snooping
Member
Join Date: May 2010
Location: USA
Posts: 13,560
This made me laugh. I'm sorry, I know it's not funny. It's just that it's so true, I have just never quite heard it put this way.
#TRUTH
We get tired of being a mushroom.
A mushroom lives in the dark and gets fed sh** to live off of.
#TRUTH
Originally Posted by Hangnbyathread 
We get tired of being a mushroom.
A mushroom lives in the dark and gets fed sh** to live off of.
Last edited by DesertEyes; 02-02-2016 at 01:59 PM. Reason: Fixed broken quote
Member
Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: Western US
Posts: 8,983
This >>>>> "Snooping while in a relationship when something doesn't feel right? Yup..
Snooping after you have ended the relationship... Nope...why bother? I just causes more hurt. "
Hmmm . . . and I might add to Lilro's and Hangingbyathread's story, make the snooping (or factchecking) as short as possible with immediate consequences of getting the heckoutofdodge. I say this but still know this can be a slippery slope for codependents.
Snooping after you have ended the relationship... Nope...why bother? I just causes more hurt. "
Hmmm . . . and I might add to Lilro's and Hangingbyathread's story, make the snooping (or factchecking) as short as possible with immediate consequences of getting the heckoutofdodge. I say this but still know this can be a slippery slope for codependents.
Member
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: atlanta, ga
Posts: 3,581
Well I was snooped upon in a horrible way. My Ex gave me a laptop back in the day when I had was a desktop. He said it would be "more comfortable for me to chat with him when he was on the road" to do so from the couch. What I didn't know until about 2 years after we broke up, and when I was with RAH, is that he had put a key logger on the computer. 2 years later that jerk was still reading everything I did from my bank balance to the weird things I may google or find of interest. I know he was because he contacted me about something related to use of the computer (I had kinda suspected at times) and then I knew. I took it to a friend of mine who is a PI and YEP, it had a key logger. I joyously smashed it to bits and bought myself a new one. Its a really god awful violation While I know HH you did not do this is kinda the same thing. Access to someone's phone might as well be a computer, and it might as well be their brain.
I used to be quite snoopy myself. I'm not anymore. I don't have reason to be in my relationship. but truthfully it never caused me anything but pain and angst. If you aren't in a situation pertinent to the ones mentioned its not like you can say anything - cause then you'd be busted for being a snoop. LOL.
I used to be quite snoopy myself. I'm not anymore. I don't have reason to be in my relationship. but truthfully it never caused me anything but pain and angst. If you aren't in a situation pertinent to the ones mentioned its not like you can say anything - cause then you'd be busted for being a snoop. LOL.
Member
Join Date: Feb 2012
Location: Wisconsin
Posts: 1,572
I do think there is a difference between controlled, short-term data gathering when someone suspects that a partner is engaging in behavior that would be a deal-breaker, and obsessive or compulsive ongoing snooping. Several years ago, when I was concerned that my STBXAH may be cheating, I had a long and difficult conversation with a recovery friend about what was reasonable for me to be looking for, and in what manner. We agreed that because I had very specific reasons for being suspicious, that a moderate amount of digging (in a non-stalkerish way) might be warranted.
HOWEVER. I was still very, very sick at that time. What started as checking into things and looking for evidence of an affair turned into a deeply unhealthy obsession about what my STBXAH was doing, where he was, and who he was with. I hacked into email accounts. I pulled phone records after illegitimately changing the access password so I could get to them. And lord knows I went through his phone at every possible opportunity. For years. Had I found evidence of an affair, despite the fact that back then I had convinced myself I would leave, in retrospect...I do NOT think that finding that evidence would have prompted me to leave at that time. I wasn't ready.
I never found evidence of an affair. And while I had reason to maybe be a little suspicious, I do not think that my suspicion was as well-grounded as I had convinced myself at the time. I was looking for an excuse to snoop. And I definitely found PLENTY of horrible things during my snooping, at least a dozen of which would have/could have/should have been reason enough to leave. But I didn't. Because I wasn't really snooping to look for confirming evidence that would "empower" me to leave. I was snooping because it gave me a false sense of control over the situation, and I felt that it would allow me to manipulate STBXAH and the situation. And so I could throw all of his misdeeds in my STBXAH's face, and then beg and plead for him to change.
I did not come to understand all of this until I had been snooping for years, and had made significant progress in my own recovery. It is my opinion (and only my opinion) that the vast majority of folks who post here snoop for many of the same reasons that I snooped. Very, very few people hunt for evidence for a limited period of time for the purpose of deciding if they should leave, and then in fact leave after the discover what they suspected. Most people, if they find confirming evidence, still decide to stay (because we just aren't ready to leave yet) and then we use the fact that we found confirming evidence before as a justification to continue snooping.
There are certainly people who set a boundary, suspect that the boundary has been crossed, and then engage in limited, targeted "research" to see if their suspicion is correct, and then follow through with the consequences for the violated boundary. I just don't think that most of us here fall into that category. At least not when we first show up here, and are still in early recovery.
HOWEVER. I was still very, very sick at that time. What started as checking into things and looking for evidence of an affair turned into a deeply unhealthy obsession about what my STBXAH was doing, where he was, and who he was with. I hacked into email accounts. I pulled phone records after illegitimately changing the access password so I could get to them. And lord knows I went through his phone at every possible opportunity. For years. Had I found evidence of an affair, despite the fact that back then I had convinced myself I would leave, in retrospect...I do NOT think that finding that evidence would have prompted me to leave at that time. I wasn't ready.
I never found evidence of an affair. And while I had reason to maybe be a little suspicious, I do not think that my suspicion was as well-grounded as I had convinced myself at the time. I was looking for an excuse to snoop. And I definitely found PLENTY of horrible things during my snooping, at least a dozen of which would have/could have/should have been reason enough to leave. But I didn't. Because I wasn't really snooping to look for confirming evidence that would "empower" me to leave. I was snooping because it gave me a false sense of control over the situation, and I felt that it would allow me to manipulate STBXAH and the situation. And so I could throw all of his misdeeds in my STBXAH's face, and then beg and plead for him to change.
I did not come to understand all of this until I had been snooping for years, and had made significant progress in my own recovery. It is my opinion (and only my opinion) that the vast majority of folks who post here snoop for many of the same reasons that I snooped. Very, very few people hunt for evidence for a limited period of time for the purpose of deciding if they should leave, and then in fact leave after the discover what they suspected. Most people, if they find confirming evidence, still decide to stay (because we just aren't ready to leave yet) and then we use the fact that we found confirming evidence before as a justification to continue snooping.
There are certainly people who set a boundary, suspect that the boundary has been crossed, and then engage in limited, targeted "research" to see if their suspicion is correct, and then follow through with the consequences for the violated boundary. I just don't think that most of us here fall into that category. At least not when we first show up here, and are still in early recovery.
Currently Active Users Viewing this Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
