I think she's cheating but don't want to make a huge mistake and say so.

[Lotsgoingon]

Tracking down any history on her phone will only confirm what you know: you know that the photo was not intended for you. That's it. She's flirting or showing herself to someone else at minimum. At max, she's having an affair.

You act on your distrust. It's not your job to exhaustively investigate before you cry foul. It's her job to disprove what seems to be obvious. 

Right away, if you're investigating, she's won. She's not apologizing and taking ownership.

And you find out who she sent message to and confirm it. So what? You face the same choice as now: to trust or not trust. 

The burden is on her to explain herself, not you. This relationship will be fundamentally unequal if you don't feel entitled right now to feel betrayed. And you have the right to feel betrayed even if she is merely posing and not having an affair. 

You act on not feeling safe, not feeling you can trust her. That's the reason to act. Not because you have hired a forensic investigator. She knows she's done something wrong. She's being evasive. What else do you need? 

Seems you are afraid of her.  If you are afraid to confront her fiercely right now, you don't have an equal relationship. She's got the advantage. 

I hate to tell you this, but you are (in your hesitation) sending her a horrible signal. She is going to conclude that she can get caught sending the wrong photo to you and STILL you will do nothing. That's just telling her to continue doing what she's doing. The more you ask her to explain, the more time she has to concoct some good lies. 

You have the right to be angry and disappointed right now, and it's her job to convince you otherwise. 

Edited January 10, 2021 by Lotsgoingon

[DKT3]

I think its more likely he is afraid of what knowing means and not afraid to confront her.

In all reality he already knows everything except maybe who she is cheating with.  All of his talk is really to stall the inevitable,  and the subsequent fallout.  If I confront her she will leave. What if she picks him. Unfortunately fear and weakness,  no.matter how you try to mask it, will only result in a more painful journey,  that much is guaranteed. 

[Lotsgoingon]

Great point @DKT3! Yes he's hiding behind "investigating." 

 

[Buffer]

True 

[ExpatInItaly]

17 hours ago, smackie9 said:

Whatever you find out, go to couples counseling. You don't excuse and move on, you two need to work on this or it will happen again.

Also this. 

You have discovered that your relationship has some big cracks, OP. 

And apparently it's not the first time, if she's cheated before. Curiously, you call it an "incident" - what exactly happened with her friend? I am wondering if you don't take that as seriously because it was with a woman. Perhaps the red flag there was shoved under the rug a little too hastily.

[Wiseman2]

Agree. There's nothing to investigate. Just ask what's up with the amateur porn.

Why would she sext this stuff knowing anything anyone sends can go viral in a nanosecond?

Does she have a history of poor judgement? Is this what she does instead of caring for the kids or working? Don't you two have sex at home?

If you had to guess, who do you think this amateur porn was intended for?

Edited January 11, 2021 by Wiseman2

[ReeceB]

Hi all.
Please don't think that I'm naive.
I really do understand the situation. I understand how bad it looks. I'm not ignoring what is in front of me.
The evidence points towards her cheating BUT it is not conclusive. There is a chance, albeit small, that she is telling the truth.
She deserves the chance to prosecute that case to me.
I will give her every chance to explain and I will demand and expect evidence.
I'm not going to destroy what we have on a hunch and some circumstantial evidence.
I WILL get to the bottom of this and I WILL take appropriate action once I know ALL the facts.
I've seen people react to what they believe is happening only to find out later, sometimes years later that the truth wasn't what they thought.
I want to avoid that happening. 
At the end of the day I will either leave, just a few weeks later than what you all want, or the truth will surprise us all and the discussion can them turn to why the amateur porn rather than who are you seeing behind my back?
You all seem to think I'm some kind of cuckold but sometimes when you are truly in love with someone you grant them allowances you probably shouldn't.

[Wiseman2]

I'm not personally suggesting the nuclear scotched earth approach.

Rather just ask what's up with the sudden interest in amateur porn. See what happens.

[DKT3]

I'm not suggesting you leave at all.  What I'm suggesting is a no nonsense approach.  Cheaters respond better when you approach them from a position of strength and tend to gaslight when its weakness.  

Thier response is predictable because there is a very limited well when you've been clearly caught like your wife has been. Denial-not me,, I've done nothing wrong.  Transference-well you aren't giving me attention,  but I would never cheat. Bullying-if you don't believe me there is no point in staying married.  I don't owe you anything,  you're too controlling. 

Being direct and forceful is only rushing her decision.  Being weak and hiding behind i need more information only allows her more time to get herself together with  stories and alibis.  Taking a position of strength gets this over quickly,  no matter the direction the marriage goes. 

[mark clemson]

On 1/9/2021 at 6:11 AM, ReeceB said:

I asked to see her phone and she refused and we had a massive argument because I don’t trust her.

She locked herself in the spare room and 4 hours later came out and apologized and showed me her phone.

17 hours ago, ReeceB said:

The evidence points towards her cheating BUT it is not conclusive.

Buddy, denial ain't just a river in Egypt. Sorry, man but SOMETHING was definitely up. IMO there's something like a 1/10,000 chance that was actually all for you and she wasn't sending stuff to someone else and sent to you by accident. And I'm very much a benefit of a doubt type - ask any poster here, they'll tell you.

If it was me, I'd ask her explicit (i.e. documented, so there is NO question she gave it) permission to use phone software to retrieve texts. Absent that, it'd be over.

I can see why you don't want to deal with this, given that there are two kids. It's such a shame. And such a shame that you will be dealing with her in order to see your kids; probably (when it comes out that she cheated, which is extremely likely, unfortunately) you'd prefer not to have to. Very sad.

[Marc878]

You are the only one that can put yourself in limbo.

[Crazelnut]

On 1/10/2021 at 12:19 AM, ReeceB said:

If there is physical cheating then no matter how much information she supplies we can't go on, but if it's only over texting then there may be a glimmer of hope.
It wont be easy and I wont make it easy for her but having invested so much in this relationship I owe it to us to give it every chance.

So if she's only been sexting, that's maybe ok?? Are you serious? 

[smackie9]

You are not naive. You know what is going on....but what everyone is pointing out, you are acting like a doormat/pushover. You can confront her all you want, you will probably fall apart when she cries, you feel bad and you back off, same old, same old. End of.

Edited January 12, 2021 by smackie9

[ReeceB]

We had it out. She maintained her innocence.
End result is that she has given me her phone and laptop computer to get them checked out.
She's angry I don't trust her. She's either telling the truth or she's a damn good actor. 
My tech guy said he will have the results I want within a couple of days.
I've also installed a voice activated recording device in her car.
I feel a bit sick doing all this but at least I'll have confirmation in a few days and can start working out what to do next with my life, 

[DKT3]

I'm guessing she's confident she scrubbed all the texts.  If there were no other pictures available or if that one is gone, I would brace yourself its going to get bumpy. 

Odd to have one photo or no photos when the one you saw said how is this one or whatever she said about it

 

[Marc878]

Deleted texts, etc are recoverable. I’d bet she doesn’t know that.

[ReeceB]

I have so much to tell. Sorry this will be long.

TL:DR – The phone was clean. She is telling the truth.

So after getting all the info from her phone, her laptop, her phone bill and all her various social media accounts there is no evidence those pics went to anyone except me.

I was surprised. It seemed pretty clear something was going on.

This is where it got a little heated.

She put me squarely in my place for not trusting her.

I had other issues to raise that I found whilst searching but I figured they’re better left for another time.

She is not cheating but she is keeping secrets and that’s something I hate.
She had been texting the girl she cheated with for 2 months after she said she had ceased contact.
It was the other girl that contacted mine and mine always told her to go away, it’s over, never again, I love my man etc.
She didn’t really do anything wrong but I would have liked to have been told.

She also had a guy from her old work inappropriately texting her. She put him in his place but again I would have liked to have been told.

And here’s a whopper, apparently our old next door neighbors were swingers and wanted us to join them. There was a lot, a huge amount of back and forth texts with my girl basically saying no chance.

As with the others, she’s done nothing wrong but I would have liked to have been told.

There was also texts to her mom and best friend expressing her love for me.
I feel like I’ve really invaded her privacy.
I know I needed answers and there wasn’t really any other option but now that it’s done I really do feel bad for not showing her the trust she deserves.

Anyway, we have a kid free night this weekend.
Time to make up for some lost time if you know what I mean… after I do some groveling.

[littleblackheart]

On 1/13/2021 at 3:42 AM, ReeceB said:

I've also installed a voice activated recording device in her car.

What's happened to this, Reece?

I hope she wises up and leaves the relationship without a second glance, fwiw.

12 minutes ago, ReeceB said:

I feel like I’ve really invaded her privacy.

You have.

[smackie9]

 

I dunno I still think there is something not right. I did some reading and yes you can make your text messages unrecoverable...just reset to factory settings, and it wipes everything. Another method of getting around leaving data is having another phone. On a PC using private browser doesn't hold data, browser history, etc. Only if you download something it will retain data. Things like Shredd-it will totally wipe out software and other things downloaded. So she can easily get around this if she is that clever.

Edited January 15, 2021 by smackie9

[DKT3]

3 hours ago, smackie9 said:

 

I dunno I still think there is something not right. I did some reading and yes you can make your text messages unrecoverable...just reset to factory settings, and it wipes everything. Another method of getting around leaving data is having another phone. On a PC using private browser doesn't hold data, browser history, etc. Only if you download something it will retain data. Things like Shredd-it will totally wipe out software and other things downloaded. So she can easily get around this if she is that clever.

I agree,  something is not adding up here

[usa1ah]

There are apps that don’t leave any tracks when you text and send pics. 
 

You getting the pic with the message is not seating well. 

[usa1ah]

Ok, I just turned off data and WiFi on my phone and tried to send my wife a few pics, they all say failed to send. So that is how she was able to show you that the pics failed to send if she never really tried to send them. 

[Veronica73]

I understand you feeling bad, but her suspicious text really makes no sense. At least from what you told us. Could you explain it better? What was her explanation? How does it make sense to you? I don't get it. Is she good with technology?

Also, this most likely isn't part of the issue...but I'm curious as to why aren't you married when you have two kids together? Do you both not believe in marriage? Is that normal in your culture?

[Veronica73]

1 hour ago, usa1ah said:

Ok, I just turned off data and WiFi on my phone and tried to send my wife a few pics, they all say failed to send. So that is how she was able to show you that the pics failed to send if she never really tried to send them. 

But how does she have a later post where it did send?

[Buffer]

This doesn’t pass the smell test. 
One day at a time 

Buffer