# Acceptable behavior from husband or not?



## SoCalSurfer (Jul 26, 2012)

Ladies,
Out of respect for my wife, I have not spoken to our lady friends about any personal relationship issues. However, I would greatly appreciate the view point of women on the issue of 'privacy' and 'boundaries' as they pertain to facebook, text messages, etc.

Without writing a book on EVERY detail, here is some background on the why I feel my behavior (which I will save until the end) is with cause.

Early in our relationship my wife was spending a fair amount of time at the bars until the close with 'the girls'. Now, this is not a problem, but I started observing behavior that was not normal and led my to believe that she might be being unfaithful. So, I decided to examing our phone records and found that there was a pattern of calls to a number at strange times (such as 2:00 in the morning, on Christmas day, New Years Eve, etc). Upon further 'investigation' I found that a man with an accent seemed to always answer the phone. I ended up asking my wife about the situation and she claims that the number was a girl friend of hers that she went to beauty school with and she and her boyfriend have little money and so they share a phone. I never heard much about this girl friend being so close a friend to her that would justify the strange calls, so I found it a difficult story to believe. At any rate, I chose to stick with her and her story, but my trust for her became joepardized.

Fast forward about 10 years (now with 3 childreand us about 40ish) without any sort of 'monitoring', checking of or 'stalking' phone records, etc., some situations arose that I viewed as out of the norm and worth questioning. Starting with a weekend 'girls trip' (most of whom were single) to a concert. A few weeks later I was asked by someone about some pictures and new 'friend' my wife had on facebook. As the story was told by my wife after I brought it up, they were hanging out with a group of guys that were local friends of one of the single girls my wife went with. One of the guys (who supposedly had a girl friend and mom there?) asked my wife if she was on facebook and took her phone and friended her so that they could all 'share pictures'. OK, I guess I need to trust my wife, but perhaps a bit of strange story. 

For the rest of the summer, she made about 4 trips to her single friends house for the weekend (note that the single friend was recently divorced, has a history of being insecure and needy of attention, is a big 'partier', etc). Now, whenever they would go to dinner, it was at 9 or 10 at night and then they would go to a bar, club or whatever after. My wife claims though that it is just girl time with them catching up with each other, which is understandable to an extent, but why does it always need to happen over drinking at a bar until weee hours of the morning. Wouldn't quality time catching up with your girl friend be much more feasible if it was done without the distractions that bars and clubs present? 

Next thing you know the same single girl friend and my wife go away to another city (where the original questionable concert was and the girl friend has a part time boy friend and all his friends) for my wifes birthday weekend. My wife claims the weekend was to get away and relax, get in some hiking, etc. The end result was basically it revolved around doing the hole late dinner and staying out drinking unti bars closed at all the trendy spots...and non of the hiking, etc that the trip was supposed to be about even took place because they were prob too tired and hung over from night before. I ended up checking phone records and there were txt messages send between her and her girl friend at around 11 - 12 at night and then again in the early morning (suspicion say maybe they weren't together or something). Wifes story is that they were at dinner together and friend was facebooking, etc and wife was texting her silly stuff like hey I'm over here, etc. Of course when I 'stalked' her phone when she got home the text messages were selectively deleted. Her reason was that she knew I would make a crazy story up in my head if I read them!

Recently wife goes to same single girl friends for a night, with another married friend of ours, to go out for the gals birthday. Wife said that she would be careful about the amount of drinking, situations that they got into, would check in with my once in a while to let me know she was ok and how things were going. Low and behold I only heard from her once that night. Woke up at 2:00 in the morning with a bad gut feeling. So I ended up 'tracking' her iPhone via iCloud. Basically it showed her leaving a bar around 2:30 in the morning (even though they close at 2:00), going to the girl friends house where they were supposed to stay, then leaving the house around 2:45 and driving a few cities down and ending up at another house around 3:00 in the morning! When I saw her the next day I did not present the 'evidence', etc. I just asked her to tell me about the night. She blatently lied and made up an innocent story. Asked her a bit later to tell me more about the night, she got angry, accused me of crossing boundaries and that she didn't need to be interrogated! I told her that I deserve to know what the night was like (given our recent history of deceit and sneakiness). She made up another story that expanded a bit on the first! I then told her that I have reason to be 100% confident that I know she is lying and that she needs to tell me the truth if we are to ever build trust. Lied again! I presented what I knew from my 'stalking' her and she made up another story (which was barely believed). I left it that if that is what she wants to live with telling me then fine. I went to play with our kids. She came out 1 minutes later with another story of how she didn't want to tell me the truth b/c she didn't want me to judge her friend. Story goes that friend got so drunk on shots that by around 12:00 or so she was spitting on people, dancing on curtains, etc and was asked to leave the club. They all brought her home and she continued to be beligerant and confrontation. So, my wife, our married friend and another girl friend of the bday girl went out for another drink by bday girls house to see if she would cool down. Fast forward to bar closing, bday gal still out of control at her house, wife, our other married friend and this other gal decide to go stay at the other gals house (the one the cell phone tracking showed she went to at 3:00).

Incidentally, wife has a history of 'sneaking' around, etc. I used to get upset about the daily $4 latte, etc., so she decided that to 'live' she needed to just not tell me about things, like getting coffee every day, shopping habits, getting botox, etc. Essentially, all sneaking around and lying, but supposedly only about innocent things that wouldn't ruin a marriage, etc.

SOOOOOO....my question is, when a pattern of deceit, sneakiness, lies, etc is established, is it still unacceptable to think that I should want access to facebook accounts, text messages and even 'tracking' her cell phone on occassion? My view is that whenever I have done it, I find things that are questionable and support the sneakiness and deceit.

So, disregarding the obvious about us needing to be in counceling, better communication, etc. Given the few (and there are more) examples pointed out...am I totally out of line by 'invading her privacy' like I have? Also, should she see the pattern and realize that if she has nothing to hide that maybe she should be accepting of the fact that I might 'stalk' her phone or facebook, etc for a while until we can establish trust again?

First post, so thanks in advance for any thoughts and sorry if I was way too lenghty!

SoCalSurfer


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## Toffer (Jan 31, 2012)

Absolutely NOT

First of all, in a marriage there is really no such thing as privacy. BOTH partners should either have or be willing to share access to all email accounts, social media, etc.

Other than this, you have a bad situation on your hands. Forget the counciling right now. Your wife is exhibiting many of the red flags of a cheater

I really don't have the time to re-read your post and flag all of them but here are some of the biggest

-She's deleting texts she doesn't want you to see
-She was texting/calling another man earlier in your relationship
-She LIES ALOT
-Pictures with another guy at the concert
-4 weekend trips during the summer to that same guy's area (you realize that 4 trips is more than a third of the summer, right?)

I would be surprised if your wife WASN'T cheating on you!

You need to:

-start looking at her cell phone records again
-Put a key logger on your PC
-Put a VAR under the seat of her car with heavy duty velcro
-Review your credit card charges for hotel rooms or anything else of a suspicious nature

Good luck. I think you're going to need it


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## Shaggy (Jul 17, 2011)

Your wife spends a lot , and I mean, a lot of time hanging out on weekends with singles at bars. Singles go to bars to hookup not just drink. You can drink much cheaper at home. So what is your wife doing while the singles are flirting and hooking up? Is she drinking a soda at the table alone?

I think you would be very wise to find out what is going in during these party nights because her behavior s not that of a happy married woman who's husband is her best friend.

If it were my, I'd look into a PI for their next night out, and in the meantime see if you can see the texts they are sending.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Ten_year_hubby (Jun 24, 2010)

SoCalSurfer said:


> is it still unacceptable to think that I should want access to facebook accounts, text messages and even 'tracking' her cell phone on occassion? My view is that whenever I have done it, I find things that are questionable and support the sneakiness and deceit.


It is and was never unacceptable to want access to these communications. I look at all this stuff but I never comment on anything directly, I just keep an eye on what's going on so.

Some guys in another thread were commenting on all the monitoring ability built into the iPhone. Consider buying her a new phone


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## Maricha75 (May 8, 2012)

Tho you have gotten responses from other men thus far... I am throwing in my reply, as a woman. I agree with what the men have said. She is most definitely hiding something from you, likely cheating. I'm sorry this is happening to you.


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## heartsdelight (Apr 2, 2012)

There is no reason you shouldn't have full access to all of her accounts, as others have stated. I have all of my husband's information stored on my computer and vice versa. It's for practical purposes- I track our finances a little better, plus he isn't as computer-glued as me so I let him know if he gets important emails or something. 

We started this very early on, as soon as we got engaged I think. The hardest thing for me was letting him read the emails I sent to a close girlfriend about our situation (it's very unique, I'll post about it some time when I have access to the established forum). I didn't want him to take things I said to her the wrong way. But I felt it was important to have trust and let him know that I wasn't hiding anything (talking bad about him, doubting getting married, etc.). 

No access = no trust. My husband doesn't check my phone regularly but if he asked to read all my text messages I'd say um, whatever and hand it over. If someone has a problem with that, they're hiding something. Whether it's cheating, unhappiness, whatever.

And the bar thing? Unacceptable. If your wife was childless, preferably single, and under 30, maybe okay. If she went out infrequently and was home reasonably early (1am maybe), I could understand. But to extend her "girls night out" to what appears to be all night out on the town or who knows where or long weekends doing who knows what, unacceptable. You have children for crying out loud, as well as your own personal need for physical and emotional closeness. She is behaving irresponsibly.

Big flag for me is her spending her birthday weekend apart from her family? The actual day of her birthday and everything? It seems silly that she wouldn't want to be with her family.


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## costa200 (Jun 27, 2012)

why is your wife running wild from bar to bar drinking like she is single?

This obviously bugs the hell out of you. So why don't you put a stop to this? You will not tell me you trust her will you?

And this:



> Of course when I 'stalked' her phone when she got home the text messages were selectively deleted. Her reason was that she knew I would make a crazy story up in my head if I read them!


Very poorly conceived deceit. She deleted messages in order to stop you from making have doubts? If that's true i must question her intelligence.


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## chillymorn (Aug 11, 2010)

be prepared to find out your wife most likley was running around on you your whole marriage.


I smell a rat. start snooping!


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## Toffer (Jan 31, 2012)

SoCal,

You still there?


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## TiggyBlue (Jul 29, 2012)

mostly I would say it's not anyones right to go through someones personal things but considering the fact you are being lied to and kept in the dark about so many things I can totally see why you want to. Respect and trust is earnt and maintained through your own actions and it doesn't sound like she is doing anything to keep your trust in her. For your own sake it will be better to find out exactly what is or isn't going on and take action from there.


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## jlock111 (Jun 26, 2012)

SoCalSurfer said:


> Ladies,
> Out of respect for my wife, I have not spoken to our lady friends about any personal relationship issues. However, I would greatly appreciate the view point of women on the issue of 'privacy' and 'boundaries' as they pertain to facebook, text messages, etc.
> 
> Without writing a book on EVERY detail, here is some background on the why I feel my behavior (which I will save until the end) is with cause.
> ...


Why don't you install a spy app on her cell phone the texts will go right to your phone or e-mail then she can say all she wants and you will have already seen every text.


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## tennisstar (Dec 19, 2011)

This doesn't sound good. Why is she running around with friends all the time?

I'm all for independence and socializing, but this is too much. She has a family at home! 

I think your wife us cheating on you. It sounds like she's cheated on you more than once. I think you.know this, but you are still in denial.

Do you run around with your friends all the time too? Who is home with the kids? Why are you putting up with this?
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## srtjm (Jul 11, 2012)

jlock111 said:


> Why don't you install a spy app on her cell phone the texts will go right to your phone or e-mail then she can say all she wants and you will have already seen every text.


:iagree:


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## kate542 (Jul 25, 2012)

In my humble opinion she's acting like a single women and doesn't care about loosing her marriage it doesn't seem to be important to her.


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## stupidGuy (Jul 13, 2012)

imho sharing private date like email passwords etc in consent is something completely different than spying.. the latter is even illegal in many countries.

As compelling it might be, I would try not to spy on my wife. If you feel bad about how she acts then change how you react to it, let it have some consequences..


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