found this on computer, please help me confront without breaking down

[needyouallnow]

Hi namechanger here,

I am on the EA thread so please dont out me if you know.

Long story short, emotionally abusive husband for alot of years, nothing ever good enough for him, totally worn me down to the point where I dont know who I am anymore or what I like doing etc, DCs also. Doesnt let me sleep properly, very cold emotionally. I have broached our problems with him several times - he doesnt see it, I get het up over nothing - do you want to split up over something stupid blah blah.

Anyway, though I am stronger now he still makes me feel all our problems are down to me.

Today I was checking what our DS had been looking at on the computer (he looks at videos COD , skyrim, which he knows hes not allowed - so I monitor this) anyway the history was deleted, so I googled how to check. I managed to find the cookies (totally crap with computers).

The cookies (you need to tell me if Im right here)tell you a time a website was accessed. Whern DH was in yesterday alone we were all at work/school adultfriendfinder was accessed and various other porn sites.

the ADF was to meet girls and swingers in your area, could this have been a pop up? porn tbh I'm not that bothered about but meeting people is a different matter. There are other "cookies" pictures etc but when I click them it just comes up with a command prompt. Does anyone know how I can tell what he has looked at or who he has spoken to?

I am shaking writing this, our relationship has been crap for a long time but I want to confront him with the facts - I want to make the break, with a reason that doesnt involve me being "too sensitive", "your'e mad", you are a schitzo etc (all things he says).

Total ramble - any help would be appreciated

Thanks all, still here but kids in ear/eye shot so going to take them to school in the morning and do a system restore. I hear what you are all saying about I should just go if i'm not happy, but i'm going to look anyway.

Much calmer now. xx

People like Rhubarb should shut their mouth if they dont know anything about technology. Popups can put cookies on your machine. Popups will gladly execute any cookie script like any other window.
Cookies are also dumped on your machine via ads embedded on another website. So you could visit a porn website and get cookies for 10 other websites via ads or popups without actually visiting those websites.
If you have time then open the AFF cookies and check the contents. Sometimes they embed user names or emails in cookies and that will show you if your DH has actually logged into AFF.

Being continually insulted by your DH is quite enough reason to not put up with him anymore. Please don't think it is OK to put up with being emotionally abused, it's no less of a reason to get out than if he is meeting up with people in real life.

TheTruth - how very charming you are.
I take it that you are the bees knees when it comes to internet technology? Do you work for Nasa?

Most pop-up blockers now manage to prevent them from putting cookies on your pc and it is very rare to get a pop up that can get past the blocker. I am presuming she does have a pop-up blocker as most anti-viruses now come with them as standard.

If you have issues with my advice then I'd rather you framed it a little better than "shut their mouth" as it makes you look very uncooth and quite uneducated.

I don't think I've actually heard anyone say 'shut your mouth' since Primary School!

Ha! Just had a look to see who it was and discovered they are just as rude blunt as with other people.

The cookies that would appear with pop ups are third party cookies and most pop up blockers in 2011 manage to deal with them quite effectively. You can find a list of blocked cookies in your anti-virus but they shouldn't be in your internet history unless you've clicked on those sites.

I am happy to be proven wrong but ime this is the case with most updated anti-viruses. Unless she either doesn't have an anti-virus or has chosen to disable the pop-up blocker.

Anyway, hope the OP gets a resolution soon and I echo the posters who say that you really don't need an excuse to leave him. You just need strength and resolve and I wish you plenty of that.

Sorry, that should read 2012 - the date is important as anti-viruses are now much more effective than they used to be.

You know what Rhubarb you should shut your cake-hole if you can't even get BASIC INFORMATION LIKE DATES RIGHT

It's not just pop ups though. AFF often appears as an advert on pages you are viewing. That's enough to put a cookie on the machine. Such things are not blocked by pop up blockers, if they were you wouldn't presently be seeing the M&S ads on this mumsnet page.

I don't think that nothingbut was very polite, but earlier incorrect statements about cookies left the OP thinking that the computer had been used to directly access AFF.

Another fact is that the time a popup appears for has no impact on whether it drops a cookie.

I don't work for NASA, but if I didn't know how this stuff works I wouldn't be holding down the job that I currently do.

Yogii, my browser history does not retain cookies for ads. I've just looked.
The OP had specifically given info about a AFF cookies on the pc whereas the others, such as those left my images, only showed as a command prompt.

Now my understanding is that most anti-viruses block pop-ups and prevent them from leaving a cookie. You are right about ads, although I don't appear to have any cookies left by such ads and you can even turn those off now. In fact Firefox has a feature to prevent third party cookies. The new technology and new features are all designed to block these cookies and I'd be surprised to hear that someone was still getting them.

The AFF works - as posters have informed us - as a pop-up on some porn sites and not by ads. Such pop-up cookies are very successfully blocked now.

If the OP has found several cookies from AFF then I would hazard a guess that they were accessed directly.

Yet if you throw some doubt on that, then it's best for the OP to hang fire and gather more convincing evidence first.

Ah there you go, under internet options you can check the box that says 'block third party cookies that do not have a privacy policy' and 'enable pop-up blocker'. This is on top of your existing anti-virus.

So if the AFF was a pop up, then it should have been blocked along with any cookies it tried to leave?

Technology aside - of necessity, as I don't know anything about it - I suggest the reason you are so keen to find evidence of cheating is because you feel you need a reason why he's treating you like crap, other than that you deserve it because you are crap. It takes a lot of confidence to really believe that (a) you are not crap (really, you're not!), and (b) even if you were a decent partner wouldn't treat you that way.

Anyway even if you do find the evidence you're looking for, he'll somehow twist it back on you. You're paranoid, you planted the evidence, it was an accident that only a stupid person would believe happened on purpose, and of course the old favourite, you made him do it because you didn't show him enough affection and/or you're really rubbish in bed. In other words, he will pluck the stick from your hand and beat you with it - again. It's what he does.

The answer is not to give up, stop bothering, hope he'll eventually find another victim; it is to hang on tight to the thought that what he says about you is not fair and not right and you don't need to put up with it.

Fortunately your B(astard)H is not the judge in the divorce court. You don't have to convince him of anything. Just stick to the fact that the relationship has irretrievably broken down. Adultery is just one reason. Any footling silly thing can be grounds, as long as it is unbearable to you. XH used to tell me in tones of great confidence and authority that I needed a really good reason to leave him (ie a reason that he could accept). One day I just got this lightbulb moment (one of a series) that flashed up "actually, no I don't". You need to adopt the Mandy Rice-Davies Defence: "well he would say that, wouldn't he?"

I had a load of this crap on my pc before, i get the meet local people stuff pop up when I am on innocent websites. I always thought dp trusted me totally so was shocked when he thought I had been up to something, I am more techy than him and at first he thought I was bullshitting when I explained about the pop ups. Some Game sites I go on for cheats etc are also really bad for pop ups. It sounds like you have other issues than this though.

Really? Do you have pop-up blocker enabled?

I've just checked mine and I can honestly say that I have hardly any cookies at all saved in temporary internet files. And none from dubious sources at all.

I am prepared to say that I am wrong on this one, perhaps the OP does not have these settings enabled, but I really thought that they were standard with most anti-viruses and that the technology in 2012 prevented third party pop-ups from leaving cookies on your pcs. I know AVG do and Norton and certainly Firefox and Google Chrome.

I do have a pop up blocker but for some sites I have to temporary enable them to view the content I want, I usually cross them off from the start bar but a couple of times I have accidently clicked on the window which is why I got the cookie and the pop up site in my history.
I was not tyring to say you were wrong Rhubarb, in fact what I have just described above backs your point up, had I not allowed the pop up myself then I would have been able to accidently click on it and so on. I was just trying to say that sometimes there can be an innocent explanation.
AFF could have come from something dodgey her husband was doing or something innocent but it does sound like op has many other issues along side this.

Oh absolutely cloudpuff! It's just the OP said there had been history so perhaps I had been presumptious myself.

On both counts actually. I am presuming that everyone will have pop-up blocker because it's there with Google Chrome, Firefox and in most anti-virus and like you say, sometimes you have to enable it in order to view forums and such. But I've realised now that not everyone may have this enabled on their pc or even know that they could.

Nice back track there Rhubarb. Why dont you plain accept that do you do not have a clue about cookies ? You first said popups do not have the ability to dump a cookie on a user's computer. I challenged you on that. Nice witty comeback to ask if I work for Nasa, making it look like I am wrong if I dont work for NASA.
Anyway, suddenly you have started on popup blocking to try and somehow prove that you were right all along. How did you "assume" that OP has a pop up blocker ?
The OP needs an unbaised opinion if the cookie is suspect or not and so far in this thread you are the only one to have tried very hard to make the OP believe that her DH is dodgy. There must be a story to this.

OP (steering away from the playground debate but for what its worth...team rhubarb)
i had similar problems with these websites and I regret confronting DP when I did as I didn't have enough proof. And men aren't careful, I think they like the thought of getting caught. In my mind I would rather be able to see what he's doing for a while.

Good luck and fwiw he doesn't deserve you!!

Yeah the story is ............. nada.

Cookies cannot just appear on your pc if your pc is fully up to date and has an anti-virus, you have to disable it. Your internet explorer options by default has the pop-up blocker enabled. Although the lovely cloudpuff and yogii who were very polite, put me right on a few things.

And yes, if you don't work for Nasa you are clearly wrong and of course anyone who tells someone to shut their mouth is a nobber and a very wrong nobber. Your argument is wrong by default for posting such a nobby thing. But I won't take it personally since you have a habit of being downright rude to other posters across Mumsnet.

I wouldnt say they like the thought of getting caught, but I would say that when they have been doing it a while and got away with it, they get cocky and careless because they think they are invincible and will never get caught. Thats why showing your hand at this point it inadvisable OP, the more he does without getting caught, the more he will do and the more careless he will become.

Thats when you will get your incontravertable proof.

Watch and wait,

thinkiing of you xx

Just thinking too OP, if your cookie blocker is not enabled then you would have realms of cookies saved on your pc. If you only have a few then that would suggest to me that they are being blocked and he is clicking on those sites.

But just click on internet tools/options, settings and privacy or advanced and check that the third party cookie blocker is checked. It's usually set to medium which blocks most of these cookies - you can set it to high for maximum benefit.

Sweetheart, the very fact that he tries to make you feel that all problems are down to you proves that they are NOT!

However technical you go, he has been looking at dodgy sites. Leaving isn't a matter of winning a debate, as in 'If I can prove that YOU are a problem, can I leave, please?'.

He has been trying to blame everything on you and belittle your reasons for going because he has no intention of letting you go, out from under his thumb. A decent partner would listen to your unhappiness and do what they could to make you feel better, not worse.

Spend your computer time googling 'Freedom Training' in your area, or talk to Women's Aid about any courses. They are support for women in abusive relationships, and at the very least your H is emotionally abusive.

Hugs for you OP. Sorry this thread went a bit haywire. I agree that the technicalities are not important, you've said there is history and he is looking at porn and trying to make out that you are the problem. You are not the problem. You have a lot of love to give to the right person and that person is someone who gives you the respect you deserve, who loves you as much as you love them and who doesn't make you feel inferior.

You sound as though you are getting ready to make a decision so I wish you all the very best with that and hope that Mumsnet provides a source of strength for you.

Thankyou for all the replies,
Nothing like a healthy debate

Had another look, cookies definately there for porn/friend finder, suppose the FF could be a pop up from looking at the porn. Like lots of you have said the issues are deeper than this and I am looking for a reason that isn't MY FAULT to end this. I know I shouldn't feel like this, and am working on myself to think more highly of myself and get stronger.

The porn wouldn't usually bother me but he was viewing this 2 hours after he had initiated sex with me but couldn't finish IYKWIM

I really mean the thanks I give for taking the time to reply, its heaven to know I'm not mad and to get some real perspective from you all.

Love needy xx

Yes FF could be a pop up, but you know it isnt dont you?

REally, dont you?