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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

P.S., I strongly disagree with PPs who say that you must learn to "trust" and not ask for full transparency/access on social media, email, etc.  Trust is earned, not blindly given.  Your husband had your trust, lost it and now must earn it back thru his actions not his words.  Full transparency, complete honesty, and a real commitment thru extensive therapy to look inward at the character defects that made this situation possible are the actions you should be looking for.  [/quote]

I'm the PP (or one of them) who suggested that requiring complete access to all email accounts, etc. may not be a good idea.  The point was not that trust should be blindly given; it should, and must, b earned, of course.  The point is that placing one spouse in a parental role is not healthy for the spouse in either position, and neither addresses nor corrects the underlying issues.  From the other things you wrote in your post, and from other posts I think I've seen from you, I think you know at least the latter to be true.  I had my husband's credit cards and ATM card, access to all his accounts, etc. for a time in the (ancient) past when those were some of the tools he'd used to act out.  It was a tactic suggested by a therapist.  It gave both of us a false sense of security that we'd "solved" the problems when nothing happened for a time, but ultimately just further entrenched a very bad relationship dynamic.  I agree with full transparency, complete honestly, extensive therapy.  I'm simply suggesting that OP putting herself in the role of a parent could be problematic.[/quote]

In the long run, of course, no one wants to be a parent.  That is precisely the reason I ultimately kicked my cheating husband out even though he begged me to stay.

I am absolutely 100% happy that I took control of my situation and continued to look for evidence of my husband's actual behavior.  My knowledge of his true activities (as opposed to what he was telling me at home and in therapy) was what gave me the power to control my own life.  In my situation, I did not ask for full transparency.  I did, however, put a key logger on my computer (which he used), checked all credit card bills and telephone bills and other bills closely (all of which were in joint names or he expected me to see as part of our joint bill paying) and consistently looked at our car mileage to see if he had been where he said he was.

What I found was a continuing series of lies.

I did not want to live a lie.  I also did not want to be the sheep that pulled my own wool over my eyes.

The problem is that, without objective data (which is full transparency to all bills, email accounts, etc.), the cheater is able to continue lying.

Demanding transparency is not the same as "being a parent".  There is a difference between using what you know as a result of full transparency to make decisions about your own life, and using what you know as a result of transparency to try to force the other person to change.  I am speaking of the former use of transparency.

Therapists often tell women they don't have a right to know or to look and that the problem lies with them because they are not willing to trust.  Sometimes they even encourage the perpetrator not to reveal details, because "it would just hurt" the victim.  I, frankly, find this sexist and offensive.  
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