, and I don't regret it.

:rolleyes: completely off topic, but I hate that more than anything else....

Situations like this are tough because if you confront him about his "cheating" and he's not actually doing it, he'll have lost all trust in you, and if you don't confront him, whether or not he's cheating you'll have lost trust in him, and if you do confront him and it is doing it he'll feel justified because you were stooping to low levels when you found out.

Probably the best plan of action at this point is to see if you can find any other indications that he's cheating on you and then ask him about those, instead of bringing up the email.

And as with any case of perceived "emotional cheating," you have to ask yourself if your expectations are unreasonable. Obviously we have no clue what the details of your situation are like so we can't weigh in. But there's a world of difference between putting out an internet personal ad so you can chat with women who email you naked pictures of themselves, versus writing an email to your best friend of the opposite sex and signing it "Love ya" -- but you will find women who will get upset by the latter.

that's so sad but true :(

You are in a tough situation to be in. Before you decide to confront or not to confront him you need to decide what the right outcome is for you.
If you want to continue the relationship and forget it happened, the easiest way would be to never bring it up.
If you decide to confront him--decide why you are confronting him-- to end the relationship or use this time to improve the relationship.

It will be difficult no matter what you do. My best friend found an email (on the family account) to her husband from another woman. After reading the email is was clear (w/o a dount) her husband was having an affair--that had been on going. She confronted him with a yellow pages opened to divorce attorneys. He came clean, promised to end the relationship, and they worked through it. It is an on going process from them. They have their moments where things aren't good-- but they are trying to work through it. For them it is alot of work and a lot of commitment.

Good luck.

I've been in your shoes. My exfiancee was talking with an ex girlfriend I knew nothing about. Emails turned to a letter, which turned to phone calls, which turned to more emails, which turned to text messages...

Basically I found out all this stuff through his email - which i went through because the jerk ass would exchange pictures with other women online while i was in the same room, in bed. Now tell me...how do you trust that?

Well the emails he couldn't explain...he started making up shit that she was psycho. I found a letter laying on top of the trash can in our garauge...three pages. he claimed it was one she wrote 2 years ago....RIGHT! I'll be damned if I believe the woman wrote it 2 years ago. She spilled her heart and guts out to my ex and talked about how she knew he could never accept her child (cuz it wasn't his). The freakish part is she was engaged too (supposedly). Well I was practical and brought the letter to him and asked if I should be concerned...he said no.

Latter emails turned to text messages...ones that read, "I want you" and "I love you". Then he started taking his phone with him in the shower and locking the bathroom doors.

Now I have to say - I never snooped prior to him. But I knew that there was more going on. The final straw was the email she wrote talking about how they were going to meet at a hotel in San Antonio.

You know, I wish I had more encouraging words but sweetie - his mess drove me into a temporary depression. I cried EVERY DAY and when I confronted him with proof or evidence he claimed it was my fault for snooping and that he "told her to write that". Yeah - well even his mother knew what was going on and told him to knock it the hell off!

Though he broke it off - it was the biggest blessing in disguise. I wish to never have that drama in my life again. I encourage you to think long and hard about the issue of trust. Because as others have said, if you don't trust him enough to let him have his privacy - when will you? Furthermore seek pre-marital counceling. I tried but my ex wouldnt - hmmmm another sign.

Furthermore - you're personal happiness and sanity is more important. If you find yourself on edge or cringe (like I did) everything you know he's on the computer or getting a random text message...you know it'll never get better.

Feel free to PM me if you need to ever vent

Not only is the TV show Cheaters funny, it's also educational. :D

I'm so sorry you're going through that Andrea. Check you Pm's I'll be sending you a message there.

Okay, so I just wrote a huge, long response and it got erased!

First of all, I agree with everyone that you have to decide what you want to hear and what you can handle hearing. And what you will do based on what he says to you. If he has been cheating on you, are you willing to work through it?

Anyway, I see a lot of questions raised by this situation, and a lot of ways of approaching and dealing with it.

Basically, there are two important things:

A) From talking with guy friends and boyfriends, and from reading a lot of magazine articles, it seems that many men do not consider emotional cheating to be cheating. Not knowing just how far things have gone with this girl or how close they are, it could be that he has no idea that he is doing something wrong. And if he knew it bothered you, he may stop immediately.

B) On that same token, whether he knows he is acting inappropriately or not, one has to wonder - how long until he will? Why hasn't something physical happened with this girl yet - is it because he loves you and wouldn't do that to you, or is it simply a distance or logistical issue? And whether something happens with her or not, how long until something does (either with her or someone else)? Or, worse, has it already and you just don't know?

Basically, I think you need to talk to him. I don't think that you should tell him you read the e-mail though. Bring it up in a non-threatening manner, perhaps by asking an innocuous question about one of the topics in the e-mail. See if he is willing to share the same information with you; perhaps he doesn't talk to you about it because it never came up in conversation. Or, talk to him about the idea of emotional cheating in a hypothetical situation and see how he reacts to it ("Oh my God, Mr. Thetagrrl... you won't believe what happened to so-and-so the other day. She found out her boyfriend has been talking to another girl about all sorts of personal things, etc... I'm so glad somthing like that has never happened with us, I think it's so wrong." Or something along those lines...). See what his opinion is and what he says about what the boy must be thinking; if he says something about how the boy is probably cheating, that's not so good.

If all else fails and you just have to know, it may come to the point where you mention the e-mail... but think seriously about this action before you do it and be sure that you are ready for the consequences that could follow.

GOOD LUCK!

By the way, Thetagrrl... I'm sure you've probably taken this into consideration, but just a thought...

You seem to have become a more regular poster here on these boards. Just wanted to make sure that your fiance and his close friends don't know about Greekchat or you posting here because that could be very bad if they come across this thread. Then not only were you snooping, but you were also asking strangers for advice about him, which could upset him more.

If he know about this Web site, you might want to think about getting this thread deleted.

I have a slightly different take of what sororitygirl2 is saying . . . men tend to be more oblivious of "Emotional Affairs" we often don't spot them for what they are in regards to our GFs or ourselves.

Or else we wouldn't let you have that best "male friend" that makes us feel vaguely uncomfortable.

Mostly we don't have some best female friend. Men really don't need a member of the opposite sex to be a best friend. Nor do we need our significant other to be a best friend. . However, girls want their partners to be their best friend. Hence the conflict.

Anyway, what I am saying is that women are more apt to "Emotioally Cheat" and are therefore quicker to spot the threat when their Man has a serius emotional attachment to some girl . .. it screams Threat.

Re: Being a snoop?
 

Yes and no. I wasn't intentionally snooping. I was looking through the history to find a site that I had been on previously and I clicked on the wrong link. Lets just say I was very shocked at what came up... I printed it out as proof and confronted him about it. He tried to deny it at first but then he confessed.

Tough call..this happened to me a while ago with an ex. I had my suspicions...so I checked and lo and behold he was talking dirty with another girl online....lovely. So I confronted him on it and he got all bent because he said he couldn't trust me. Eventually we broke up, and that was a factor, but only after other stuff as well. One of my friends put it well..."You're only paranoid if it's not true."

LOL. Thats true! Just becasue you are paranoid doesn't mean people aren't following you.

However. Has anyone watched amovie or read literature whose theme is self fulfilling prophecy?

Once you have the suspicion, that suspicion may kill your relationship.

Hey Thetagrrl, we haven't heard back from you about this so I just wanted to say that I hope everything turned out okay! :)

First, let me just say that I love Cheaters. But then I also love all those horrible dating shows -- Blind Date, Fifth Wheel, etc. I can't help it. Maybe I should seek therapy.

I'm dating this guy who keeps taking calls from his exgirlfriend. After arguing over it for like the 10th time finally I said, OK, I'm out of here -- I shouldn't have to compete for attention, and I don't understand why talking to her is more important than my feelings. (For the record, I've never set down an "ultimatum" like that before. There's more to the story, it'd just take awhile to write.)

Anyway, I've kind of been considering looking at his phone to see if he's been taking her calls again. But I feel so guilty doing it -- and what am I going to do if he is? Confront him with it? "Look, I was snooping in your phone and LOOK WHAT I FOUND!"

Once, a long long time ago, I found some pictures of my then-boyfriend's ex. The one whose named he accidentally called me by on one occasion. It was terrible...I knew I shouldn't look, but I couldn't help it, and once I had a face to go with the name it bothered me for ages...especially when I actually saw the girl in person, because not only did I not want to be able to recognize her but I had to pretend that I didn't since the boyfriend was with me. Auuuggghh! So no good can come of snooping!

I really don't know what to say, in this case...if you really believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that the "evidence" you've found proves that something devious is going on, then maybe you should say something about it. Otherwise, I just wouldn't. I had a guy friend who used to hack into my e-mail and read my messages, and it drove me up the wall; I was never able to trust him again after I found out he was doing that. I'm not a fan of snooping anymore... :p

Thanks... Actually, yea, I think everything is turning out ok.

I'm a super paranoid person. Full on hypochondriac-worry-about-everything kinda girl. Anyway, it's good to hear everyone's stories, because I think we could all learn a lesson in this sort of thing... I mean, just to be careful and trust your instincts.

Looking back at my original post, I wish I'd given some more details, because it changes things a little. I explained the situation to a few friends, and got some advice (much thanks to Mary also!) and I think I'm getting things sorted out. My instincts have told me from the beginning that I had nothing to worry about, but my worrying sometimes overwhelms me a little (or a lot).

Thanks to everyone for all the posts, though... it puts lots of stuff into perspective...

a little complicated
 

So this has nothing to do with my intending to snoop through his e-mail. Basically, I was at home and needed some tape so I called the bf to see if it would be alright for me to get some (he was at work). He said okay and told me where to look. It was when I was looking for the tape that I found something I really wish I hadn't. It's nothing pertaining to cheating. It's just really not right (it's more of an ethical matter). Do I have a right to confront him? As I am posting this dilema on here, obviously it bothers me b/c with what I found, it tells me he's been lying to himself, his family, my family, his friends, everyone for, well, two years. Would ANYONE here actually be willing to stay with someone if they found out their s.o. has been living with a pretty big lie??? Would you listen to their side and accept it?

It's a little hard to tell you without knowing what that lie is... It imagines how earth shattering it is. If you found a rock of crack, you are pretty justified in saying c'ya...

If you found that he's only paying minimum payments on his credit cards, maybe it's not so big a deal.

It would depend on the situation - what the lie was and what the motivation for telling the lie was.

For example, I'd be more likely to forgive something where he wasn't revealing the whole truth b/c the situation was something that caused him great personal embarassment vs. lying about something to manipulate friends/family. (Does that make sense? Hard to come up with a hypothetical example...)

It seems like the answer would be pretty common sense. Again.. unless we're talking about forgetting to pay one's income tax or hiding one's tips from the IRS, you probably should seek a mate who is not engaged in felonious activities.

I unserstand that completely. I feel that he'd probably do that due to embarassment. I understand that. Now, I'm not going to jump the gun and snitch on him. But I feel like I really don't want to be "a part" of the lie. In otherwords, yes, I found something I shouldn't have and now I think it would be best to just remove myself for the situation. Make sense? I'm sorry maybe I shouldn't have even posted this prob. it's just, when do you draw the lines on lying?? :confused: