Snooping through husbands laptop

[Piper194]

My husband left his lap top open and I went through his iMessages. I found messages to another woman from 18 months ago. With a little bit of research I worked out he was on a stag do at the time. He had deleted the messages from his phone but they remained on his computer.

The messages are trying to set his friend up with this girl, loosely arranging to meet up the following day. I can see she has replied to him early hours of the same night out asking where they all ended up but he didn’t reply to that.

We have since got married and had another baby after months of fertility treatment. Hes a decent man, a good dad and I thought a trustworthy husband. I thought life was good but my bubble has been burst. I am aware my hormones are a bit bonkers at the moment being post partum but I am still so very upset that he would hand his number out to a random girl on a night out. I scrolled back over my text messages and saw that at the time he was messaging her he had not replied to me (I keep all messages)

I’m so upset that a boundary has been over stepped but he is saying I am overreacting.
I don’t want to throw my marriage away but I’m just gutted 😞

This is such a childish way to look at it. If someone snoops and finds evidence of wrong doing (which setting up your mates cheating is in my book, despite the elastic morality of some on here where men are concerned!) Then what does it matter who leaves who? OP 'I don't want to be with someone who does that' Him 'Well I don't want to be with someone who snoops so you can't leave me because I'm leaving you first cos you're more worser than I am so there...'
If you think how a person discovers unacceptable behaviour somehow neutralises it and makes the person in the wrong magically right, and that that even matters in the circumstances, you really need to do some growing up. It's just a desperate attempt to use attack as defence. Completely transparent and doesn't wash.

Agree with all of this

Everyone saying the DH is 'not who he seems' and has 'revealed himself' I would argue the same to the OP. If my DH acted like this and went through my private messages, he would not be the man I thought he was

Your character is one of the person who cheers someone on from the sidelines to self destruction, this shows what sort self righteous character you are , I’m sure you would encourage someone to jump off a cliff if you thought it would benefit them

I hope the OP hasn’t done anything that might make her husband think twice, like reading 18 months of messages Maybe,

he should be the one dumping her in this situation

The only person who has done anything wrong is you by going through his laptop.

Absolutely this.

The MN hypocrisy writ large.
If a man did this he would be a controlling twat who has got worked up over nothing but because this is a woman then there is lots of empathy and 'advice' that attempts to justify this shocking invasion of privacy.

If my DH did this to me , I would absolutely end my relationship with him despite a long and happy marriage.

privacy is recognized as a universal human right. It is enshrined in several international instruments, including:
• Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Article 12
• European Convention of Human Rights: Article 8
• European Charter of Fundamental Rights: Article 7
• International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: Article 17
• Convention on the Rights of the Child: Article 16

It is not a 'little thing' to violate. I would be extremely embarrassed and ashamed to have done this to someone I purport to care for.

If you have trust issues with your partner then you can ask to look at their phone /laptop. They can then agree or refuse and you make a decision about continuing your relationship based on that .

I'm so fed up with MN condoning this type of behaviour. It doesn't matter if he is shagging an entire office full of 'younger colleagues' the end never justifies the means. You had other options.

Don't be so silly. If you read my second post on the thread, then you would see that I gave the OP no encouragement to leave whatsoever. However you either don't understand the words (which, no offence, but i suspect might be the case with you) or you haven't bothered to read them before jumping in to attack my character in place of arguing the points I made. The rest of your post reads like it's been written from the perspective of a child.

OK, so he sounds a bit immature - all this my mate likes you stuff, is he 13?

Otherwise, you're a huge red flag for invading his privacy, going so far as to message the woman, you need help for this type of invasive behaviour. I'd divorce my husband if he did this

Most people are giving a low bar here (in my eyes). If you’re in a committed relationship, don’t get random women’s numbers on stag dos for any reason and text them – just don’t do it. It is never and it will never be a good look.

And your husband’s friend had a girlfriend? Really nice behaviour. Top notch friends there and top notch judgement from your husband.

So. The people bleating about invasion of privacy. Tell us, what is the right thing to do? The OP, with good reason as it turns out, suspected her husband of bad behaviour. She is pregnant and presumably invested in her marriage succeeding. So, in your view, should she have ignored her own suspicions and risked being made a fool of, perhaps contracting an STI while pregnant if it emerged he not only set up cheating but indulged himself? Or perhaps she should have just upped and left him the minute she got the feeling? Throw away her marriage and become a single parent without even confirming she had reason to?
Rather than keep boring on, one after the other of you, saying the same thing about how awful OP was to check, how about some of you tell us what the better course of action would have been?

All the posts about invasion of privacy are 😂😂
Not because invasion of privacy is a good thing.
But because of all the double standards. How many times do posters tell the OP to go agd look at his phone when they wonder if their DH has cheated?? So so many times that it’s now the norm more than anything else.

It’s just this time the OP found out her dh isn’t a nice guy but no proof of cheating so it’s ok to pile on the OP MN style.

Same with all the calls about ‘I’d divorce you btw’.
Communication and conflict resolution doesn’t seem the forte of many posters.

Thank you. Perfectly said. I had my suspicions because of another thing that had happened when he went out to ‘wet the babies head’

his mates wife contacted me to say she had found 2 pictures of his mates with other women. One of them kissing someone. My suspicions were heightened.

I had every reason to snoop and I would do it again

like I said, prior to this I think we had a decent solid relationship. But 12 years and 3 children later I’m beginning to think I have no idea who my husband is

@Piper194 Why did you decide to go through his messages? Especially scrolling back to messages from 18 months ago???

I'm not judging (yet!) but there must be a reason you felt the need to do this?

If his friends are like wild animals then he won't be much different !

Well, firstly, I'd disagree strongly that the OP had a "good reason" to suspect anything. Her husband hasn't done anything wrong as far as I can see.

But ignoring that, what she should have done is talked to her husband about her worries, and then if she still didn't trust him for whatever reason, ended the relationship. As I said in my original reply, if I found out my partner had been nosing through my private files and conversations, the relationship would be over.

I just don't understand why anyone would stay in a relationship with someone they don't trust. I'm with my partner because I believe they won't cheat. If ever that belief changed, I'd end the relationship,

This is where I come down. Invasion of privacy is a greater breach of trust.

People don't give up all autonomy in a relationship. It doesn't sound as though anything untoward happened. He's allowed to interact with other human beings as he sees fit.

This x1000

If you don't think its wrong to try to set up a mate who is in a relationship with a random woman so he can cheat on his partner, then we have different ideas of right and wrong. Because personally I think to deliberately encourage and abet someone to betray their partner is pretty despicable, and a good indication of the guys views on cheating in general. Would you really be so naive as to think someone who'd go out of the way to set up a mates cheating would never do the same? I wouldn't.
As for the trust or leave, that's way too simplistic to apply to human relationships. It's not always black and white, trust or don't. It's often much more nuanced. People think they can trust, but can't be 100% certain, maybe due to past behaviour, lifestyle, character traits of the partner. It's hugely naive to try to categorise people into cheats who can't be trusted so you should leave them, and faithful people who can be trusted so you should do so implicitly. The reality is sometimes people we trust cheat, sometimes people we don't trust are faithful, and how much or little trust you have in them is entirely irrelevant to their behaviour.
The OP could have been right or wrong in her suspicions here and it would be rather stupid to act on them without checking.

This sums it up nicely.

@HangingOnJustAbout is also correct.

OP has chosen 'the best from a bad bunch' and now cannot trust him.

I'm waiting for a drip feed of his past behaviour, because you don't, in a normal trusting relationship, casually checking through someone else's messages, then calling random people to verify.

I'd be more inclined to understand if she'd prefaced with - 'my husband has been acting strange'...

Snooping another persons messages is despicable behaviour.

If a man did that to a woman, the LTB flag would be hoist high and the MN sheeple-crowd would be out chanting in full force.

The double standards are laughable.
And highly embarrassing.

I trust my partner to not cheat on me (by which I mean kiss or go further than that with someone other than me, or have an emotional affair).

I trust them not to intentionally hurt me physically, financially, or emotionally.

I trust them to care for our child.

As long as she's doing those things, she has my trust. She can talk to who she wants, save whoever she wants phone number in her phone, message who she wants. If she wants to set up her married friend, she can go nuts. It doesn't affect my relationship with her, it's nothing to do with me. And given that I don't police her communications, I'll likely never even know about it, so how could I possibly care!

So if you’ve got suspicions that your OH is cheating or….in this case….his mates might be leading him astray on nights out. You must just simply ask him. He says ‘no of course not darling’ …so you say ‘I know this an invasion of privacy darling but do you mind if I allay my paranoid, insecure, silly little brain and just have a peek at your phone to reassure myself’ and he says ‘no darling you may not as that’s an invasion of privacy you must just ignore your own instincts and take my word for it’
and you say ‘okay if you say so darling as trust is so important and it’s much more important that I trust your words than my own instincts’
That sounds like a good plan.
And if you insist on doubting his word and looking anyway to put your mind at rest, he’s perfectly entitled to end the relationship right there and then because you have violated his ‘human rights’
i didnt realise it was so simple!

edited to add: I once had suspicions about my OH. I looked and there were messages that were veering towards an EA. I asked him about it and he wasn’t bothered that I looked at his phone but he was VERY defensive about this other person. I knew there and then that my instincts were correct (together 15 years) and it got nipped in the bud before it went any further. ‘Snooping’ was exactly the right thing to do on that occasion. Many men (not ALL but MANY) will do allsorts if they think they’ll get away with it. If you’ve got a wife/partner who’s on the ball, can sniff it a mile off, will calmly gather evidence, and will hold you to account, you’re much less likely to risk it imo.

Lord above. How about a little thing called communication?!

If you still have no trust in your partner after having an adult discussion with them, then you reevaluate staying in the relationship. Really not sure why you think snooping is the first course of action.

'DH, I suspect that when you're out with the lads you stay up all hours messaging random women to set your mates up to cheat, or perhaps similar boundary breaching behaviour. Can we have an adult conversation about whether I'm right?'
' Of course darling. Now you've asked me in an adulty way, I will be completely open and transparent and tell you everything ive ever done that i would otherwise have hidden from you. So glad we can be adult about this.'

I think you’re quite controlling OP.

Also, many people different aspects to their personality/behaviour that only some people see. As long as he wasn’t looking to hook up himself which it didn’t would like he was, then it’s fine.

Texting the other number is OTT as is snooping unwarranted

Absolutely this. Some people seem to think being married overrides an individual’s right to privacy. It’s a legal contract, not an ownership document