Advice needed for a friend - has she gone to far and what should she do now?

[FourLittleDudes]

Friend doesn't want to post herself but has given me permission to post on her behalf.

Background - engaged and living together for 4 years, one child and 16 weeks pregnant at the moment.

Same old sorry story I'm afraid.

Lately he has become very paranoid about her phone, asking who she is texting, wanting to look over her shoulder at web pages, etc. She isn't doing anything out of the ordinary and its led her to think that maybe he is projecting as he is up to something...

For the last month she has been checking his phone when he is asleep. He has started using ingognito browsing on line but by using the back button and has found porn sites. This isn't her main concern however. He doesn't generally delete texts and there are months worth stored on his phone, but by comparing his phone log to his inbox its obvious that he is deleting texts from one number. The number is stored in the phone but not as a name, as a jumble of letters.

Not being able to read the texts, she hasn't wanted to mention it to him. But last night he slipped up and forgot to delete one message, it was an innocent text (asking if she had gotten to work ok) but addressed the recipient by name - it is a woman he works with, has mentioned in passing a few times but not really in a positive way.

So, she downloaded a back up app and automatically forwards all his incoming and outgoing texts to his gmail. She has hidden the app on his phone and changed the name of the folder the emails go into on his gmail account. He shouldn't be aware of it unless he actually looks closely on his phone. She accesses his gmail account from her phone and can now view texts in real time.

Early this morning they exchanged 5 fairly innocently sounding texts, him wishing her a happy birthday, telling her she didn't look her age, asking what she was up too, she replies in a friendly way, kisses on messages from them both.

She doesn't know what to do, whether to watch and wait, or confront him - nothing really to go on though as there is nothing incriminating in the texts yet and he would realise she was reading his messages.

She has gone to huge lengths to get into his phone and bypass the lock, to hack into his email, to delete traces of herself on it. She is consumed by it. I agree with her that it looks dodgy, why delete the texts and store her name under a different number if its innocent etc

She is so down at the moment and I don't know what advice to give her.

[TimidLivid]

To keep looking until she gets evidence or he will just deny and expalain it away would be what I would do. She needs to know so she can plan how to proceed, she needs to wait its either innocent or it isn't she needs to wait unill she finds out either way. He must be hiding it for a reason

[FourLittleDudes]

He would definitely deny it, he has proven himself to be a liar. She also found in his phone, messages from a local woman (number not saved to phone but again he used her name in the text) asking if she got home ok and her thanking him for this evening (whatever this evening was!) sent at 3am just before he arrived home after a night out.

She didn't mention the texts to him as she thought nothing of it, until he got a text a few days later from the same number whist he was sat next to her. He passed it off as a wrong number, but she pointed out there was a message conversation history above it (so someone he had been chatting to before) and he miraculously remembered that it belonged to his male friend. No more texts have appeared from this number and there's been nothing on his call log since. She saw a scrap of paper with the same number on it a couple of weeks later and asked during conversation who the number belonged to - he said it was yet another male friends number.

So he is definitely lying and up to something but there is nothing she can call him out on without looking like a stalker and she is scared of being alone when pregnant and with a small child.

[Sh1ney]

It's fairly apparent what he's up to... at the very least he is having some inappropriate and secret chats with another woman and lying about this.

It all depends on the type of person she is as to what she does next. I would be unable to 'watch and see' and wait until the 'evidence' goes from a bit 'hmmm' to full on catching him out. I would speak up now because I'd be unable to stop myself.

In her postion she might be better off waiting if she can. However the simple fact remains... this man is lying and he is secretive and those two things mean that she'd probably be saving herself a lot of future pain if she told him to sling his hook now. I know that's difficult in her position.

Good luck to her.. I know it's shit.

PS And yes, of course she would be fine on her own with the children. Far better that than constantly being on edge wondering if he is sleazing about online and with other women.

[moleavenger]

She needs to start getting over it now (the emotional pain) so she is ahead of him when the time comes, then watch and wait til she has full evidence. Then pounce.

[FourLittleDudes]

I'm a single parent to 4 and my youngest is only 3 months so I've tried to reassure her that its not all doom and gloom being alone. I much prefer it to feeling constantly paranoid and having that feeling in the put of my stomach all the time anyway.

I really feel for her, she thinks that she needs evidence to validate her feelings, and of course she doesn't but I felt the same way myself when I was in her position and didn't feel able to split my family without some sort of proof. Its daft but she doesn't feel that her feeling so unhappy and miserable is a good enough reason. It is a perfectly good reason, but I do understand how she feels.

I am influenced as I don't like him at all, I have no idea what she sees in him to be honest but am trying to stay impartial and just listen.