Help! Retrieving messages after affair!

[MakeMineALargeDouble]

This is my first post on Mumsnet so please bare with me!
Any help would be gratefully appreciated.
Basically I’ve found out that my husband has been having an affair – I found incriminating messages on his iphone on Whatsapp. We’ve been talking a lot about this during this past week and he’s very remorseful etc etc etc, and wants another chance to prove himself to me. We have 4 DCs so I haven’t decided what I’m going to do yet.
One thing I do know is that before I make a decision I want to see the messages between them (I’d only read a hand-full when I initially found out). The problem is that when I asked for his phone he happily gave it to me and told me he’d deleted all contact details, photos, messages – everything – in order to prove to me that he wants to put it firmly in the past and to move on with me!
I’m really annoyed at this as I tend to be a person that likes all the facts before I make a decision.
Having had a quick look last night (and I’m not tech-savvy at all!), his phone doesn’t appear to have an itunes account associated with it and even though it does have icloud, I can’t make head nor tail of it!
I’ve looked online and seen that you can sometimes purchase programmes to retrieve deleted whatsapp messages but there are loads of different ones out there. I think that this would probably be the easiest option for me but am unsure which one to use.
So basically my question is, does anyone on here have any experience using such programmes and which would be the best one? or does anyone have any other ideas how I could retrieve the messages?
Thanks.

This website is good:

www.survivinginfidelity.com/forums.asp?

It has a Golden Rules section, or something like that, advice for people who have been cheated on.

Trickle truth is something most cheaters do... i.e. give you only enough of the truth to keep you happy within the bounds of what they think you already know. Deleting messages means he is hiding something and does not want you to have the full truth. Full disclosure and honesty is essential to move past this... if you can... however, without the full truth, it will be very hard to.. and this site advises a certain approach to adopt in order to determine whether your spouse deserves a second chance or not. And one of those requirements is the full truth.

You're not getting that.... as another poster said, he has deleted all evidence so you don't know the half of it and get rightfully angry with him.

Check out this site.

www.survivinginfidelity.com/articles.asp

He's got the advantage here.
He's minimising what he did and is giving you an edited version.
Maybe he has completely stopped with OW but it doesn't change what he did.
He lived a double life and left you blithely looking after his four children completely oblivious.

If you stay, I understand why you would, you need to toughen up and accept he will lie to you.
They don't change.

He was stringing you along but also probably her. So probably complained more about you than was honest. Claimed more feelings for her that he did not really feel. I would NOT read all the messages as they will haunt you. If you do, don't mistakenly think they represented his true feelings as the truth is probably more of a complex picture. He does appear to be preferring to stay with you....

There s software you can download / buy that finds deleted messages

Well, thought I'd give you all an update.
After talking for hours on end yesterday I decided to use his phone and look for the messages.
I felt so ridiculous, scouring the internet on the laptop for ideas on how to find evidence of an affair and then using them to find information!

His Whatsapp was last backed-up last year! so that was no good and after having a look through his phone/email account I couldn't find a chat export at all or evidence of a new email account either.
I couldn't find the messages on the computer in his iCloud as I didn't really know where to look.........but I did use a programme from the internet to do a scan and that did manage to retrieve some messages.

From the dates, information etc in those messages, they did match-up with what he'd told me and were basically what I expected to see but they obviously didn't make for 'nice reading' at all.

I'm really angry and annoyed at both of them at the moment (she knows me and our family and has recently been very chatty whenever she's seen me! Even going out of her way to come to speak to me on one occasion which I actually thought was odd at the time and mentioned this to my husband! )
I suppose if nothing else, it's given me plenty to think about.

@Gemma1971 - thanks for the link, I spent most of last night/early morning reading. It's so sad that so many people find themselves in this type of situation .

Thank you everyone I really appreciate the time that you've all taken to give me some much needed advice.

My cheater had a second phone that I caught him with. Despite this,he minimised all that went on. Only admitted to what he thought he could get away with.
Couples counselling advised getting rid of it

But to me , the details did matter and I wanted to know. Problem is , I can now quote lines at him when I get angry. And I am driving myself crazy constantly thinking about things.

So sorry that you are going through this. It really is so hurtful. Hope you get some RL support too.

iCloud my well give you some awful answers, I hacked my husbands phone via his iPad and looked at the keychain passwords saved. I restored photos / emails and accounts I never even knew existed.. I then got another iPhone replacement sim and sat back watching - be warned it wasn't pretty!

To those who find their partners on kik, be aware they won't have previous messages. It only keeps a certain number, so could be a days worth depending on how much they chat.

I screen shot anything I want to keep.

How can you trust him at all with what he is telling you? You trusted him not to repeatedly stick his dick in another woman! The man is completely untrustworthy.
You deserve better than this OP and I hope you find it. Good Luck, its a shit situation you find yourself in because of him and his attitude towards you and your marriage.

Oh poor you and I do understand the deep frustration when you suspect that there is much you don't know.

My instinct when you said your DH was being pretty frank with you was that he is brazening it out and giving you sufficient uncomfortable information to try and stop you digging elsewhere. And if he is doing this it is deeply cynical, essentially hiding in plain sight and protecting his interests.

I saw it all, all the messages and photos via various means between H and OW. He had completely locked down all his IT as he is tech savvy and I'm completely not. However his OW wasn't and her DH sent them all to me. It was crucifixion and I can still see them in my mind's eye some years on. Strangely enough the one that I still constantly replay in my mind is not the sexting and the photos of her with her tits hanging out of the new Victoria's Secret underwear she had bought, but the one where he tells her he longs just to be able to go for a coffee with her publicly, to just do 'normal' things. Reading that lacerated my heart and mind because its banality summed up how far she had replaced me.

You sound extraordinarily logical, composed and strong OP - do you still love him? I am so sorry you are enduring this