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Think my OH is cheating and really need computer help!?

38 replies

dw774391 · 20/10/2015 01:03

Ok so about 2 weeks ago I used his laptop I usually have my own but forgot to take it with me and on the internet history was a search for a site we discussed him using last year with a sort of dating profile. Anyway there isn't much on the history as he clearly usually deletes it but in firefox there is a list of cookies which he obviously doesn't know to delete so theres a list of all the sites hes accessed my only issue is it doesn't give exact link to what was used and I'm not super tecky to know how if even possible to get usernames/passwords from those cookies, I'm wondering if theres anything I can search for on the computer that would give me better information or a program that looks for them I tried searching and one suggested password fox but the laptop had new windows installed so the old firefox details is in another profile and I didn't want to move anything at the risk of loosing information. He also "clutches" his phone 24/7 if he goes to the toilet it goes to, for a shower its in his pocket all the time or right beside him. I don't want to say "hey I think your up to no good" without really having evidence and I know he hasn't been using the old profile as ive got the log in for that and theres been no activity nor anything unusual on emails but that doesn't mean he doesn't have another set up or using the phone.... Please help!

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CultureSucksDownWords · 20/10/2015 01:13

Cookies don't have passwords in them.

I think you need to talk to him about how you feel rather than hunt around on his laptop for apparent evidence of cheating.if you don't trust him then you have relationship issues that need addressing.

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dw774391 · 20/10/2015 01:45

I have my reasons not to trust him after having a profile on a site and chatting up girls granted no evidence of him meeting them but flirting with people. I know he has a kik account with about 15 girls on it but again this doesn't save messages when logging in only on the device that uses it.

The sites are all a bit iffy but then its one of those is it for porn, which is totally fine or is it for something else, like some sites offer like relationship advice but also have profiles for chat etc so its more that I would need to know what was accessed on the sites.

weve been together 3 years and hes great but I want to know more about the why chat to other girls and reasoning behind last time when I found a website profile he had we were going to talk about it but I didn't want to bring it up when I went over to his id rather give him time till he was ready then he just said he was sorry and it was stupid and that he would delete it maybe because I didn't get closure in my eyes last time its just in my mind but I find that now hes taking his phone everywhere its just raising my suspicions :(

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VegasIsBest · 20/10/2015 04:28

I agree with the previous poster. Why are you doing detective work on your husband? If you don't trust him the relationship doesn't have much future. Can you sit down and talk to him about how you both feel?

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NerrSnerr · 20/10/2015 05:02

If there's this amount of distrust after three years then I don't see the point in continuing the relationship. Had he done anything this time to suggest he was chatting to women again or was it just because you had hold of his computer?

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TheDowagerCuntess · 20/10/2015 05:16

This is no way to live.

He doesn't sound like a trustworthy person, so of course it's going to be difficult to trust him. And so you have a thoroughly unhappy basis for a relationship.

Hopefully someone will be along with some tech advice soon, but surely you know that if you're in this position, the relationship is no good, anyway.

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BinToHellAndBack · 20/10/2015 13:24

Is there something benign you're hoping to find? Something that'll make you think oh, that's ok then, it's all innocent? Because it seems incredibly unlikely...

And if not, then what do you hope to gain from this? You've confronted him once before because it crossed a boundary that you were comfortable with, and the message he seems to have taken is that he needs to cover his tracks better, not that he needs to respect your feelings.

You can do better than someone who treats you like this. Do you have kids together?

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dw774391 · 20/10/2015 14:06

We don't have children together no, the relationship in general is great and we pretty much live together so the only time he would have is when I'm at work and hes off I wasn't actually snooping on his laptop I was using if for university work as I had left my laptop in the boot of the car and when I clicked on the internet it come up like a open previous windows post which had the site he had previously used but on the history it was just the homepage not actual pages etc, the problem with cookies is it doesn't say when accessed so they could be from away back to before we were even dating I don't know that's why I wanted to know if you could get user/pass from cookies to actually check the individual sites I don't want to acuse him or talk about something that happened years ago if that's the case

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CultureSucksDownWords · 20/10/2015 14:22

Tbh, the computer stuff is irrelevant. The fact is you don't trust him. If you did trust him then you wouldn't be suspicious of his computer activity and you wouldn't even think that he could be cheating on you. You need to fix the trust issues in your relationship, or if that isn't possible, then accept that this relationship isn't the right one for you. What about some couples counseling to address the trust issues?

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dw774391 · 20/10/2015 14:54

The computer stuff is completely relevant to me, I only have a problem because the computer showed the homepage of the site he had used in the past but only the homepage so I cant exactly say to him omg you went onto the homepage of that website when I know its not had any activity on it, its the other websites but I wanted to know how cookies work I take it there is no way to know exact dates they have been used if they were from before we dated then I cant call him up on something that was before we even got together, I do trust him he was away for the weekend and I had no issues with that, we do trust each other I want to know if theres a reason I shouldn't be trusting him i.e. when the websites were accessed, if he has other email account/ any profiles that hes using, if I said to him I want to know if you've got anything you've been hiding he could easily say no and I wouldn't know if this is true or not as I have no evidence to suggest hes been up to anything only that the cookies show a huge list of websites but these don't mean anything

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BinToHellAndBack · 20/10/2015 15:15

Trouble is, deciding whether or not to trust him on the basis of cookies on his computer isn't real trust.

That aside, why would his computer show up sites from years ago? Mine suggests recent sites, and constantly changes to what I've looked at the most. Sounds to me like he's deleted his browsing history but can't get around the fact that the computer flags up 'most used' sites. I could be wrong though.

If it's innocent and you trust him then there's no harm in talking to him about it, doesn't need to be an accusation. If you want to snoop a bit to find out then of course that's your prerogative, but do you really want to be in a relationship where you feel like that's the best option over and above a conversation?

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dw774391 · 20/10/2015 15:33

Well when he updated windows he moved everything onto a hard drive then back onto the computer so when you go into the firefox data then properties it says date modified 2012 this is the date it was transferred onto the computer and the cookies are from all firefox so I have no idea whats in the old firefox data and whats been since then as its just an alphabetical list and when you click on them it doesn't say when accessed so I don't want not to trust him based on something that could be from before we were even dating or what we discussed last time that's why I wanted to know if there was anyway to access the cookie information i.e if it saved any details like usernames passwords even if it saved usernames it would be fine as I could search the website to see if profile still existed he has a rubbish memory so if there was dating profiles he used back before we were dating hes probably forgotten all about them and never bothered to delete but if he had been accessing them recently then I have every right not to trust him.

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AnchorDownDeepBreath · 20/10/2015 15:42

The Firefox screen shows most visited sites. If they were old, they'd be replaced by sites he uses more often. For most people, it would be Facebook, Amazon, a news site, his email, for example.

If you look into Firefox data then it'll show modified 2012 because the core files were moved then. Cookies won't be that old.

Has he actually wiped his history?

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CultureSucksDownWords · 20/10/2015 16:34

Information in cookies will be encrypted and therefore extremely difficult/impossible to access. Anything not encrypted won't make much sense without understanding exactly what each cookie is storing and why. Even if you did obtain his usernames and passwords, using them to access his accounts without his knowledge is against the law.

You have a trust problem not a technical problem. If you trusted him you wouldn't hesitate to ask him about the sites or to forget about it. He's broken your trust in the past which is why you don't trust him now. You need to decide if you can trust him completely, or if you can't, then move on.

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NerrSnerr · 20/10/2015 17:24

If you're putting so much thought into this then the trust isn't there. It would be a huge breach if you access his usernames/ passwords and log into any of his accounts. I'd go ape if my husband did this without asking me first, to be honest if he did it so early in our relationship I might have booted him out!

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dw774391 · 20/10/2015 17:45

I didn't mean to log into the account as I said above if I knew when they were accessed I'd know if it was recent or even the username i could search the site for that username. I know he's not used his old profile I called him out on before. He knows I find it really hard to trust people my two previous relationships didn't go well I was abused by my first boyfriend. I don't know how to tell him that I wasn't snooping but just checking it after it had showed the last visited sites and there's a list of sites without sounding like a crazy stalking mental case. And I don't want to start an argument over something that may have happened over 3 years ago which is why I'd rather have checked dates accessed for myself as if there in the past then there in the past if they were recent in the time we've been dating then I would definitely be calling him out on them.
He also said before when I found the site which was completely by accident I used his phone and double tapped the home button to clear all the apps I had been using just games and stuff and it showed the safari as a website called "fetlife" home screen then I searched that for his home area and found an account which was easy to spot as he had a naked headless photo as profile picture the account was created before we were dating but he had obviously been on it as it showed activity on the profile liking photos etc.

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CultureSucksDownWords · 20/10/2015 18:13

If the sites were showing as the ones in Firefox on the home page then they are highly likely be the most recently accessed or most frequently accessed sites. However that doesn't tell you actually how long ago it's been since he's accessed those sites.

If you trust him completely then you can trust him not to be cheating on you and forget about what you saw as they must be from before. If you don't trust him then you need to sort that out by talking to him and perhaps having couples counseling to see how you can build future trust.

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AnchorDownDeepBreath · 20/10/2015 19:00

DW Is his history still there, or has this been cleared? If it's clear, how long ago was it cleared? Does it show your activity from today? His browsing last time he used it?

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AnchorDownDeepBreath · 20/10/2015 19:00

DW Is his history still there, or has this been cleared? If it's clear, how long ago was it cleared? Does it show your activity from today? His browsing last time he used it?

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ENtertainmentAppreciated · 20/10/2015 19:10

My DH's phone just sits on the side in the kitchen and so does mine. If one of us gets a message signal we're quite likely to say to the other 'what's that?' if they're nearest.

Why would someone feel the need to take their phone into the bathroom and even the toilet rather than just leaving it on the table or wherever?

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AnyFucker · 20/10/2015 19:16

He is great

no he isn't

Our relationship is great

no it isn't

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DontHaveAUsername · 20/10/2015 23:59

This isn't a technical problem, it's a trust issue. I'm not comfortable giving you advice or guidance in any form relating to this knowing that your husband is in the dark about it.

You have a trust problem, not a technical problem. I'm not saying whether you are right or wrong not to trust him, I don't know about your relationship. But if you don't trust him, snooping will never be enough. Because no matter how much you check up on him you'll always have that nagging feeling that maybe he's just very good at hiding something. And if you do trust him you won't have any need to be going through his laptop. You need to talk to him, if someone he does or says makes you not trust him that needs to be discussed as well. If you can't between you find a way to restore the trust then I'd say the relationship has run it's course.

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dw774391 · 21/10/2015 03:30

The history is from June and only shows a porn site, however the cookies are from who knows when. I don't think anyone can judge my relationship or how good my partner is based on me finding something that may or may not have even been from when we were dating. If I want his phone when I'm next to him he would give me it I just find it weird taking it everywhere and living in his pocket but I can't exactly say excuse me but can you sit your phone on the table it's a bit weird you take it everywhere. I won't able to speak to him in person as were on alternate shifts this week he's on days and I'm on nights and I'd rather talk in person than send a text saying hey you know your laptop well your Firefox has cookies from who knows when and I just want to know all the sites you've been using recently. I think people are missing the whole point that I don't have any reason to doubt him just now/not trust him unless the cookies were to show being accessed in the last 3 years but since the data is from before then to present and all mixed together in alphabetical order I really can't tell if I have any reason to think he's up to no good. It's not like his June history shows anything unusual it's not very fair to say he accessed a home page I have topless dudes show up on my Facebook etc it doesn't mean I've done anything wrong and I know that site also has forums so I can't call him up for an old site that might not even be anything "bad"

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CultureSucksDownWords · 21/10/2015 08:33

No one is judging your relationship because of what you may or may not have found. People are responding to the fact that you yourself don't trust him. If you had complete trust in him, this would be a non-issue. You do need to talk to him about how you can work on your trust in the relationship.

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Llouh · 21/10/2015 08:39

You're not going to be able to find passwords from cookies but if you're worried about him using a dating site surely you can sign up to it with a fake profile and look for him on there?

If he's not on there then I'm sure you'll feel better but for how long?

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etttvatre · 21/10/2015 08:45

Log into his kik account from another device and just wait to see if he receives any messages.

If he realises you've done this he's obviously also checking kik himself regularly in which case he's obviously up to no good.

No grown men use kik to communicate with friends....

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