Just found dh's messages to an 'ex' on FB, gutted.

[credulousidiot]

Fairly 'regular' that has namechanged.

Just found some e-mails, utterly reeling.

He calls her in the space of one sentence, 'amazing', 'stunning', beautiful'.I wish I could say otherwise but I saw her photos and she pretty much is, I however am not.

Also calls her 'my beautiful X', X = her name. I just feel sick to the stomach, shaking and tearful.

He ends all the e-mails, I saw them all...'thinking of you beautiful', what? when he's with me??

I know this is the Ex he was with before me and that they had to split up as she moved away for family reasons and always suspected he had some residual feelings for her, but not enough to threaten me before now.

He mentions talking to her via webcam and possibly arranging his holidays to 'accidently' meet up with her!

Good news is that she lives in another country, albeit a fairly accesible European one. But that frankly means fuck all at the moment, I want to fucking kill him, he doesn't even know I know this, he left his Facebook open by accident I saw an unread message from her and then looked at the rest,not particlarly proud of it but that pales into insignificance in my mind.

Just don't know what to do, feel so utterly wretched but I don't think anything physical has happened 'yet', am I over-reacting?

Thanks all for your lovely responses.

Have decided to wait until he gets back to confront, actually looked up some similar threads and one in particular where WhenWillIFeelNormal (she should be a Relate counsellor surely?) mentions watching his reaction when you tell him, has really hit home with me...so as unbelievably tempting as it is to make him shit himself over there (he's in th US) am resisting it atm.

Don't think she's with him, this is a very important work meeting for him and she is definitely married - I checked, with 2 kids and doesn't work so i don't think she could come up with an excuse to jet off to the US.

Delved further into their 'communications' and saw that he had sent her links to 'Butterfly' by Crazy Town and 'Stir it up' by Bob Marley, weirdly this has made me cry more than anything else, I actually looked up the words of these songs, just crying and feeling sick.

have to go and help out at school now, will check Mn Later. I was all angry and fired up last night! just now feel deflated and worthless :(

Shit about those song links - hopefully he's just sending her them as he likes the songs and not because of the lyrics. Am massively and on your behalf.

sorry to hear this cred
been through something very similar with DP myself just week ago, though it seemed to be with less of an emotional thing than you DH is showing, though i think emotional betrayal is so much worse

do what everyone else has said, print out the messages before they are deleted as it will be harder to fight you corner with nothing to shove in his face. also, if he logs onto his account from another pc, it sometimes automatically logs you out of any other pc's you're logged in to, iyswim. so then if you refreshed or clicked onto another page, you wouldn't be able to see anything, or go back to the messages.

well done for waiting until you are level headed. i went in all guns blazing and just wasn't thinking clearly enough at the beginning. make a plan. think about what you want to ask, how you want to ask it, what responses he might come up with, and you you can respond to them in kind.

hope you're feeling a bit better, i know it's tough

Oh you poor thing. This is awful. I can imagine how painful it is. I am raging for you.

What a thundering gobshite!! Revisting his youth like a deluded twat.

I am another who would be in the camp of "If it was me...I'd pack him a bag, wake him up, hand him his car key (no house key on it) and point him at the front door - when he asks what the fuck - just say - leave go to your beautiful xxx. I no longer want you in my bed, my house or my life".

How many years is it since he saw her? if your kids are that age then it must be donkeys years. Can she really stil be that stunning?

Anyway I hope you give him the fright of his life. Really let him see what he stands to lose.

PLEASE stop feeling worthless now! You must stay angry. He is the one who's worth is under question at the moment; grown man acting like a silly teenager and deceiving his entire family.

Cred - yes the shock and anger carries you through the first few hours, then the reality sets in :(

I agree that you should print everything off that you can find, write down any other details etc Just in case you want/need them in the future.

Only you can decide where you want to go from here. Whether you want to go down the counselling route or if you want him to leave. I know on some level it seems 'daft' to leave over a few messages when nothing physical has happened, but as I said earlier - to me a drunken stupid one night stand would be easier to forgive than this calulated, protracted emotional affair. On the other hand it may have been some ego boosting crap he had no intention of following through - who knows. However, I have been cheated on in the past and fwiw the emotional part was much harder to get my head around than the physical stuff. We had counselling and tried - but eventually the relationship crumbled. I am in my 40's - of all the people I know where one of them have had an affair only 2 couples are still together after a long time, one of them is 'ok' but she says she would never go through what she's gone through again to repair a relationship and if she knew then what she knows now she would have divorced him instead. The other one wouldn't leave him if he brought another woman home as she's so insecure - but she's also very unhappy.

As I said, I wouldn't ever forgive someone for cheating on me again (and I class this as cheating) - but that's because I've done it before - you may not have and you have to make your own decisions. I didn't listen to my friends saying the same thing at the time either. We can't always learn through others mistakes. Also, there are a few posters on here who say their relationships survived it and one who says her relationship is better for it (woke them up to how much they did love each other and want to be together).

Only you can decide my love - but whatever you choose - we'll be here for you x ((HUGS))

Came to this thread late and I really feel for you OP.

Echo the advice of others about saving everything you have found. I also completely support your decision to wait until you can see him face-to-face. In the meantime, do as much digging as you can on the laptop. Try to see what he has been browsing. There is another thread at the moment with specific instructions about how to restore deleted history, but I'm not sure if PrivateBrowsing eludes those instructions.

Find out what you can about this woman too. Knowledge is power.

Arrange to have the DCs looked after and elsewhere so that they are not there when he returns. Postpone all other commitments for the next 24 hours if you can. Before you show him your evidence, ask him to tell you about his affair. He will doubtless bluster and laugh and say he isn't having one, but don't reveal your hand or the information you possess until absolutely necessary.

It is vital that he doesn't know what proof you've got, otherwise there might be a tendency to admit to only what he knows you can prove. Ask him to hand over his phone immediately and before he's had the chance to delete anything and to give you access to all his phone bills, either online or paper.

You will be in a terrible state waiting for that confrontation, but use the time wisely, gathering your information. Don't be tempted to reveal anything beforehand. When he phones to speak to you, cut the calls short and pretend you are ill. So sorry .

Just saw Chipping's posts and wanted to say that this doesn't have to be the end of your relationship at all. So much depends on why this happened, his honesty and the responsibility he takes, after discovery. It can be a wake-up call, or the death-knell. But that's for later, perhaps.

So sorry to hear this. I've had this happen to me twice now. Last time I was engaged and he was still messaging his ex in Norway. At first I thought it was to get his posessions he had left - he always called her "the bitch from hell" to me and used to go on about how selfish and cruel she was. He, like your hubby, left his FB open and I saw a host of messages over months where they had been emailing flirty messages where she seemed far from evil and in fact seemed more keen than he did to have him collect his stuff!Then came the msg's about what they would do when he went over to collect it...not the most pleasant read. I felt like an idiot for trusting him (I had trust issues from a previous relationship - I seem to pick 'em!) and confronted him about it. He denied it all and then when he realised I definately knew he had nothing to say. Didn't apologise at all but walked away and went to stay with his mum. The next day I got a message to say I had overreacted and he hoped I had seen it takes two to tango!? I told him to get out of my life at that point. He still didn't understand why it was so wrong months later when he tried to come back into my life out of the blue. I felt lucky I caught it early on and before I married him.

Unfortunately my new partner and I haven't been going out very long - we actually fell pregnant on the 2nd month of going out. He is from NZ and his ex of 5 years and him are best friends. They split last June but still email/text a lot. I felt uneasy due to the past but felt I had to start trusting him as the father of my child (i'm 13wks) and didn't want to be negative. However a couple of weeks ago he left his gmail open and I saw just how often they emailed and what was being said and I burst into tears. Had a sinking feeling ever since. I keep telling him that he doesn't have to hang around as I honestly feel they are very well suited and should be together. I hate to think I am messing up other people's lives and actually believe that if he wants to be with her bubs and I would be MUCH better off knowing now. He can bugger off if he's not interested. They still say they "love" each other and miss each other every day. He thinks of her and runs to her with his work issues that I barely hear about. He says how proud he is of her artwork. He wishes he could do it all over again - to have back the time when they split up... Personally I can't see how that isn't saying he wants to be back with her. Obviously I wasn't meant to read it, but now I have I can't get it out of my head. I tried saying I am envious of her role in his life last weekend and i'm worried that when he goes back to NZ for work he will hook up with her and he said I was worried about the wrong things and she was his past, and he wouldn't repeat those mistakes.

I'm very confused. Worst thing is she doesn't know i'm pregnant. He refuses to tell his family at all. I've begged him to tell them as they will only get upset and angry later, but he says I don't know what they are like. I can't help thinking it's because he doesn't want her to find out.

Men really can be sh*ts can't they?
x

To echo what HarkTheDragonAngelsSing said above, depending on what browser he uses you can see the login details saved for various sites.

For Chrome, go to Options > Show Saved Passwords and it gives a list of all the sites it has stored login details for.

For Firefox go to Options > Security and click the Saved Passwords button.

I don't use Internet Explorer so I'm not sure how to do it there, but I'm sure someone more familiar with it will be able to find out.

Stay strong, don't back down no matter what he says, print everything out and let him try and wriggle out of it.

Sorry, I completely monopolised my message on here and gave no advice - how rude!

I think you have take the view that they are both getting some kind of ego boost from the emailing. However, that might be all it is. If push came to shove she might get cold feet, or indeed him. If she is married it might seem like harmless flirting and she might just be glad someone is still interested (hey it's great to get compliments!)... BUT. Personally I think there is a limit to what should be said and to whom. He needs to respect that you are the only person he can say certain things to, or it undermines your relationship. I felt that having his cake and eating it not only showed my ex to be greedy and heartless but thoughtless and careless. Personally I ran while I still could as I hate all of those personality traits. I understand being married it is not that easy.
I agree you need to confront him. Keep your cards close to your chest. I started by asking if there was anything he wanted to tell me. I got blank looks and slightly flushed cheeks... (my mind whirring wondering if there was other stuff I didn't know about - always worth holding out just in case). I'd always rather hear their side and see if it matches first before I say mine. I tend to snap and find it hard to get back to being neutral, so letting them get their side out first at least gives you something to work on after the aggression and crying is over. Before they see how much you are hurting.

I really hope you can make it work. Trust is very hard to rebuild but if you haven't had this problem before and can talk it over then maybe it will make you stronger. There might be something he feels is lacking that you can both work on and re-build. If he continues to deny everything however, I would be very wary.

Good luck lovely and if you ever want to rant/chat do. It's horrid when it is all you can think about. You aren't going mad!!! xx

WhenWillIFeelNormal- brilliant advice. Don't tell him what you know. Similar happened to me, kept my cards close to my chest and got more information that way. I really feel for you. Big massive hug.

So sorry to hear this

After you have confronted him write down everything he says. He then can't try to manipulate you, denying things he has said etc.

Good luck with everything.

What a total shit :(

So is your OH Fab123

Thanks again, you are all lovely

Good idea to have the dcs out of the house when comes back on Tuesday WWIFN, I'm making arrangemnets for that.

He phoned last night and spoke to dcs, I faked being mid-shower as I just didn't trust myself not to say anything, or god forbid cry.

Won't be difficult to pretend to be ill however as it somehow seemed a good idea to drink a whole bottle of wine last nihgt, feel doubly like shit today, the stupidity.

Have printed out all the e-mails, looked at some history and there was quite a bit of porn which I had a tacit awareness of but just depressed myself by looking at the type of women he likes -perfect nubile hourglasses, I'm not overweight but have been left quite apple-shaped after 2 big babies, also not much chest to speak of, I sound lovely don't I? Also find myself reevaluating not just our relationship but our fairly irregular sex life seeing it all in a new light, he doesn't really look at me, probably has to imagine other people. Oh dear, sorry if tmi, all these things are going through my mind.

Am veering between hating him and actually understanding why he's done it! I do believe I'm going mad, apologies for self-indulgent waffling on.

Don't say that cred, please don't slate yourself and stop those thoughts about your figure and looks immediately!! This is not good at all, do you have a good friend or family member who can listen? Please don't be so self-critical, he wouldn't have married you had he not fancied you, baby tummy or not. Gosh, I'm sure he's not Henry Cavill..

Not much more advice on this but hope you can speak to someone and not be alone.

Fucking hell

When I read OP I assumed you'd only been together a short while, but this ex was from years ago? They are both pathetic.

Is he going through a midlife crisis or something? Trying to recapture some youth?

I missed how long he's away for, but I'd make the most of the time (keep resisting the urge to tell him/rock the boat by blocking her etc) to do some other snooping... Not just online! Do you have access to bank statements, phone bills?

Agree with snowcake. Whenever I get depressed about how I look and start comparing myself with H's OW, I think, well if looking like Cheryl Cole or whoever is not enough to keep a husband faithful then I'm not going to worry about it. I'm sure you are beautiful, inside and out, and if your H doesn't see that then you deserve someone who does. Confronting him might open his eyes pretty quickly though.

I know when this happens to you, your self-esteem plummets and you imagine that this is all about you and your own failings.

Trust me, it isn't. It's all about him.

It doesn't surprise me that he's been using porn, because there is a significant link between porn use and infidelity. If you get through this crisis, this is one of the issues you'll need to discuss and resolve your own feelings about. However, yet again I will tell you that his porn habit has got nothing to do with you personally.

If I had to guess on this one, I would say that the appeal of this relationship was a reasonably unthreatening romantic fantasy. However, relationships with long ago exes are the most dangerous kind, because they are more to do with reliving lost youth and a time when life was free and without responsibility. The other issue is that the cyber element of this allows far braver communication than face-to-face interaction.

It's hard to be rational when you have had a shock, so I'm going to try to do that for you. It is wholly unlikely that this woman is as stunning as she appears on a FB photo. In reality, she will be a harassed mother who like us all, looks like shit some of the time. Don't imbue her with goddess qualities. I suspect that in his imagination, he is visualising her younger self anyway - and she will be doing the same. I expect he is no Adonis himself now and is showing signs of wear and tear like the rest of us. This isn't about looks, I assure you, this is about fantasy.

I expect if you look back over the previous 6 months since they have been in contact, you will have noticed some changes in his behaviour that you either didn't register much at the time, or passed off as attributable to other things. It would be interesting to know when this cyber friendship changed from catching up on news, to flirtation.

In all likelihood, this is as much a fantasy for her too. Everyone is vulnerable to attention and flattery and it is possible that in their minds, this is just something that makes the day go quicker and because of the distance and the impossibility of a real relationship, they can go a bit further in what they say to eachother, knowing that it can never happen in practice.

That is not to minimise this behaviour, because it is horribly disrespectful and they would both hate it if it was done to them.

One of the things that would be helpful to establish before he comes home, is whether this has ever moved off of Facebook - to a private E mail account or texting. See if you can find a list of passwords saved on the laptop and see if you can find phone bills, either paper or online. Is he registered for online billing? If not and it is a personal phone on contract, you can do this yourself and it will give you access to up to 2 years worth of bills.

Really thinking of you.

A pair of selfish gits......

I am so sorry to read what's happening to you. It's the ultimate betrayal, I think.

Agree with many of the posts.....PLEASE print off the info and gather information you have BEFORE discussing it with him IN PERSON. If he has time to think on his feet it will only confuse the situation.

The fact that they have not met up (logistically a problem) does not mean that they have not "met up" mentally and that's the shitty bit. How on earth would you H have felt had he discovered you writing so intimately to an old flame. It's horrible.

No, it doesn't necessarily mean "the end" for the two of you but, it'd take a lot for me to trust someone who'd even gone that far behind my back.

We're all thinking of you here x

KNow how awful you must be feeling...been there.
I found e mails between OH and an ex from 20 years ago. They used to chat on facebook.
I confronted him, he said he found it easy to talk to her etc about things going on between us! we were a bit rocky.
I wrote to her, quite ploitely saying that he had kept all their chats secret and I was not happy.
She wrote back saying she did not mean to upset me and had no idea she was a secret. Said she would stop the contact if i wanted.
he obviously did not plan to meet up with her or call her beautiful etc.
Keep calm, hard i know, and then tackle him.

Hi cred,
I just wanted to post and say I have had a similar situation to you, and have namechanged so it's not picked up on who I really am! My DP had split up with his ex years ago. They remained friends after this and I knew of this when me and DP got together. Had no problem with it. However, one night, when I had gone to bed, he was on MSN to her and had forgotten to log off and turn the laptop off when he came to bed. In the morning, I found the laptop, saw the conversation between them, and felt sick. He had been complimenting her, asking her to go on webcam and if he didn't, he would be disappointed, and she didn't have to impress him because she was beautiful etc etc I then snooped around and found other conversations between them where it was very flirty. I couldn't believe the things he was saying to her. It was as if they had just carried on as they are, because she had moved away when they were still together so had to break up.

I had asked my mum to have DD when I confronted him. At first, he was angry I had been looking through his conversations. I knew he would be. He told me he always spoke to her like that. I kept saying to him about how it looks on the outside. I asked him if he would speak to a girl we are both mutual friends with like that, and then it dawned on him how bad the situation was. I told him I was hurt and upset more than angry and that's worse. I felt like I was second best and he was just putting up with me because he couldn't be with the one he really wanted to be with.

RL friends who know us both, whom I had discussed this with previous to speak to DP, had told me they didn't think DP would do it intentionally. They thought he was just being really stupid and didn't realise what he was doing. I agreed with them because I don't think DP has that in him to do, particularly after hearing all the bad ways in which this ex treated him when they were together (our mutural friend who got us together had told me about this).

My trust was really knocked by DP. It took me a long time to trust him again. He told me he would do whatever it takes to make things better, so he deleted her number and email, blocked her on MSN and Facebook, and changed his number. The fact that he was willing to do these off his own back, because I never told him to do any of this, showed me in some ways that he was sorry. This was a few years ago, and so we have gotten past it, and are much happier now.

Sorry I've gone on a bit, but I just wanted to say that you can both come out the other end of it, if you want it, and depending on how he reacts.

The waiting til he is home to be able to talk to him will be agonising. I had to wait almost a week, and I couldn't really concentrate on anything other than what had happened.

Good luck and thinking of you!

No you're right, I shouldn't be self-critical, must try to remember that he is in the wrong not me

I have confided in one close friend but not in great detail as she has a lot on her plate atm, seeing her properlythis weekend.MN is brilliant though, you've all helped me more than you know.

I think maybe being hungover is causing this negative thinking, I'm going to try very hard to be angry again, that felt better than this tbh!

Agree with the 'fantasy' aspect, but as someone pointed out earlier, aiming to 'accidently' meet, takes it a bit too close to reality imo

It's hard to work out whether he has changed towards me over the last six months or not, as we had that bad patch that I put down to the stresses of him being out of work, he's always been quite critical - I think it's his nature - but it's fair to say that during that bad time he implied that pretty much everything was my fault,I wouldn't be surprised if in his eyes I was also responsible for the economic crisis and the Australian floods. It did get me down, especially as he was at home all the time, constantly observing me, constantly critical, but it seemed to get better when he went back to work, although that might be partly due to him not being around as much, I don't know.

Have their e-mails in front of me and they do start off in quite a flirty way, with both complimenting each other on their photos, but the flirting gets heavier as they go on, building up to him refering to 'unfinished business' and a possible meet up. She seems to encourage him too, each time the flirting goes up a notch she reponds in kind. So there is no doubt in my mind that he's planning to fuck her, the fact that he has't 'yet' means fuck all to me frankly.

Can't believe how many of you have stories similar to mine, this kind of thing must be more common than I thought, sorry so many of you have gone through it, but thanks so much for posting as I feel a bit more normal!

Having all sorts of mad thoughts about posting these e-mails on to her wall on FB (weirdly she is not 'friends' with her dh on there - although it does say she's married), but must hold out and wait, so tempting though

Am surprised about the porn/infidelity link though, really though that most men looked at it.

Have to go out now, will try and do further snooping later, thanks again.

If he was being horribly critical to you since this contact with her started, this is absolutely typical of the pre-affair permission giving phase in all affairs borne out of "friendships".

I've got no doubt that he will claim that the plot to "accidentally" meet abroad was just fantasy and that in reality, he would never have gone through with a meeting. A good question therefore is, if this woman had flown over here, booked herself into a hotel for the night and was paying the bill - and his absence to meet her would have aroused no suspicion, would he have gone through with it?

I would be sceptical if he said "no". The only thing I'd be prepared to believe was that he didn't honestly know what he might have done, but hoped he would have said no or backed out.

And no, not all men use porn.