Why the obsession over APs, spying and "catching" DH?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because in order to properly break up w/someone maybe people feel like they should have actual proof vs. just an intuition.

Exactly

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I keep seeing posts about keyboard loggers, voice activated recording, car tracking. If you don't trust your spouse why wouldn't you just divorce already? Why do you need "evidence" and how does that help you?

Try to imagine: one day you suddenly feel something is wrong. You aren't sure what. You've been married 15 years and have three children and completely intertwined finances. You ask what's going on and he's evasive or his answers don't make sense.

Would your first move honestly be to go to a divorce lawyer and file for divorce, or would your first move be to try to figure out what's happening?

My first move, if I was smart, would be to a therapist to get help with the problem I noticed: my sense that something's wrong, my anxiety about the relationship, etc. If the issue is that I no longer trust my partner, my smartest self would simply validate that and then yes, divorce.

A LOT of people waste a lot of time, energy and resources "trying to figure it out". You may never figure it out, and you probably won't ever know the whole truth until/unless your partner wants to divulge it. What you can know, definitively, is that you no longer trust your partner, and that's enough to base a decision on.

Someone upthread posted about how women don't trust themselves, their intuition, etc. This is how you heal it. You stop requiring outside proof and learn to accept your own wisdom.

Neither my therapist nor my psychiatrist believed me when I came to them with my observations about my “anxiety” feelings and my husband’s sudden change in behavior. It took a couple sessions to convince them I wasn’t paranoid/delusional/off my meds. They both asked me what sort of proof I had.

Unfortunately, much like spouses, some counselors/therapists/psych "professionals" also ain't shit. The good news is: you get to leave them, too!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Leaving is hard, even in the case of severe abuse and serial infidelity. It's even harder when you're married to a gaslighter, and cheating and gaslighting go hand in hand. You find yourself questioning reality and need a lot of evidence and support to leave.

No you don't need evidence. Most women just don't to believe it's actually happening to them. It's their worst nightmare. They know it has happened to other women.

Frankly I wish women just didn't stay married to unfaithful men. If my wife cheats I am out..I am not going to waste my time and energy on therapy to understand why she cheated. There are countless men she can start her life over with. She didn't deserve a chance to explain/justify herself to the man she married. A divorce will set her free and life will be amazing for her.

You need evidence when the person cheating on you is also gaslighting you so much that you lose confidence in your judgment and discernment. You need hard evidence to know what is real. You get it for yourself. Just listen to all the women who have reported some version of this here.

Once you're that far gone, you won't believe even the most obvious "proof". You either respect yourself enough to leave or you don't.

Well, no. New poster here. If somebody has been gaslighted, they don't feel they can trust their gut any more. We - women - are taught to NOT trust our guts. To behave politely even if our gut is saying "oh, this doesn't feel right." We are taught not to make waves or be called a bittch. I've seen it here. And in some respects, that is safe - don't poke the bear and the bear won't kill you. But it also means women stay in elevators when they shouldn't. They get in cars they shouldn't. They are polite instead of rude to avoid "hurting his feelings" because you don't know what a man will do when you hurt his feelings.

Unlike a reasonable person (woman) a man won't just go have a good cry, some drinks with a friend, and maybe write in his diary. He might actually go get a gun and turn on her because she disrespected him.

And so, a woman is living with somebody who has been her trusted partner and he is saying he loves her and that he's at work, and that everything is fine - her mind has been trained to not trust her feelings as well. She's Fcked. She doesn't even know how to listen to her spidey senses.

Finding "proof" doesn't fix any of this. Therapy does.

actually, finding proof was the most therapeutic I did when I was leaving. It helped me trust my intuition going forward.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For me, I needed hard proof to "allow" myself to start pulling my kids' lives in two. It's a horrible decision to have to make.

I also needed to prove to myself that I wasn't crazy and did have an accurate grasp on reality when the person who was my best friend and partner for 15 years was all of a sudden gaslighting me into oblivion. It's a real mindfcxk.

This!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because in order to properly break up w/someone maybe people feel like they should have actual proof vs. just an intuition.

Exactly

+1

Divorce is a big deal. It makes sense that people want to be 100% sure they are not mistaken.

[Anonymous]

I didn't leave till I had evidence of over 5 people to establish a pattern of his behavior towards others and to me. It took that long to figure out how to leave without suffering too much and solidify for myself what I wanted to do in the next 30 years. I had to play out in scenarios what it would be like if this kept going on and we were still married and I was living with him. How I would support myself. Could anything be salvaged? What other problems might I run into? What would happen if I didn't say anything and he would just leave me later and I had said nothing as if I allowed it. Would I be in a worse spot? Would there be safety issues with these people coming into my life even if it was just between them. Lots of questions to answer if you don't already have money to up and leave and if you loved your spouse and children.

[Anonymous]

Considering all the lies of the cheater, knowing the truth allows you to finally not feel crazy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Considering all the lies of the cheater, knowing the truth allows you to finally not feel crazy.

+100

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Considering all the lies of the cheater, knowing the truth allows you to finally not feel crazy.

+100

+1000

[Anonymous]

I suspect you’ve likely never felt you were being cheated on.

You gaslight yourself, and deny your own reality for the sake of relational preservation. But it still knows at you because you know something is off.

Finding proof settles all of that. With tangible evidence, you realize you weren’t crazy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I keep seeing posts about keyboard loggers, voice activated recording, car tracking. If you don't trust your spouse why wouldn't you just divorce already? Why do you need "evidence" and how does that help you?

Try to imagine: one day you suddenly feel something is wrong. You aren't sure what. You've been married 15 years and have three children and completely intertwined finances. You ask what's going on and he's evasive or his answers don't make sense.

Would your first move honestly be to go to a divorce lawyer and file for divorce, or would your first move be to try to figure out what's happening?

My first move, if I was smart, would be to a therapist to get help with the problem I noticed: my sense that something's wrong, my anxiety about the relationship, etc. If the issue is that I no longer trust my partner, my smartest self would simply validate that and then yes, divorce.

A LOT of people waste a lot of time, energy and resources "trying to figure it out". You may never figure it out, and you probably won't ever know the whole truth until/unless your partner wants to divulge it. What you can know, definitively, is that you no longer trust your partner, and that's enough to base a decision on.

Someone upthread posted about how women don't trust themselves, their intuition, etc. This is how you heal it. You stop requiring outside proof and learn to accept your own wisdom.

Neither my therapist nor my psychiatrist believed me when I came to them with my observations about my “anxiety” feelings and my husband’s sudden change in behavior. It took a couple sessions to convince them I wasn’t paranoid/delusional/off my meds. They both asked me what sort of proof I had.

Unfortunately, much like spouses, some counselors/therapists/psych "professionals" also ain't shit. The good news is: you get to leave them, too!

Ha! Yep