Found inappropriate messages on wife’s phone

[AssuranceNeeded]

Cutting to the chase the messages were:

WIFE “Well are we meeting just for lunch” MAN “Don’t you fancy anything else?” WIFE “let’s do lunch first”

All previous messages were deleted.

The context (based on what my wife has told me since) is that previous to these messages he has sent her pictures of himself leading up to ultimately a dick pic. And said what he wanted for her to do sexually to him and he to her. This happened on two discrete occasions. Plus he has suggested they meet up at a hotel. She has stated that she didn’t want or encourage the messages and did not send any pictures or sexual suggestions. She has admitted that by not telling him to stop she did allow it to continue and by responding with bland statements she mildly encouraged him.

To get this information took over a week as she trickled truthed the information out to me (which in itself has seriously undermined my trust). She finally came clean when I said I could recover deleted messages and pictures from her phone (nb I cannot), she panicked and believed I could do she told me what she said was the full truth.

From the above texts I interpret that he Is basically saying I want to have sex with you, and she is saying I’m not ruling it out let’s get to know each other better first. So ,she can imagine having sex with him but just not yet. He is a work contact for her as she is self employed.

Her reasons are that she had no emotional engagement, never intended to meet him, loves me dearly and wants no further contact with him. She only did it because she was stupid and too weak to say no at any point as he was a business contact she didn’t want to lose. She has said she desperately wants to be with me and I think she has cut off all communication with this man.

Where do I go from here? I am hurting and confused.

How did you come across the messages? Where you checking her phone and, if so, did you already have suspicions?
It doesn't look good to be honest but it does look like she hasn't actually done anything. Its really up to you whether you believe her when she says she wouldn't have. Making arrangements to meet him tells me the intention was there.
It all boils down to how much you love her and whether you can ever trust her again. Its also up to her to prove she can be trusted.

@2018Anon - don't be soft, you are most likely only seeing a fraction of the truth here, be very suspicious, analyse every spa trip or cheeky night away with the girls, she may have a wingman backing up her actions and lies. Questions, are you having as much sex? Is your wife frequently away? Do her work and leisure patterns aid an affair?

My STBXW (weeks to go) started off with flirty chat online, flirty chat on the phone, dirty messages, I found out and challenged her and each time she said it wasn't going anywhere. It appeared to stop about 10 years ago when I was working away, 'great' I thought, turns out she was better at it and had an affair for eight years.

sorry messae meant for OP not 2018 anon...

LittleLightsShineBright Thank you for your comments, she is being very convincing in her behaviour (now), showing true contrition and answering any questions I have, although I am sceptical as she held stuff back in the past so why would she not do so now.

She has said that she never intended on meeting him at all. Again not sure if I believe this and totally agree that the work justification is very poor.

Sorry I think your wife is still lying. This looks HIGHLY suspicious.

Not sure why she's entertaining it but is she worried he is stalking her perhaps so playing along? Finding it hard to turn him down?

The whole imagining having sex with him bit that's a bit weird.

She said she never intended to meet with him but agreed in messages to go for lunch? And possibly more? Hmmm

If your wife has already 'trickle truthed' you, she is most likely not telling you everything. She will only tell you as much as she thinks will get rid of your curiosity. I know this from personal experience. Offer to take her phone to someone who can get history off it, (btw this is easy to do yourself, if you ever went that route) and watch her reaction. Better still, do it, if she says 'ok, that's fine' then call her bluff. Give her one chance to tell the truth and make it clear that if her story changes, or you find out anything contrary to her story, that is the end. It's the only way to regain trust, in my opinion. All sorts of things started coming out when I delved deeper. Another thing I did was to contact him. Being tactful and honest. If she is fine with this, good. Just make sure they cannot pull the wool over your eyes. I may get shot down for my no bull approach, but it was worth it in my case. Don't get taken for a mug, it will happen again if you do. I knew that something was not right, and I acted on it. Just my opinion.

She’s full of shit isn’t she?

I mean, I can't believe some of the answers you're receiving. If this was a man sending messages like that you'd get a much more vitriolic response. She was planning to be unfaithful. Don't buy bullshit like 'just keeping him going because it's a business contact', otherwise she wouldn't have panicked about you recovering the messages.

To the person saying she could have been stringing him along because he could have been stalking her, why wouldn't she tell her partner something like that?

Don't be a mug

She got caught and now she's minimising. I wouldn't believe her to be honest.

Hi. Really sorry to hear what you are going through. It's going to be tough.

I think you need to prepare to focus on what's important. There is going to be only so far you can push your wife to get.to the truth.

What you need to find out is are you actually married to a woman that sleeps with men who send dick pics? Any normal married woman would block and report.

If you are married to that kind of woman you need to get to the bottom of whether you want to continue to be married to that kind of woman? You need to do what's right for yourself . You can't change a character flaw or instill new values into someone.

Sounds awful.

I don’t believe her.

Hi all, thank you for your responses. I will try and answer some questions and provide more details.

I discovered the text messages (well they were Whatsapp messages which seems to be the favoured medium for this sort of thing) by complete accident. Its an iphone and we were at an elderly relatives house and my wife wanted me to look something up on her phone. I double clicked the home button to select safari app but saw Whatsapp page was open on the chat with this man. Thought strange as she normally tells me when he has messaged in a business context. Shocked to my core at what I read, there were about 20 messages with the 3 I have stated being the most relevant - the rest were mainly tooing and frowing about dates. Other major noticeable thing was that there were kisses on the end of all message from both sides.

I did download some software to try to recover hidden deleted items on the phone and asked her if I could interrogate her phone. She fiercely resisted and only when I said it could be a trust marriage breaker if she did not let me did she allow me. As certificateofauthenticity stated I had stated that this was her last chance to tell the full truth. We ran the software with both of us sat at the PC and no messages or pictures were recovered. She had deleted them as soon as they were received. She was nervous but not overly so.

I have, of course, racked my brain for times and events that could have given her the opportunity and likewise at her behaviour. Throughout the period of messaging she was her same loveable self towards me.

We have spoken at length and her justification is that due to childhood issues of abandonment and fear of rejection she does find it hard to say no, even to complete strangers. This is completely alien to me and the way I would have dealt with anything like this. I am really not sure how to feel about this. Counselling for her or us both maybe appropriate is this is the real reason.

She is working hard on the trust front and has unlocked her phone and allow me to read it when I like, I have not since the PC interrogation. So she has either broken off contact, playing a bluff game that I will not look at the phone or she is way more devious in how she is contacting him.

This man refers work to my wife for clients that require a service that his company does not have the manpower and geographical footprint to service.

Feelings The whole imagining having sex with him bit hmm that's a bit weird Just to clarify this was my interpretation of her possible thoughts when she texted what she did ie by not ruling it out it she is potentially suggesting (to him) that it could happen

I am not too sure what to believe, either it is more complicated than I thought or she is a Hollywood level actress.

So many in a marriage these days just want to be naughty, one way or another.

This is something that is going to hurt you either way, but if me I would kick her out for sure!!!!

Another thing that boils me is this phone business, if only phones were just used to make calls as intended once hey?? And any internet related stuff weather that be chatting or browsing was done on the family PC with no secrets and all out in the open👍

A few more points I forgot to add

certificateofauthenticity I do not want to contact him. If she wants/ wanted it to stop now or when I found out it would only ever work if she told him rather than me confront him.

As stated above he refers work to her (though not that frequently). The relationship requires them to meet sometimes and as far as I am aware this is with the mutual client. I think she has met him 4 times face to face.

When they first were introduced he asked her to lunch to discuss business (this was about a year ago), I work from home so know how long she was out at this meeting. As this was an initial meeting I assumed this was all above board but she has recently told me that on the morning of the meeting he told her to wear a tight top!! She still went and justified going by stating that she was in control at this point but as stated above she was unable to say no when later the messages arrived and became personal and then sexual.

She has shown me a message she received since telling him she wanted no more contact, he was asking if they were still on for lunch and that he had not received the no contact message. I helped her draft a reply that was a firm no contact under any circumstances (including business).

It’s a shame you could not retrieve the message that stated wear the tight top!! I would have taken that straight to his employer!! Arsehole

If you google there are many programs that can retrieve deleted messages.

Ilovefishcakes201 I have tried most of the free ones on my phone (same as wife's) and effectiveness on retrieving deleted Whatsapp messages is poor -

James2013 Yes I agree - as my wife is self employed then not so straight forward but she has discussed letting another director she works with at the company know what he did - would she if she did actively partake in the 'sexting'??

There is no point retrieving deleted messages. What are you going to do with them? Besides, if you try to use them they will be discredited as invasion of privacy on your wife.

Your deeper issues and concerns should be, are you married to someone you don't really know as well as you thought you did , and if so , what are you going to do about it? How long are you going to go around retirving messages and emails?

WhatsApp has the option to ‘back up’ chats. Open WhatsApp-settings-chats-chat backup. You can see if the chats are automatically backed up to iCloud.

If it is set to back up you should be able to download chat history by logging into iCloud.

Of course she was going to meet him. If you hadn't found the messages she'd have shagged him by now. She's sorry she got caught. If it was just about business her responses would have humoured him politely but sent a no thanks vibe.