is anyone fimiliar with FACEBOOK???????

[spogs]

Hi my partner vists this site regulary and unknown to him i have his password on his account...... there is a message on there from an ex girlfriend saying hi etc and asking if they could meet up as she in the area....as she lives far away. he has not said yes or no and he does not know i know the date is nov the 6th so what do i do comfront him and blow the fact i cant spy on him anymore as he will change password or do i sit tight and watch what the messages go like to see if he meets her??????

i agree cestlavie.

Cest, how would you feel though if your DW had not told you she msgs her ex then went out with him and didnt tell you about it? i think what sprogs is saying is because her dh hasnt been upfront about it she feels he has something to hide? does that make sense? or am i way off the mark

I agree totally buffy!
Not everyone is lucky enough to have one of those relationships where the two of you can be open and adult and discuss EVERYTHING some of us are much more immature
However,joking aside, that does not mean that your relationship is necessarily any less right than all those 100% trusting souls out there!
A bit of healthy jelousy is fine and I don't believe for one second there is a couple out there that has never had a concern or a little snoop whether they admit it or not, we are only human!
The only way to find out is to keep mum and keep reading the messages I'm afraid,the time for councelling will be if hes innocent to confront the trust issues that you have and if he has anything to hide you ARE better off knowing.
Sorry to ramble on ...good luck.

Oops meant counselling

Well LMVS, to your question, I'd be pretty surprised since we'd tell each other that kind of thing so I'd wonder why. On the other hand, we don't check each others mails and facebook etc. so the relationship dynamic is slightly different to spogs (not better, just different). If I knew or suspected that she was checking up on my mail or calls I'd probably behave differently and might not be so open with her generally, and, no doubt, vice versa.

On a more general note, personally I think that if you don't trust each other then there is room for all sorts of ambiguities and doubts in a relationship, e.g. if DW thought that I was going to getting off with a female friend at the first opportunity, then I'd be reluctant to tell her that I was meeting her for a drink, even if that drink was entirely platonic. Make sense?

how fortunate for you to have such an honest an open relationship cest, not all are so lucky, it seems spogs dh has given her reason not to trust him in the past which is why she feels the need to check his emails, be that the right thing to do is not for me to say, seems the underlying problem is here is trust, but thats just stating the obvious

Wots LMVS mean?

OMG how stupid am I !?
Just realised its littlemissvampireslayer of course...skulks off red in the face...

cestlavie, what you're describing is indeed a normal, healthy, trusting relationship. Howerver, I think you're way on the wrong track though with the idea that if your wife began snooping on you you would respond by starting to hide things from her. Surely the usual response in a usually trusting relationship to snooping is a BIG TALK about how it is not to continue? And possibly a change of your passwords to make it less easy to do.

You seem to be saying that if a person in a relationship hides things from their partner that would be shared in a healthy and trusting relationship, that it is the partner's fault. People sometimes snoop because they are controlling. Other times they do it because they are with someone who lies to them and hides things from them.

This guy has a history of less than honest, faithful behaviour. He is behaving in a way that is suspicious. It's just not fair to ask spogs to just accept that his behaviour is normal and even if he's lying to her it's all her fault.

totally agree with you skidoodle, Cest if in your words "if DW thought that I was going to getting off with a female friend at the first opportunity, then I'd be reluctant to tell her that I was meeting her for a drink" then wouldnt it be better for you to reassure her there was nothing in it, and find out the reason why she was feeling this way rather than start hiding things from her and potentially ruin the very open and honest relationship you have?

this kind of thing makes me feel really sick in my tummy. my exH had an affair. I found out. I had suspicions by looking in his phone... which is not actually how i found out, but it was enough to fuel it more...

I made rule there and then, to never ever snoop, or look again in anyones phone, diary, computer whatever. the feeling you get inside you when you find out this way is horrendous. you go cold, feel sick, shake etc...

I have to say, I have never, since done any of the above. and feel far better for it. I've had reason to suspect with certain behaviors of the past with my now Dh. All i have done at this time, was to talk to him about it. Ask him. Looking at his face and hearing his replies were enough to tell me it was my paranoia and that he wasnt doing any thing of the sort, that he would never do anything like that, i know he would not do that to me, but only having talked to him about it.

I cannot help having a slight niggling due to being so severely 'shat' on by my exH. It doesnt mean i dont trust Dh but when the only man you had ( to that point in your life) ever trusted does the worst to you, its hard to ever wholly trust again.... until I look deep into the man i now love, then I do.

my advise? Talk to him. talk about your fears. help him understand why you feel the way you do. it may just stop this going any further. you will NOT feel better for knowing, in this way, trust me.

never ask the questions you really do not want to know the answers to , or that you cannot cope with the answers too....

Never, ever "test" anyone. IT is a pointless, self-defeating exercise. For sooo many reasons, some of them said here already.

When God said to Jesus "never put the Lord thy God to the test", he was referring to us earthly souls.

You will never be content with the answers. An innocent answer will only fuel another attempt. The lack of trust destroys any chance of a healthy relationship. You will become, or develop, a suspicious attitude to all other things in life, and want to "test" them. It is dishonest. It's cowardly - an attempt to avoid the bavery that honesty sometimes demands. You will, in all probability feel cheapened by the experience.

Don't make any other plans for 6th for the sake of it. Never snoop on his private stuff again.

i wholly agree with you there Pan. such a bad move to test him... it will only end in tears...

skidoodle/ LMVS: I think my point was that trust can break down in two ways. I mean, clearly, as you say, if one partner is screwing around then of course it will. On the other hand, if one partner is entirely faithful but the other is constantly suspicious of them then that will also destroy it.

From spogs' posts it was pretty unclear in what context he was texting and chatting to other women... whether it was just as friends or whether it was something illicit. Which was it spogs?

completely agree that it is a bad move to test him, and agree that if one partner is constantly suspicious it can ruin a relationship. The worse thing you can do is bottle it up and let your mind start to wonder and think the worst.

Talk to him. you never know he may think this woman was a nightmare girlfriend and has no intention of meeting her but was just being polite, like you say he never replied to say he would met, surely that must be a good sign?

mu b/f has not given me any reason to feel at ease about this meet he flirts on the internet and it is illicit flirting, he is secretive....well he said in his message to ex who wants to meet "michelle is on here now so no private chats but dont panic she has not seen the meesge from you asking to meet can i call you its safer and easier" and she has responded yes and i pressume thay have chatted now on phone......I cannot see the point or need to meet up with an ex other than to get up to no good if oits innocent then why hide it from eachothers partners and why not us all meet up in a group partners too.....In my hearts of heart I dont think they would do anything she is engaged to be married so she would be a mug as he would be to throw what they both have away for what a relationship which did not work as that is why they are exs in first place. but i feel betrayed that he would do it behind my back and she annoys me knowing we have two kids and she does know that would risk breaking up a family for what a meet up why????

the problem I have now is I have not mentioned it to him but I feel angry when I look at him and know he is lying to me I asked him yesterday if he had spoke to anyone exs etc and he stood in front of me and lied.....i feel i deserve more respect from him as his partner and mother of his children than to be treated this way..... and when he leaves for work on nov 6th I know my stomach will be in knots all day wondering wheteher he is meeting up and what they are doing???...but i cant approach him as he will know I am spying on him

well i confronted him and it has all blown up he would not show me his private e-mails so can only presume there is stttuff on there that is incriminating...he has stormed out and who knows when he will be back but all i acn say is im at the stage where i could not give a hoot if he comes back or not!!

This is why I cannot be doing with these Facebook type arrangements. Life is hard; relationships are harder. Sometimes it's all too easy to get involved in a bit of escapism that "means nothing" and next thing you know, you have a relationship that has all the trust gone from it and a heartbroken partner. And although that may sound dramatic, that is how it can feel, as though you are "heartbroken".

It's just not worth it for a bit of online social networking even though the majority of people use it quite innocently to chat to friends. I know there are those who say that a strong and happy realtionship can come to no harm from sites like these, but many a strong/happy realtionship has fallen by the wayside because someone was bored for five minutes, and started one conversation that became something more, something that was often not pre-meditated or planned.

There are also those who just cannot understand those who "snoop" and are quick to point out that people who do snoop, never find anything good. If you are one of those people, enjoy that position of superiority, (even if you don't think you're being superior) because you have never had the foundations of your most important relationship with your significant other shaken to the foundations. But it can happen in any relationship. And it hurts like hell. And even if the couple get past it, things have changed. There will always be a trust issue. One partner will always be scared, at the back of their minds.

Just so not worth it, for a bit of fun on Facebook or similar.

Spogs I hope things work out for you. They can work out. A great many long and happy relationships have "blips" of this kind and survive, if both halves of the couple want it and both realise in time what is important and what may be lost. ((((hugs))) and support to you.

shiny, what came first, the egg or the chicken?

did you tell him you had been checking his emails? is that why he blew up? or did you just quiz him about the ex on facebook?

Shiney..you do misunderstand. There is nothing superior about not testing people.

and FWIW, to break up the other bit of your argument, I DID test someone once after having that sickly feeling of fear, and immediately regretted doing it. I wasn't happy with what I discovered, but then I knew I wouldn't be, because I had snooped.

If testing someone is okay for you, then get on with it. I think it's a cursed reaction and no good will come of it.

Pan, you and I both have had exactly the same experience it sounds like. WHich is what i explained in my post further down.
I am not saying dont snoop from a 'position of superiority' at all. I am saying it from a position of experience and having found out the hardest way possible why you should never do it.

I really do hope you can get through this, and yes, if you both want to , you can, and will. sadly, its one of those horrible situations where you both have to want to. I truly hope you can sort things through with your Dh.

In the mean time, yo know where to come if you need to talk or rant or offload, or anything yo need, ok? good luck lovely.

yes, susie, it does. I remember every horrid detail of doing it. Including the knee-buckling consequence, and having to sit down before I fell down, and the feeling of nausea and dizzyness. Once, and never again.

Sprogs - if your mind set is different in this relationship, then that's up to you, but I hope you think hard about what is destroyed by it compared with what is gained by refraining. Best wishes to you.

sprogs - just seen this in the Men's Room - one man's opinion duly supplied.