Ask him or snoop?

[poorsole]

Married 20-odd years, both brought emotional baggage which caused problems between us with intimacy and trust for a long time, much improved in recent years and probably closer now than we've ever been. That's the background, he's never cheated (neither have I) but there have been some minor lies in the past and I will accept it doesn't take much to set off my 'spidey senses'.

So we share an email inbox (set up years ago when we first got broadband) so we have different addresses but they all go to the same inbox. A couple of weeks ago I noticed he'd received a 'reset password' email for Instagram, which I didn't know he used. Didn't really think anything of it til I went back into email later on and noticed it had been deleted, bearing in mind neither of us ever delete anything and usually end up having a massive purge every few months when there's 10000 to be deleted in one go So I checked the 'bin' folder and sure enough there was the email, except I checked again 5 minutes later and he'd deleted it from there too.

I've said nothing, spent the last two weeks trying to make my peace with/pluck up courage to check his phone. Know full well if he's up to something he won't just tell me if I ask and I will have given him the heads up but I hate the thought of snooping and so far can't bring myself to do it. I know his passcode and have had plenty of opportunities but I chicken out every time, partly because it feels wrong and partly because I'm scared of what I'll find I think.

He's not behaving differently otherwise, not secretive with his phone and knows I know the code (he hasn't changed it either) but probably also knows I'm unlikely to go looking so could be 'hiding in plain sight' kind of thing. I just can't settle on what to do for the best and it's starting to really affect me now, he knows there's something wrong too and I feel like I'm being unfair to him to not just tell him what's up, but then I'm scared I'm right and he is hiding something and then I'll never know. Help

I think you need to just look.

Its not unusual to be on instagram, but like you, I'd be wondering why he didn't want that email to be seen.

Trust your gut, OP. If you ask him he'll just deny everything anyway.
Just take a look. If theres nothing there, you can move on from it.

I think you're probably right Swordfish1, I just need to figure out how not to chicken out when it comes to it.

What I don't understand is why he wouldn't just set up a new email address for Instagram if he wanted to hide an acct/do something dodgy. Gmail is free and easy to set up (I have 4 diff gmail accts that I use for diff purposes). If you share an In Box, he has to know the odds of your seeing an email before he does is at least 50/50.

Yep, I've wondered the same cordelia16, he's not the most tech savvy but not the worst either so I'm sure he could have managed to set a gmail up. But then why delete the Instagram email? And go as far as to also delete it from the bin? Makes no sense to me either

I only signed up to instagram to see what my daughter was doing!!!! She didn't use Facebook anymore so set insta up. Is he in a job that might require him to look at what the competition is up to? Some of my business friends keep an eye on other businesses and how they appear on SM. There are a lot of reasons he may be on insta that might not be looking at women. However, your gut feeling is telling you otherwise and his behaviour with the email is adding to that. Keep things balanced in your head when you click on that tile of instagram and find out what he is up to.

May I make a suggestion (albeit unlikely) - it may have been spam? Sometimes I get password reset emails for things I don’t have, so delete them before I accidentally open them.

However, I do think that the situation is irrelevant here really, if you’ve got concerns, that’s the real issue. Sorry, Op x

OP - I still come back to why after all 20 years together you seem to be worrying and looking for signs that he is a ‘massive misogynistic sleaze’.
Has he ever mistreated you or any other women he came across? Does he leer at women when you are out?
Has there ever been any signs???? Any comments he has ever made? Any smirks? Jokes about women? Banter with friends?
It is extremely difficult to be misogynistic and horrible - and hide it over 20years.

This fear you have - it does sound completely irrational and baseless. Unless you aren’t telling us more about him or your relationship.
And the thing is about such irrational fears - there is nothing you can do to quell it.
If you look and not find anything now - you’ll just think he is hiding well. Or will be on guard for the next time you can use anything really to spark it.
If you see anything, however minor - your mind would blow it up to massive proportions.

Let’s assume he was on Instagram. And looked at some profiles. Let’s assume some were female. Which ones prove to you he is that horrible person? It is any profile by a female? Or only younger women? Is it irrespective of what the profiles are - say they are models, but all above board dressed?
What is your definition of a horrible sleazy man’s usage of Instagram?

You say you have been cheated on by somebody else. However - your H had never given you any reasons to worry about cheating.
Why are you so paralysed by the fear/expectation that he will cheat?

This email deletion/possible Instagram usage is only a symptom. You will keep ending up in this place until you figure out some way of dealing with your own issues and irrational fears.
In my opinion.

Not saying this is the right thing to do but I would snoop if it was me. You'll find out more. Chances are if you ask he will deny, delete evidence(he doesn't want you to know for a reason) and he will gaslight the f out of the situation. He prob say something like it was from an old IG account he wanted to delete but had to change his password to access it because he 'forgot' it, he deleted the email because he didn't want to cause a 'fuss'. If there was nothing to hide he wouldn't have felt the need to delete the email.

Snoop away!

You have to snoop, its the only way to find out. Take screenshots of anything you deem inappropriate as when confronted (if you need to) he'll deny or minimise.
Pick your moment, when you know you can go out/avoid him so you don't react immediately and have time to think.
Hopefully it's all innocent or at least, not as bad as you thought.

There's obviously stuff I haven't posted here yes MMmomDD, some signs that he's not quite who he professes to be and some sneaky behaviour in the past. I believe he's never cheated but he hasn't always been entirely innocent either, there is some real basis for my lack of trust.

But there is some truth in what you say about my behaviour too, it's a cycle I can't seem to break although at least the periods in between 'incidents' are considerably longer these days, I'd say it's been 2-3 years since the last time. It's rooted in insecurity I expect but I can track that right back to childhood so I suspect it would take some fairly extensive (and expensive!) therapy to unpick properly, which isn't something I'm ever likely to be able to afford unfortunately.

As for my definition of a sleazy mans' insta usage I guess I'm thinking half dressed models half his age yes. When we first got together I honestly wouldn't have cared, no objections to porn etc (some fairly hefty moral ones now I'm older and wiser but not back then) and was actually quite surprised when he adamantly told me it didn't interest him in the slightest. He's painted himself as having zero interest in other women when I had no such expectation of him in the first place and I don't understand why. I would never have stood for being cheated on but occasional porn, celeb crushes etc wouldn't have bothered me in the slightest.

And having painted himself that way and made me believe that's what I could and should expect from him there have been incidents which say otherwise, porn searches on his phone once (years ago, before private browsing!) some really horrible misogynistic porn memes on his phone he swore had autosaved from a WhatsApp group he was in briefly and left when he 'realised what it was like', that sort of thing. I think it unsettles me so much when one of these 'incidents' happen because it's like a sneak peek at the real him, and that makes me feel like the rest is a lie, I don't know whether it's reasonable for me to feel like that though?

He's come home from work and gone to sleep on the sofa, his phone is right next to me but I'm still not sure I can do it.

I would just look, honestly it might save you all this grief. Phone left right by you says a lot though op.......

Phone left right by you says a lot though op......

See you say stuff like that I feel utterly shitty for not just trusting him I've convinced myself tonight will be better if I am going to look anyway, less chance he'll wake up.

OP from what it sounds like, he's overcompensating for something. He says how he has 0 interest in women even though he's been watching porn. The memes you're talking about could also suggest he puts on a respectable man act for you when in reality he's not like that at all. Just a thought.

Also OP my ex left his phone around me all the time because he thought I wouldn't dare look at it which I didn't until I got a feeling one day. Turns out he was a cheat. As you say, hiding in plain sight.

That's exactly what I'm afraid of luciles

I'm not meaning to make you feel shitty- sorry! I just can't see many people leaving it laying around like that if there's something dodgy on there, even if he's gone to lengths to hide notifications etc, it's too risky. I would grab the chance while you have it though. Or can you just as easily access it tonight? Don't beat yourself up for feeling this way, you're only human and there's so many ways to cheat it's easy to get worked up

@booboo24

I'm not meaning to make you feel shitty- sorry! I just can't see many people leaving it laying around like that if there's something dodgy on there, even if he's gone to lengths to hide notifications etc, it's too risky. I would grab the chance while you have it though. Or can you just as easily access it tonight? Don't beat yourself up for feeling this way, you're only human and there's so many ways to cheat it's easy to get worked up

This definitely. Don't feel bad, the deleted emails give you every right to be concerned.

OP - you seem to be fixated on how he ‘painted himself’ when you met.
That was more than 20 years ago.
Are you the same now as you have been then? He may not be either.
And - from his point of view - you have changed changed too. You ‘painted yourself’ as secure. Porn aside - back then you were ok with mild expressions of him recognising other females as attractive.
And - as it often is in relationships - the early years can be hyper focused on one another, and then it can settle into something more healthy. Where presence of other sex around is recognised but with firm boundaries that aren’t crossed.

It is curious though - how are you so aware of what searches he has on his phone back in the day? Or what memes got saved?
Were you always in some sort of hyper vigilant state for 20+ years of your relationship.
Because that must have been terrible for both you and him.

If he has changed over the years it doesn’t invalidate your relationship in any way.
Personally - I have changed a lot over the course or the past 20 years. Things that I enjoy - sexually and otherwise have evolved.
Things and experiences I couldn’t imagine as a 20something are quite enjoyable as 40something. So - i think it’s unrealistic to expect people to not change.
And of course - in a long relationship - sexual connection also evolves.

Why are you in this relationship? Does it bring you any joy? Or do you spend your days in constant worrying over next time?
Isn’t it better to be on your own then?

I didn't mean you'd made me feel shitty booboo24, I'm swinging between feeling guilty and justified anyway, what you said didn't make it any worse What luciles said about him putting on a respectable front but being someone else is exactly what I'm most worried about really I think, I feel like I've been waiting for (even actively looking for at times like this) proof that he's not who he says he is for almost our whole relationship.

He's still painting himself that way MMmomDD, has done all along, despite all the evidence to the contrary. Change is not the issue, it's the discrepancy between who he portrays himself to be and these flashes of someone quite different I keep seeing. It almost feels like gaslighting, like I'm being made to believe one thing when something else entirely is the truth.

The porn searches I found by accident, he asked me to google something while he was driving and when I typed the first letter all his previous searches beginning with that letter came up, unfortunately it was P. The memes were on a shared iPad, he hadn't realised using the same Apple ID as his phone meant all his photos transferred over. I'll admit I had a look through them, wasn't expecting to find anything like that though. I think it's obvious I don't make a habit of checking his phone or I wouldn't be agonising over whether to do it now.

It's far from a constant fixation, it flares up periodically and always in response to him doing something at odds with his usual behaviour, like deleting the email. The rest of the time it's easy to believe he is exactly who he says he is so yes the relationship brings me joy, I just wish these 'incidents' that rock my trust would stop happening.

I rarely use insta and virtually every day get emails telling me someone’s logged on and I should reset my password. I go into the app, reset my password and it starts again. Now I just delete the emails then delete them from trash, they’re clearly spam. Maybe he’s had a similar experience?

Check his phone, you've got reason to be suspicious and it will clear your head.

Agree deleting it was suspicious. I would check.
And I wouldn't even feel bad about it.
Do you know how to check insta inbox messages.. it's a little paper aeroplane looking symbol top left (just in case!).

I'd do it while he's in the shower.

I know my DH has had a look through my phone, he uses it occasionally if mine is nearer / more battery. I don't mind - nothing I care about him seeing. Except a few comments on 'I hate my MIL' threads! And maybe the occasional Fb search of a very distant boyfriend from teenage years

Thank you for the tip BrilliantBetty, I'm going to have to do it tonight, can't stand this anymore.

Thinking about you, Op. Loads of us are with you.