/* Rambling comments... */

Keep your head up and your upper lip stiff.

ah i remember making such a discovery but more low tech. while doing the fun thing i noticed a strange spot on her back. it ended up being rug burn... but her first story was a long one about it being caused from gouging her back while reaching for the iron. the story so implausable i asked her to demonstrate. showing me how she reached up for the iron in the closet resulting in coming down against a closet door handle which gouged her back. problem was the handle was totally round. she then spilled the beans.... my current view is: sometimes its just sex. sometimes it matters. i wish you well.

Sounds like something I woulda done. Usually easier to just setup VNC and view desktop though. :)

Way to be... stick with your guns

Bummer dude, especiaaly after 17yrs.
Well, had the same thing happening to me, and took care of it in the same way.
Keep you head and chin up.
A better girl will come.

And remember: everything happens for a reason. Good or bad.

The very first commercial software product I ever wrote was a keystroke logger for the Mac called Last Resort. It was published by Working Software, which is no longer in business. Unlike today's keystroke loggers which focus on capturing passwords and credit card numbers, my product was marketed for the purpose of capturing text lost due to power failures and crashes, even if it had never been saved. Many of my users were novelists.

I made some effort to make Last Resort's presence obvious to the user, lest it be planted on their Mac, and it could be disabled to allow safe password entry. But all my efforts didn't help David Pogue's girlfriend. David Pogue was at the time an editor for Mac User magazine. He now writes for the New York Times.

At a MacWorld Expo he ran up to me and said how grateful he was that I wrote Last Resort, as he had used it to catch his girlfriend writing love letters to the man she was having an affair with. He broke up with her, and told me he was very happy I had enabled him to find out.

I was completely floored. I would have thought a more natural response would be for him to curse my name. But no, he was indeed happy, and to show just how happy he was with my product, he used it (under a fake, but obvious name) in a novel he wrote about the software industry, in which Last Resort saves the world because it captures an important, secret password.

Let's see if I can find it... here we go, it was called "Hard Drive". It's out of print, but can be had used from Amazon and http://www.powells.com/

I do want to say, having sufferred my own share of heartbreak, that I sympathize with your loss. I'm glad you're able to take it as well as you have.

There's an old saying, "easy" come, "easy" go.
You might try to find a girl who isn't so easy to get. If you have a hard time getting her, just imagine how hard it would be for another to. Stay away from blondes, as they drop their skirts for anything, man, woman, or german shepherd.

What you did is illegal and immoral. Nevermind you were right and she was cheating. It could have been otherwise. Plus the method you used, is so bloated and exxagerated. Could have been done with two 20k apps paired right on the target machine that you had access to.

shame on You,

Hi man,

I just ended my relationship with my fiancee for different reasons, but I highly respect your choice. It takes a lot of courage to move on and make the most honest choice for yourself.

Take it on step and one breath at the time. It'll take a while.

Good luck,
J.

"Everything happens for a reason" is pretty much the rule that I live my life by. There's no point in wasting energy on "if only"s. Things happen and they need to be dealt with. Sometimes it does take a while to work out what the reason is though...

I think my INTJ tendancies help here. When most things actually happen I seem to have already been through a worse outcome in my head at some prior point and having already faced up to the possibilities it seems easier to face the reality. Having said that I'd never done "contingency planning" for this particular situation, it came completely out of the blue, but my "what if she dies in a car crash, how could I cope alone" planning can be put into service...

As I said in my piece about my "Introspection on INTJ", this kind of reaction can make one appear heartless, I'm not, it's just my way of coping. Life goes on.

heh, dude - what were you doing with her after 17 years? She prob got bored and decided she wanted a man of action instead of a man of words. Fear of commitment will send them running. Or at least, not keep them close by.

Sorry to hear about it, dude, but honestly if you spent as much effort on the relationship as spying on your own local network, she prob wouldn't have drifted away.

And by work I don't mean "telling her how you feel" all the time. I mean, like actual growth.

Jonah

Illegal and immoral? Whatever.

Given I had a limited amount of time to work with the target machine and I had no previous experience in monitoring a machine in a way that wasn't detectable and given that my priority was to gather as much information as possible over an unknown period of time I figure that monitoring the network was the safest and least disruptive option available to me.

Hang in there. It will take a couple months to feel and work through the emotions. But it goes away. And working on something for "you" actually helps.

Went through the same thing myself back in 2001/2002. WinWhatWhere helped me.

Good Luck and Peace.

Holy fricksticks, chum. That's a shame. Can't understand why you couldn't capture packets from one wi-fi laptop to another, though? Surely if one was in promiscuous receive mode all should work?

P.S. Wasn't allowed to post my URL

"What you did is illegal and immoral."

BS. if he owns the equipment its legal.

Hector

I didn't spend much time trying to work out the wifi capture problem as I had limited time alone to make the changes. I knew I had the hardware I needed to change the configuration and get everything.

you're a bit of a loser if you have to *snoop* on your "girlfriend". You might have just realised that if there was no trust, it was over already.

Looser

Perhaps. However, I was snooping so that I had solid evidence (rather than purely circumstantial stuff) for when I confronted her. Perhaps living with a litigation lawyer for 17 years has rubbed off... Either way, it worked for me.

Bummer to hear this. Although I just busted mine a week ago in a similar fashion..ok women, you want to talk to ex's or new loves fine..do it on your own computer at your own house on your own damn paid for line. Whores everywhere..

I caught my ex the same way more or a less, but by accident. I had been legitimately using a packetsniffer to monitor network traffic coming from a game that we were both playing at the time (everquest) and I noticed a big spike in aim traffic when I wasn't home at a certain time every day... decided to find out what it was. The first line I got was "God I wish you were here right now so I could be f***ing you." from her to him... and it didn't get much better. Foolishly, I took her back after that breakup and wasted another couple years of my life. Stick to your guns, it's *DAMN* hard, but in the end you'll be glad you did (took me about a year after we broke up the last time to really "get over" the whole mess.)

Oh man, you should have called the guys from the show Cheaters... Well, at least you can now call them to start a new show: Cheaters Tech Edition, where they use CSI equipment to discover the unfaithfuls.

Len,

Hell i feel for you! I did the self same thing... twice! and caught two seperate g/fs at the cheating thing.

But chin up, it gets better and easier as time goes by. It is natural to think back on the good times so don't berate yourself for it.

And keep your composure, do not reply to any flame-bait comments! Chin up! You know you did the right thing, so don't pay attention to the twisted ones...

-C

this made it to Digg so you are so going to be overwhelmed with comments... but.. as for the skiing stuff.. Love It.... but next time skip Vail and go to Alta/Snowbird/Utah... you will get the powder experience there unless you really get unlucky... like the ski video footage .. good luck moving on .. life is always ready to throw you challenges...

It's like cancer, it's a terrible thing to find, but you need to, so you can cut it off.

Len, well you got your "evidence" bro. Nice detective work. You coulda just said: "there's no trust between us. I'm suspicious of you, and btw I'm not above snooping on you."

So you didn't trust her, and further snooped on her. If you had found nothing, would you have just continued in the relationship? "Oh, I spied on her, but I didn't find any evidence, so I still love her." WTF

Seriously, dude. Sorry to hear about it but from all accounts it sounds like an unhealthy, unhappy situation all around. Be glad it's over.

I caught my ex gf in a similar manner. I used Remote Administrator and just viewed her desktop while she was chatting with the other guy.

17 years is a long time! Keep ur chin up man.

Tough break dude.

Once you get everything sorted out, you'll be back on your feet before you know it.

Got any pics?

I found that TightVNC with a hidden icon and Tiny Key Logger worked extremely well, though AVG Free now detects and removes TKL. I even went as far as to have apache on my machines so that I could view the key logs in realtime online, anywhere as well as using php to restart the keylogger or vnc if they were exited. I gave her ample time/opertunity to come clean but she denied everything until I slapped down a print out. Not fun, but at least I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt.

Same thing here. I had a suspicion my gf was up to something, so I used a keylogger to get her email password. When I read her email I found correspondance between her and some guy I didn't know; and it was R-rated.
I confronted her, and she ditched the other guy and we tried to work things out, but in the end we broke up.
All you can do in situations like these is to remember that even though it hurts like hell right now, at some point you will get over it.

I am very sorry your girl didn't have the strength to end your relationship before she started another. You should keep your chin up. Things will get better.

ok... so im in the same situation, I have a switch with two pcs connected.. was gonna go the sniffer route but its proving to be beyond my level as yet. A simple logger on the machine in question would be much easier? If anyone knows the easiest way to record/capture msn conversations ! would be much oblidged!

Isn't illegal in your state to spy on other people communications?

Man that sucks :/

I agree with Shad, specially if you don't have children, which I guess you don't, since it would probably be mentioned.

Usually men are different from women when they break up. The women suffers more for a shorter time, and the men, sometimes for years. Don't let this happen to you...

You've constructed a routine around her life, which is the hardest thing to let go. For the next year or so, avoid the places where you used to go together, and things that you did as a couple.

I know this will sound ridiculous now, but read it again in four weeks. Remember everything that everyone says about being single and party on :) Life goes on :)

Similar thing here... When I was suspicious, I hacked into a "mates" email and found a registration to adultfriendfinder... So I left it a few weeks and replied to him as a woman.

Within a few days he was sending me rude photos of himself and telling me all about his affair with his mates wife and how her husband was so stupid that he would never find out

Anyway, I have two small kids so for their sake I had no choice but to work things out.

Everyone stopped talking to him and he ended up leaving the area and 6 years later the wife and I are still together.

I was in almost the same situation around that time too. Except I had only been going out with the girl for 2 months and had suspected something from the start. She didn't seem to realise that msn messenger was logging her chats so confronted her with 40 pages worth of conversations showing she wasn't being as honest as she made herself out to be. It turns out there were at least 4 other guys she was involved with

or maybe things are getting worse. the mechanical land is well tended but has the land of spirit has become a desert?

While some people here point to the ethics of how you discovered her infidelity, I think it's safe to say this is no worse than following someone around.

It sucks that you had to resort to this, but as it turns out -- your suspicions were justified, and she's far more in the wrong than you are.

Just remember -- it's never the end of the world. Keep your head up.

Sounds like my kinda girl!

What a bitch. Why didn't that ho at least break up with you first? What is it with skanks? They're like a plague. I'd have to kill a bitch if she cheated on me.

Sorry to read about it. I've really come to the decision that all women are like this. A similar thing happened to me. Absolutely nothing immoral or wrong about what you did.

From my experience, and several friends, don't try to remain friends. It's over cut and run. But don't feel bad about remembering the good times. That's what memories should be for.

Wow, I know excatly how you feel. They come home and something is "Just Not Right". I had the same situation happen to me. I came home early from work one day and went to my computer. I noticed that she accidently didn't close her hotmail window but just minimized it. The message that was on the screen was very suggestive. Givien that and her new very strange daily habits I was getting concerned.

I did the low tech version of what you did. I installed a Key Logger on my home PC and went back to work. That night I was shocked to see the messages she was typing and to whom(My Army Buddy!).

That night I confronted her and my suspecions were confirmed. I threw her out that night. A 3 year relationship was over in a few hours.

It was hard, it was very hard aferwards, but life went on. Before her you could have labeled me a Nice guy, I still am, just I am a little more protective of my GFs now and guess what Most (not all) girls like that.

Just a Tip, Dont go looking for another Girl Friend just yet. Go out and meet and talk to diffrent girls. "Shop around" find out what you like. it has been 17 years. Go out with your frineds and have a good time. If you dont have any single guy friends Check out www.fastseduction.com they have a free "wingman" service that can get you in touch with like minded guys in your area. Dont dwell on the past or what you could have done or what you might have missed. It is too late to think about that. you are a better person now because she is out of your life. Now go have some fun!

1 word: WHORE
you want to remain friends? you're crazy friend's don't even do that to eachother

"Surely if one was in promiscuous receive mode all should work?"

Weren't you paying attention? This is what caused the problem to begin with!

Kyle

:)

Dude I know this is rude but, you're a dumass! You deserved to have her leave you. 17 Years and you didn't make a single move to try and take it to the next level? All I can say is you deserved it. You're lucky she stayed that long.

Sorry to hear about your situation. I will echo the breakup and stay broken up them. I found out years ago that my wife had been involved in a few affairs. We tried to patch things up and stayed together. Now, two kids later we are going through the same thing except with the kids involved it gets really messy. I am really kicking myself for not severing the relationship years ago and starting over.

Best of luck,

Anon,

Interesting viewpoint; actually, neither of us wanted to marry.

If you feel like reading:

http://www.theabsolute.net/minefield/#map

My condolences, but this is par for the course, move on, always keep part of yourself withdrawn from all others, "adds weight to the personality", never trust anyone but yourself fully, women are cool to have around but don't become dependent on them.

Best Wishes for a new day.

Contact me if you want to talk, I am off work at the moment.

Sorry to hear about the breakup man ... I'm just another guy out here, but I know what it's like to lose someone. My g/f has cheated on me once, left me for it, but it wasn't a terrible occurrence, so she realized that she had screwed up and came back. I think it was pretty dumb of me to let her back in, but that's my decision and for now I'm sticking to it. I always believe that things (arguments, etc) can be worked out, but there's absolutely no excuse for a partner to cheat on the other. Len: I wish you the best happiness, and you know that there's someone else out there for you. Hang in there, I know it's really hard, and it really hurts badly, but just hang in there.

I feel your pain brother! I just found out my girl of 2 years was cheating on me for 6 months, and i used technology to find out. Remember cheaters, trillian saves conversations...

Personally i wouldn't try to be friends with her, she betrayed your trust, sry, just my view!

Maybe if you spent as much time with her as you did coding and playing with gadgets she wouldnt' have looked for it someplace else.

Dude, (I typed the anonymous comment before) how old are you? Im 19 and even I know that even when women say they don't want something most of the time they still do. Like someone said before, if you had been more interested in figuring her out rather than hardware/software you would still be with her. Do seriously think that she didn't want to get married? If she was with you that long, it means that she wanted to be with you for the rest of her life. She was probably waiting for you to make a move of some kind to show her that she truly should.

It's too bad you don't have my particular fetish: I like my woman to be with another man! If she were to go on a date, it's most exciting for me. Of course, I only get off on it if she tells me about it and if she weren't sharing the excitement with me, I suppose I'd be mad too. I don't think many relationships can recover from such a breech of trust. Therefore, yo did the right thing.

I know they're cliche' but:

Time Heals, All Things Must Pass, Every Dark Cloud Has A Silver Lining, The Sun Will Come Up Tomorrow, Etc.

I know they're cliche' but:

Time Heals, All Things Must Pass, Every Dark Cloud Has A Silver Lining, You're a jackass, The Sun Will Come Up Tomorrow, Etc.

Saw your blog on digg and it goes without saying that you're a jackass! lmao!

"Since I don't hate her, I figure that nobody else is allowed to..."

Good for you! Being a mensch is always the right thing to do.

Hey,

Real sorry to hear this happened to you man.
If you ask me: If you felt you needed to snoop, then it's good that you did.
I mean if you don't trust her after that long together it's somewhat her fault also.

I don't know how you think this "trying to be friends with her" will work... I strongly advise against it.

Especially seeing as you were together for so long.

If you want to move on with your life you gotta Really cut her loose. Trust me.

Don't let yourself stepped on.

Friends don't let friends become friends with their ex-girlfriends!

Good luck with moving on man.

I'm sorry this had to happen to you Len- no one deserves this and no decent person does it to another. People keep fingering you, but the simple truth of the matter is that she is the one who felt something was lacking and looked elsewhere. That means she should have tried talking/working through it first and, if that didn't work, she should have told you and moved on. That's what a person who truly cares about you and your relationship does, and if she'd done that, then I don't think it would be totally unreasonable that you try and stay friends. She didn't though, she chose to abuse your love and your trust and played it safe by finding her someone new while keeping you. Think about that and realize that trying to remain friends will probably cause you more difficulty and pain (a lot), and that's if you don't end up being her shoulder when things don't go her way or work out... in which case it'll be hell. It's OK to part friendly, but re-think being friends. Best wishes.

Try reading these for a start:

http://home.primus.com.au/davidquinn/Books/Exposition.html

http://theabsolute.net/misogyny/zubaty.html

http://theabsolute.net/misogyny/vilar.html

Most of the comments here seem to be from younger people, I am older.

On a less technincal note, I figure out my girlfriend was not where she said she was by running a geo-location search on the IP address of the computer she emailed me from. Then I got the physical address by doing a reverse lookup of the lat and long. Nice huh?

Tough break but you did the right thing man. Stuff like this sucks, I know first hand, but you will be happier than ever in a few months. And in my experience, trying to stay "just friends" only makes things drag out longer and makes things worse. Get her totally out of your life and you will heal faster.

Why don't you post a few pics so I can see if your girlfriend was cute enough for me to care.

Good luck.

I wouldn't worry about all the unethical non-sense. In regards to cheating, if you find something you are justified, IMO. People saying that spying is illegal are forgetting that cheating is not illegal.

The only way to violate that right to privacy is through legal means, but that only works if a crime is committed. Without a legal way to get the information from a cheater, what are you supposed to do?

They don't have a right to cheat; we have a right to know.

Hate to be another one of those, "something like this happened to me too", but yeah. I had a gut feeling, got a couple of passwords and bam. Found out things I didn't want to, serves me right eh?

Good luck, Len. Best wishes.

wow, you got to the front page of digg. congrats

You should've thrown her shit outside as soon as you got home! The only asset she's entitled to is the view of your ass as you walk back inside your house.

Be glad you're not subject to sharia, otherwise you'd both get 100 lashes, and she'd probably be stoned to death.

women are bitches.dn't trust them!!!!!!!!

:(

"Since I don't hate her, I figure that nobody else is allowed to..."

And that is why you will get cheated on over and over again.

I was in a slightly different situation recently. Still not sure how to handle it. I caught my gf being unfaithful to me online with 2 different guys by reading her chat logs. It never went beyond cybersex, although one guy is a friend of hers and doesn't live far away, and it certainly could have with him (he kept pushing for it). Anyhow I didn't confront her on it, since I knew revealing I had snooped on her would probably go badly for me, regardless of the fact that she was being unfaithful (note: if it HAD gone beyond cybersex, I WOULD have confronted her). So instead I worked things into my conversations with her that would strike a chord and make her feel guilty, in the hopes that her conscience would get the better of her. I checked her chat logs a while after, and she had indeed broken it off and cleaned up her act. It still bothers me a lot though, and I continue to try to get over this secret knowledge. If anyone on here wants to offer some advice, I'm all ears.

It is probably better that she is not living with someone so obsessed with surveillance, and with a complete lack of resepct for privacy. Sorry, but in the end you just end up looking like a crazy stalker (even though most pimply digg 18 year olds will disagree with that).

Brings back bad memories. I used a keylogger on my wife when I became suspicious. That coupled with tcpdump in much the same way you used ethereal...got almost more dirt than I really wanted.

you don't need to bother with hooking up the hub etc...., you just need to do arp spoofing (google), it's much easier...

;)

Hey man. Just want to say that it could be worse. Caught my ex in bed with another guy.

In any case I think I speak for all the diggers when I say that we're pulling for ya.

I know exactly how you feel. I went through a simmilar thing about 5 months ago from a 7 year relationship, and let me tell you. Life is better because of it. Yes, there are rough days, but overall, I am much happier.

I found out when we were on a vacation to Hawaii, because of the time zone, all her calls to him were during peak hours. I installed a Key logger, and thought about other tools. Like a GPS recorder for her car. That was several hundred dollers, and at that point, I didn't need anymore proof.

Disregard anyone who insults your solution, because the fact that you can think clear enough to solve it is commendable. Kudos!

I thought I could be friends with her too. After all, you have all of these good memories. But now, I don't feel like I can trust her. Which is a key component of a friendship. There are many other people that are willing to be a friend. Speaking of which, be careful for dating. For me, I felt a huge void from the lack of a relationship, and tried to date many girls to fill the void. Girls I probably wouldn't have dated otherwise.

Hope some of these ramblings helped, and thank you for sharing your story.

You are a better man than I, fore I would have definitely killed her on the spot... Sure, to some, it may sound like a mean or evil thing to do, but let me tell you, it is the right thing to do.

Man, you need to have a little self respect. Stop being such a girlie man. "I needed proof she was cheating so installed a key logger."

Dude, if you weren't happy why can't you just be man enough to do something about it? You needed proof to justify why you weren't happy? "I'm not happy with the situation." end of statement. No evidence to submit, no exhibit A, no print outs. Why do you need to hide behind something?

From the soudns of it, you'll look back on this as the best hting that ever happened to you.

LoL!!! This is the funniest shit I've ever read in my life. If your relationship comes to a point where you and your g/f sit at home, in seperate rooms, and chat to other people via online messaging services, it's probably a pretty good clue that you're both idiots and need to get out of the relationship. Well, if you call that a relationship.... Computer addiction is the #1 reason couples seperate in today's society; keep that in mind when you think your "amazing nerdy gf is zomg awesome b/c she knows html and how to operate trillian!!!1" Maybe if you "techies" could develop an addiction for someONE as strong as your addiction for someTHING (your PC), then you'd find something meaningful and lasting. Until then, good luck noobs!

Keep on keeping on. You are better off without her. I would be very wary of going down the friends 'route' - lines have been crossed etc.

On a slightly different tac, we had to use a keylogger to catch out an employee at our company that was behaving in a criminal manner (and as it turned out cheating on his girlfriend as well). We took advice on it, and as this was done by him using company equipment, on company premesis, on company time we were OK.

So far we havent informed his girlfriend (now wife) as we figure at some point karma will catch up with him ;)

Everyone has to live with the decisions they make in life, just some people seem to have a decency by-pass. Move on, stick two:fingers up and smile.

That sucks to hear. But I do have one question? A 'girlfriend' of 17 years? Everyone has their own life style choices and all, but most people in a relationship that long have at least upgraded from girlfriend 1.0 to wife 2.0.

The wonderful world of infidelity...welcome to it. I had no suspicions about my wife of ten years. Really. Then, one morning as I was getting ready for work, (I leave the house at 3am), I checked my e-mail, went to paste the last URL I had visited the night before into a browser, (an eBay auction), and got a chunk of text from a rather explicit letter.

Further exploration, including monitoring virtually every piece of electronic equipment she could touch that I had access to, led to the discovery that my wife was cheating.

Wait. It gets better.

Turns out that she was cheating with her best girly-friend. Okay. Maybe...MAYBE I could get on board with that. However, when you add in the fact that she was also into it with the best friend's brother...and the brother and sister were fully aware of each other's activities...well, it's pretty F-ING weird.

We have kids. So, walking out the door never to return isn't an option. I filed for divorce. We're currently seeing a counselor to see what, if anything, can be recovered.

I don't have the foggiest idea whether or not I'll stick with it.

I guess, in the end, I'd say I'm sorry to hear about what happened to ya' and hope that you find it easy to move on. :)

My wife is cheating on me, has in the past and we have a child, and no other option than to keep trying to work it out, im pretty sure shes doing it again, but every time i confronted her in the past, i had to show her how, now i need another way to do it, and im on the same setup as you.

btw guys, it "usually" takes a man to cheat with your partner, so dont just blame women.

That's a shame...there are other fish in the sea.
- www.DCguide.com

"Yeah, something similar happened to me" - it's sad that it's in here a hundred times, but it's so true, especially because I did have a girl that I dated for a number of years cheat on me (actually, when I was out of town for a weekend, she used my car to go out with the guy - I only found out after we broke up because they got a parking ticket and the deadbeat that she was going out with "forgot" to take care of it).

But I digress... I just wanted to make sure that you know that you're going to have to come to terms with the fact that you may not be able to be friends from this point out. I was glad to have come to this conclusion pretty soon after the breakup. You have to look at it realistically: you're dating someone else, she's dating someone else. How are you going to say to your dates, "Hey, I'm going to go catch a movie with a girl that I dated for 17 years. Don't worry, nothing's going to happen."

Unless you double-date (which I think would be *really* weird) or you've both got someone who is completely trusting (or stupid), it's really not going to happen much.

I hope that I haven't been to harsh; I wish you all the luck in the world.

All you geeks and techies who suffer from recurring woman problems should check the forums on:

http://www.intellectualwhores.com/

Geekiness and girls usually don't mix well. There are some girls who will start a relationship with a computer geek, but at the end of the day they all want a biker Brad Pitt. The sex drive is more powerful than anything, so every geek who wants to keep himself interesting should become a little more like Brad.

It reminds me of a Richard Lewis bit:
Richard's Dad: "How's it going, Son?"
Richard: "Well, you know Dad I just broke up with this girl and I'm just so down. We had a great relationship I don't know what went wrong!?"
Richard's commentary: "My Dad was always there with words of wisdom, touching and poignant remarks."
Richard's Dad: "Ah, to hell with her!"

In all seriousness, what you did was perfectly fine. You went about it very well. It's hard now and will be for awhile. Just keep positive thoughts, surround yourself with friends and realize it's completely out of your control. All you can do is what YOU can do. Learn from it and not put anymore power into her hands over your happiness. All advice you won't be able to follow completely for awhile, but will in time.

JAV

Dude, do not listen to these castrated unichs (yes I know redundant but thats how much of pussies you guys sound like). You have every right to be mad, even though if you had to the next step i don't think this would have happened.

All those suggesting "if there's no trust..." Well, duh. Isn't that the situation that usually precedes this situation? One person trusts the other, the other takes advantage of it?

So he trusted her, but he used tech means to prove she was lying. So what? It's less valid than other means to prove something? It would be better for him to follow her? If he came home and found her in bed with the other guy, he's supposed to look the other way to protect their privacy and preserve the trust they share? Uh huh.

A little "trust but verify" is like a CRC to prove the data's valid. Can you imagine a relationship where you trust each other enough to know that the other person will verify your words and deeds?

Len, don't listen to these DUMBASS f***s telling you that you should have married, or used that coding time trying to figure her out and spend time, etc etc. What a pile of s***!

That ho could have broken up with you to screw someone else, but she didn't. She had to be a cruel whore. Do NOT be friends with a skank bitch like that! (Oh, and I find it unfeasable that she cheated just once in 17 years.)

And for the guy on here who posted the comment about getting back with his girl who cheated on him, she'll only do it again. Dirty bitches never change.

i caught my girlfirend using two tools. using chuchas network spy (google it) and a yahoo packet network sniffer. my somewhat nerdy girlfriend THOUGHT she was smart using window washer. NOT. but chuchas is very amazing and the perfect tool if your on a network, i now use it at work to check up on people who WARez stuff on company time.

it sucks that it comes down to this but sometimes it's for the best.

right now, i met a wonerderful 23 year old girl who is so much more right for me. i am 38. she likes me for who i am, not who i should be. do i trust her now? yes. i think the second you don't, go with your gut. if you feel that way, just get out. once the trust is gone, it's over anyway. ya know?

heads up man. this is more common than you know. and after all is said and done, you will come out stronger.

Reading this was kinda cathardic. I installed a trojan on my girls computer and had a screenshot of her talking to some guy about going down on him. Broke up with her the same day and moved out. I still keep the screenshot and look at it from time to time to remind me that shes a ho and never to get back with her when she's nice to me. Girls have a way of bieng nice when they want something and bitches when they have it. Never get back with her. Life goes on man. You needed the evidence so that you could get out of there. Good for you.

hope you get your fair share of your stuff as you now have evidence.

you all think its really funny until we read his next blog entry about how he builds a robot to kill her and dump her in the river.

You were such a nice guy! No wonder she cheated on you. I would have slap the bitch around and turned her out on the streets.

I highly applaud your efforts to do this. Good luck with everything!

Sometimes I am happy being single. However I do understand what you are going through. Went through it awhile back. It was actually the guy she slept with that told me everything. now that hurts the ego!

take care

Try David DeAngelo (just google for it),
p.s. He will bitchslap the wuss out of you :))
my advice:
1. Get out more
2. Drink more
3. Try more new girls
4. Cheat on your girls ( they will love you for it) :)) TRUST ME ON THE LAST ONE.

SUPER COMMENT:
If all the girls broke up with all the man at the same time in the world, we would went in an ICE AGE, except for me afcorse i'' probably be having fun on a hot island with some steamy babes.
AAAaaaj
Ta4ka out.

Hey man, sorry to hear about end of your relationship. I've been there and it hurts A LOT and then you go through the low times when you try to put the pieces back together. I'm sure you've heard "it will get better with time" about 1000 times by now, but it's both cliche and true. Technology is good for discovery in more ways than one...find a new girl on the net.
J
Portland, OR

Well, this is first time I came across your site and heard about your news. I'm sorry to hear that. Nonetheless, life is short, we shouldn't be backtracking about history that is beyond us that we are unable to accept. If you had chosen to walk down the new path, I believe you are doing the right choice. If destiny is planned, it means you are yet to meet the right girl for you. It is only a matter of time that you have to go through this experience and gain new understanding. Someone better will come along. Keep it going, pal.

Not all women are like this. If you geeks would just stop looking for pretty women with light skirts, you might find that out for yourself. Oh, and although what she did to you was unequivocally wrong, you spying on her is also wrong. Two wrongs don't make a right, no matter what you find out while doing it (justification for government wiretapping, anyone?). You knew she was cheating on you. Just break it off. You don't need to give someone who treats you badly "proof" or "justification" for ending a relationship with them. Now, go find one of us ugly geek girls who'll actually care about you. And no more spying!

In case you get a new girlfriend and want to try sniffing over the wifi, you can use ARP spoofing to redirect and sniff the traffic.

It is a terrible thing to find your loved one cheating on you with another person, but what was her reason for cheating? After being "partners" for 17 years, don't you think it was time to step up, be a man and make a commitment to her?

I mean no offense with that comment but before everyone lamblasts this girl, shouldn't we be looking at the cause and effect. I have a hard time believing (just on the evidence provided in the blog) that she had NO reason to cheat, but just decided to for the fun of it. Either way, that doesn't excuse what she did, but did YOU make sure that you were doing your best to make sure that her needs, both physical and emotional, were being met?

Sometimes, that is all it takes. Eventually a woman will grow tired of someone that is not willing to make a REAL commitment to them.

Regardless, I hope you both are able to move on and learn from this experience.

Best Wishes

Myself being one always screwed by women, I can definitely tell you that you will be fine. Most girls are whores.

-Danman X

Sorry to hear the bad news, but good for you for getting to the truth.

If you had just ended it because you were suspicious, maybe it might have been unfounded. Worse, you could have stayed in the relationship and ignored your suspicions, then you really would be a looser. You did the right thing.

I fear you're being far to nice to her about the whole thing though - If it were me, I wouldn't have anything more to do with her. She's the one in the wrong here, don't listen to those other loosers here implying it was your fault - if she wasn't happy in the relationship she should have come out with it, and left before getting involved with someone else.

And as for those ridiculous comments saying it was because you never married - what a load of immature crap. Most of the people cheating on their partners are married to them. Being married dosen't make cheaters commit to a relationship.

Years ago I was looking at deleted files on my old PC (You know, those files that are marked for deletion, but not 100% overwritten? I pieced a love letter my wife had written to her sleazy boyfriend (who, I later learned was a meth dealer!) together from the fragments that remained and printed it out and waited for her to drag her ass home. When I showed it to her the look on her face was PRICELESS. The look on the subhuman slag's face while trying to simultaneously understand how this could be possible and trying desperately to figure out how to plausibly deny AND where her next handout might come from is immensely entertaining. I highly recommend it to everyone.

And for those who think it's sneaky, immoral, or whatever, sorry. I'd do it all again, no problem, no remorse, no guilt, no shame whatsoever. She knew she screwed up big-time and she knew she got what she deserved for being an unfaithful, dishonest dumbass.

And yes, I divorced her sorry ass pronto.

You did the right thing, my man. Every day it gets a little better and before you know it, you'll be referring to this as "your former life" and damned glad it's behind you. Really.

Women today have no morals whatsoever. What a skank. I've been cheated on by damn near every girl I have ever dated. Would it kill a bitch to break up with you first.

been through that as well, i've blamed myself ever since that i stayed to much in front of my computers coding and WORKING wtf!? it's no excuse for the girls out there to fuck around without telling you just because you don't have enough time for her.. come on you HAVE to work and if she doesnt understand that she is one of the millions as well who are just plain animals.... it's sad but we seem to be ahead in evolution if we talk about being more in control of our primal-drives at least....
check this out, please:

http://sex.perkel.com/escort/index.htm

it's cheaper, more honest and it's more enjoyable.
if you want to have a nice relationship where you could talk about important things in life stick with your buddies and geeky (male)friends. no girl is worth the shit -i am so impulsive about the matter because i tend to be acting the same way (the way evolution wants us to be -stupid coocoos egg carer)

keep up the spirit!

unix forever man!

I am sorry to hear of your problems with your girlfriend. I have been there and know a little of what it is like. Unfortunately for men there is less support then women have from their friends.

With my notebook I used AirSnare and Ethereal (in XP) to see if neighbors, etc., are bootlegging my WiFi (not to spy on my family). I had some suspicious activity so I now use WEP to stop it. The software combination worked quite well. I could monitor all the WiFi traffic. The router came with Windows software to log all traffic leaving the router if I wanted to do that.

I also log into my wireless router and check to see who is using it. I use a desktop running SuSE Linux and Firefox via Ethernet cable. I am nearly weaned from Windows. Unfortunately I cannot do my taxes with TurboTax yet in Linux.

Now that my SuSE 10.0 Linux on a HP notebook can use WiFi and WEP I now have all the family members using WEP (they use XP). FYI, a Linksys WPC11 ver 4 wireless adapter works well with this flavor of Linux right out of the box. I mention this as I tried numerous wireless cards until I found one that worked without a lot of technical skills that I don't have.

I now have many more neighbors due to housing construction behind my house. Also my equipment is on the second floor of a wood house. I discovered that the new wireless cards and routers can have a range of more than 100 meters so there are many houses within that radius. My estimate is at least 25 houses within that circle. I feel that router to router is possible so that radius could at least double. All the more reason to monitor and encrypt.

My step-daughter is typical pain in the rear and knows it all. When her mother mentioned that she was bootlegging a neighbor's WiFi at the apartment where she lives while at college I pointed out just how insecure her email letters to her boy friends were. Both her mother and she tried to jump on me for eavesdropping on her conversations at home (as if I really care--I never used the logging feature of the router).

The point of this is to show that WiFi that does not use encryption at least to the router is exposed to everyone using the above mentioned software. At the router the data is loggable.

So good luck in recovering from this breakup with your girl friend. Sometimes people just grow apart through nobody's fault.

That is a terrible thing. It's seem to be happening more and more now. I can totally relate. I caught my ex with an outgoing caller ID and a voice activated digital recorder on the line. The way I see, better to happen sooner than later. In my case, 3.5 yrs.... not quite your 17, but I definitely sympathize. Keep yourself busy and try to get out.

Good Luck

Looser!

What pathetic you all are! Spending more time configuring your computer to catch her than you probably ever did in the bedroom, which is why she cheated~! And to top it off, after you found out about it, YOU TRIED TO MAKE IT WORK? You need to see a doctor, not cause your mental, but you need to get checked for STD!!!!

R

You are a scumbag. Your girlfriend can do whatever she wants. If you think she is cheating on you, leave her. Don't spy on her! You don't have to be disrespectful to her if you think she's being disrespectful to you; what if you are wrong?

I needed to tell that : this is criminal. This is half civilized.

Someone who spy his girlfriend dont love her, and he never could loved her. You should go in jail.

We dont own people, this is not the way to share love.

I am pissed off, i can stay calm when i see how people wants to own women.

i just remembered something else: i once knew a electronics professor who used to be a high executive for a fortune500 and he told me that one criteria for getting a top-job there was to have gone through minimum one divorce. he argumented that one (a man) is only capable of conducting very important decisions if one has gone through such times and to see the world from the maybe sad but more realistic perspective of an adult. he has been right i guess even though at first i didnt believe him. it's irresponsible that our own mothers wouldnt tell us beforehand. they know (and not only them)! ..but maybe i wouldn't have listened at all anyway. it definitely is not only your ex´ fault but the way she acted is just the typical shit you could expect from maybe 90% of women out there and you must not excuse it. but dont be full of hate though, just try to get over it without becoming fooled again. don't change to the dark side!!

may the force be with you

z80fan

Something happens when you sort of treat a person too well, I think.

Certain kinds of women (ESPECIALLY the ones who like sex above average, as well as the smarter ones, the ones us guys tend to fall for) get off on the whole "fuck"/"using me for sex" vibe thing. Another class of women just need to have the thrill of a new romance every so often to feel alive. Face it, us guys have felt that way too at times. But the problem is when you keep that desire a secret, until some guy comes along to take advantage of it.

Two-pronged solution:
Romance your gal out of the blue. Then, when you take her home...
Do not "make love" to your girlfriend. Fuck her, pull her hair a little, make her gag a little, get into it verbally. Be assertive about your own pleasure. Oh, make sure she gets off... and get off she will. But never, ever treat her like a princess.

I'm currently dating a gal who is much less intelligent than me, but sweet/great in bed/who makes me feel I can completely trust. Dunno if I want to stay with her because of the intelligence issue tho.

I have done this, and used it in court. It is not illegal as long as you own the machine, it's yours to spy on. As far as being immoral, what's worse, snooping on your wife, or your wife banging some other dude while you keep the kids home safe. In my book it's a non-issue. I would have loved to see her face the first time she saw the transcripts with her lawyer. LOL

My bf snooped on me in a similiar manner got all my email passwords, etc. Installed a keylogger on my computer because he wanted proof that I had been looking for a way out in the similar manner he had. He seriously invaded my privacy and broke the trust I had built up with my friends who have some extremely private conversations with me because they don't want it known to other people.

He broke my trust as well.

Did he find his proof? Only if the proof was that I lead a very boring internet life, and never went to even start an affair with someone else.

I had the big fight with him over this and after some serious work on his own personal issues and work on our relationship, we are getting married come next year.

At least, we are supposed to, I am having second thoughts after him posting a link to this in his journal.

friends with her? pussy. what are you guys gonna do, braid each others hair?

Lem, you did the right thing. Ignore all the assholes here.

It's funny all these closet psycologists that come out and say "if you didn't trust her then it was over already" I can see your point but frankly your idiots.
I had no idea my ex was cheating and trusted her completely, even with our bank accts. I noticed she started caring more about her appearance, losing weight, new hair style, etc. and decided to install a monitor program. The first moment I knew was when I read that first IM conversation.

All is fair in love and war baby. Joke 'em if they can't take a fuck.

No I'm not bitter why do you ask? =D

I gave up looking for the mate I was supposed to marry because of the broken relationships I've had in the past. I decided I was going to leave in God's hands. If he wanted me to get married than he would have to bring her to me. I waited 33 years to get married. I stayed highly involved in church and grew in my relationship with Jesus Christ daily. Then one day out of the blue He sent me "THE ONE". She was twice what I was looking for and it did'nt come through the hand of man(my own efforts) Truly she was a God send because we have so much in common. I can't tell you how often we do things together. We go and do everything together. We know what each other is thinking all the time. I have found my best friend, my lover my wife going on 6 yrs now. People even say we look alike. I waited for the "Right One" and I have no sorrow. I sought God, and He brought me who I needed. My advice is get your life straight with Christ and let Him find the right one, only then will you have no more pain, no more sorrow. There is only heartache for those who live their lives without knowing Jesus Christ as their Savior. Only then will you find the one who will stick by your side thoughout life. Your true soulmate. I'm a walking true example.

Signed,
Man who found his wife supernaturally

Snoop on to them as they snoop onto you. When I logged screenshots from my ex-gf I saw her type in my dads email address and read his mail, oh and my brothers to. She was looking to see what I wrote to them. Biotch. She was the first girl to cheat on me and I doubt it will be the last. One person wrote above about the fact that there is also a guy doing wrong by being in the affair. That's true. I wouldn't mess around some other guys girl. These people deserve each other. Glad to be done with it.

You dear Sir, are an asshole, for many a reason. I will just leave it at that.

Ah... chaos. Forget 'everything happens for a reason'. Says who? You can't control what other people do so grit your teeth and hang on til time softens it up for ya. Right now it seems like your life has ended and you are lost and different and a shitheal. Well, it IS different, but you are still you. Do stuff you had to put off. Get laid. Eat steak. Buy a new toy (RC airplane? Graphics tablet? I dunno, just do it.) In time, if you want, find someone you can be yourself with, then just hope she can keep her dick in her pocket when your not around.

It just seems to me that 17 years is a long time to date someone? If you really loved her... why didn't you just marry her? I mean... i would get bored dating someone for 17 years? Good luck with the next one to come along.

Amazing how most of the people lambasting you for checking up on that girl are women. It is not spying if it is your equipment, and other people using your equipment have no expectation of privacy.

I'm sorry you are having to put up with all these morons leaving messages saying it is YOUR fault that she cheated on you, ostensibly because you wouldn't marry her. I saw your message saying that "actually, neither of us wanted to marry." And people are attacking you for believing her on that account! Then they attempt to nail you for not trusting her! Every one of your detractors is trying to have it both ways. There is no woman that wants to get married that will not say so. That animal does not exist.

From your statement regarding marriage, it is obvious that you took the time to have a discussion on the subject with her, and that would have been the appropriate time for her to make her wishes known, had she really wanted to get married. It also would have been a good time for her to air any complaints that she might have had about any shortcomings on your part, be they in the areas of closeness, performance, or whatever. I think the lack of complaints points out that the people trying to bash you on here are just falling victim to their own insecurities, or are worried that they themselves will be caught, since those women are guilty of the same behavior.

On the topic of being friends with her, I have this point to make with you: a law without penalties is not enforceable. If there is no consequence for her because of her actions, she will continue that type of behavior, whether it is against you, or whichever man is unfortunate enough to get close to her next. (And this is not a bash against her - just an observation that without a negative consequence, people do not learn to avoid bad behaviors.) In other words, by being friends with her afterwards, she is under the impression that you may take her back (even if you have stated the opposite in very clear language - actions speak louder than words) and doesn't feel any serious consequence for her reprehensible behavior.

Sparkie: Did you even think about what you wrote? He had a suspicion, so he checked it out. You say you would prefer seeing someone end a relationship based on a suspicion and forego any actual proof? He has a perfectly legal right to investigate his own equipment. And if she had not done anything wrong, she would never have heard a thing about it. He would feel a little silly for having doubted her, but the story would end there. Then again, if she were not cheating in the first place, I doubt he would have become suspicious enough to check up on her.

Phix: Published studies do show that 1/3 of men cheat and 1/4 of women cheat (Google it if you don't believe me, it's there). Which would indicate that while more men than women cheat, for the math to balance out each woman would have to be cheating with a larger number of men.
What would you consider worse: a man who cheats once on his wife, or a woman who cheats on her husband with three other men? And why would she not leave before she got to the point where she felt the need to do that?

JoeCool: What kind of hallucinogens are you taking? Where are you coming up with the image that he and she were in different rooms messaging each other? She was doing this while he was not at home - he was out earning the money that was supporting them both. It's bad enough the poor man has to be subjected to her brutal betrayal, but to have asswipes like you making stuff up about him as well?

Brian wrote:
"why didn't you just marry her? I mean... i would get bored dating someone for 17 years? Good luck with the next one to come along."

Wouldn't get bored being married for 17 years?
Come one guys... marriage is something for loosers or for rich people!

Dude, i found almost the exact same way, VNC to see her password for email. Sucks big time. Anyway, life will suck for the next period of time. Just get some booz and some friends and ride it out. good times will happen. also the red light district helps some lol!

Dude, that sucks. Women are whores. Pray for something horrible to happen to all those who hurt you. That's what I do.

...and the bulk of these responses show why Bush isn't in trouble for illegally wire-tapping the phones of American citizens.

"Hey, it's okay to invade people's privacy if you find them guilty of something. And if they've got nothing to hide, why would they care if we spy on them?"

Those who asked which is worse, cheating on your mate or spying on them:

IT'S SPYING ON THEM YOU BUNCH OF SICK ASSHOLES!!!!!!

Having an affair is in no way even comparable.

So you found out she was having an affair by eavesdropping and spying on her; did you also find out her best friend had a miscarriage that she didn't want anyone to know about? Or that her brother had an STD he didn't know who else to talk to about? Did you get to find out all those little things about her that she wanted to keep to herself you sick bastards?

Hey, did you cowardly losers remember to open all your girlfriends' letters too? Some people still write them; she might be receiving letters from people you don't know. And that's wrong; you should know everything she does, and everyone she speaks to. You own her after all!

Don't forget to read her diary too, she probably writes lots of personal stuff she doesn't tell you in there...

Did you check her credit card statements? She might've rented a hotel room. IF not, well hey, at least you can find out how much she spent on your birthday gift.

Did you search all her closets and drawers? Maybe she hid letters from a secret lover. Or maybe it's some personal possessions she didn't want you to know about, and hey, that's almost as bad right?

Did you remember to steal her passwords and log into her bank accounts to check where she's been spending money?

Don't forget to go through her purse too; women keep lots of stuff in their purses.

Did you remember to follow her around like a sicko stalker to see where she went during the day?

You want to know why those women cheated on you and/or left you?

Because you weren't good enough for them!

Every last one of you who wrote about how you used packet-sniffers and key-loggers and Trojans and IM logs and reassembled deleted files from hard drives: The fact that you did these things shows that you were expecting them to happen. Why were you expecting it?

BECAUSE YOU CAUSED THEM TO HAPPEN.

You knew you weren't making her happy and instead of being a man about it and either ending the relationship yourself or just letting her go with dignity you focused on the true geek asshole obsession: Proving that you were right and the other person was wrong.

"Well, if this relationship is ending, I'm damn sure going to prove that it's her fault so I can be the victim, and show that she's another of these heartless bitches that keep cheating on me. I'll start spying on her and prove that this is all her fault..."

Suck it up you bunch of pussies. Women you dated cheated on you. Get over it.

Momus
is the Greek deity of mockery, faultfinding, scoff and (un)fair criticism. He is also the patron of writers and poets. He found fault with the man made by Hephaestus for not having little doors in his breast through which his secret thoughts might be seen, and with Aphrodite for talking too much and because her sandals creaked (although he could find no fault with her naked body). This and other mocking and criticism of the gods led to his downfall and he was banished from the Olympus. Hesiod called him a son of Nyx (Night).

Momus,

Interesting viewpoint. I'll file you in the "should write fiction" pile.

Thank you for taking part.

I feel you... Michelle hasn't been the same since you two broke up. In fact, you can have her back. She is fat anyways.

I just wanted to mention that just because 1/3 of guys cheat and 1/4 of women cheat, that doesn't mean women cheat with more guys. The faulty assumption is that the cheating women cheat with guys in relationships. If they cheat by being with a uncommitted guy, the numbers don't have to balance.

If you say cheating is the other partners fault, its like claiming raype is ok because the girl invited it. If you cheat, then its your fault not your partners. People are responsible for their own actions. If the cheater was so bored with their partner, they should tell their partner and break up with them.

Lenny,

Do you think it's interesting that in your original post about your girlfriend of 17 years leaving you that you used 244 out of 439 words describing the _sniffer setup_ (55% of the post, BTW)? You were with this woman for _17_ years! And even in the face of her leaving you (which, let's be honest, is what happened) you spend more time discussing the setup of ADSL modems and routers than the breakdown that occurred in your own life. I would conjecture that this blog entry probably mirrors your recently terminated relationship. 55% of time for your routers, probably 30% for yourself, and maybe the last 15% for your relationship. It paints an interesting picture of your priorities.

Or, he is just trying to keep what is private, private...
No need to air dirty laundry about what was found over the internet. The fact that he found proof she was cheating should be enough.

Joel, the guy just found out his girlfriend of _17_ years was cheating on him.. he clearly states things like "this last month or so has been rather hard for me", which just adds to the obvious fact that he's been hurt. The only real reason he's letting anybody know about any of the situation is to maybe help other geeks catch their stupid and hurtful partners in horrible acts such as this.

sorry for your loss but girls come and go, code is forever...

Theres only one reason a women cheats. You werent satisfying her enough.

you can try and justify it a million other ways. of corse the reason could also be that your quasi stalking her but she probably just used that as an excuse.

well done, I caught mine when she left a hardcopy letter to her fling on her bedside table. Obviously, she wasn't quite as bright as your ex. You made the right decision, dont go back unless you want to go through it all again.

Once its over, its over, never try to make it work cause you waste more years for nothing. Life's too short but 17 years and no wedding, I think I see the problem.

Sorry to hear about your unfortunate discovery. I went through the same thing about 6 years ago, and haven't been the same since.

Try to keep your spirits high. Stay away from the booze (which is the fast-track to depression). I know it doesn't help to hear it, but there will be someone else in your future to make you feel alive and happy again.

It's happened to a lot of us. Take Care!

Len:
"Should write fiction"? In what sense? You mean because of how I made up a story where you and these other geeks violated people's privacy; spying on them, monitoring their actions, reading their personal correspondence? How I made up crazy paranoid behaviour like installing a VNC client on a loved one's machine to monitor them in real-time? The key-loggers,the packet-sniffers?

Oh wait, no, you and the rest of the freaks actually admit to doing all that.

Paul:
"keeping what is private, private"?
He posted a message on his blog, his PERSONAL blog, telling everyone who cares to drop by, including eveyone who knows him, or her, that she was cheating on him; I think we can safely consider that 'keeping things pivate' was not a consideration for Len here when he set out to spy on and then humiliate this woman.

Hey Len, does she still want to be your friend now?

JBlanch:
...see my previous post JBlanch; you start on that road, you're going to end up a lonely, bitter man, blaming women for not loving your cloying, hyper-possessive, paranoid ass.

truthfinder:
Uh... thanks. I usually just assume that people will either get the reference or they won't...

I'm with you dude. I did the EXACT same thing and caught my live-in girlfriend of 2 years cheating too.
Using MY bandwidth to send love letters to the bastard!
Anyway, hang in there. You'll get over it soon enough, no matter how hard it may seem. I found that the best way is to move to a different neighborhood and change your 'old' habits (TV shows you watched together, restaurants, etc.). Also, getting a NEW and improved girlfriend - a.k.a. upgrade - truly helps the most... that is, once you're ready to date again and stop thinking women suck, heheh.
I salute you, fellow nerd.

This happened to me once before.

My ex all of a sudden freaked out and asked when I wanted to marry her.

That night I noticed she left her laptop open with 5 unread emails from her ex.

I was the nice guy and didn't spy...

Long story short her ex had proposed and I told her I wasn't ready.

Might have worked out... I'm happy and they have 2 kids now I think.

remember...all women are whores...

Holy crap, the comments from some of these guys are frightening.

A woman who's never cheated writing here... My hat is off to you for keeping as calm a head as possible while all this is going on.

It is possible to be friends with exes; I've done it several times. But give yourself a fair amount of space to do that, especially after 17 years.

Hey, I feel your pain bro.

I dumped my fiance, not because she cheated, but because she was a liar - same difference.

Don't put up with that shit man. The more you give the more they take. I would have torn up her return ticket - now THAT would have been "cooooold blooodeeeed"

Actually I reported my second phone stolen... umm so ya... I'll be off probation next week.

caughter = caught.

Lucky I didn't type more...I obviously am having difficulty!

but no seriously... chicks are taught it's OK to use you - well MOST of them anyway - just like MOST *virtually all* programmers are men.

You can't do anything if she takes half your stuff either. I had my ex ready to sign a pre-nup, but even then, she still would have been 'bad for business' (and I mean that with the utmost sincerity).

THE HAND YOU HOLD IS THE HAND THAT HOLDS YOU DOWN.

I'm 3 years down the road making way more money then I ever have in my life, she's out of sight, I didn't have to give her half of anything. And she's still a lying bitch HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Momus:
Stop being a hippie who thinks she's all that for acing a Lit class. The real travisty of rights is the court system that's slanted against men. *see reference to teacher slapped on wrist after raping her 15 year old male student*

Plus she probably did all that shit on a line HE OWNED.

"If I could take it all back now I wouldn't,
I would have done more shit that people said that I shouldn't"

Joel

Interesting analysis, I'll put you in the fiction writing back story inventing group ;) You managed to invent a cute, provocative comment from 439 words... Good going!

Actually, I wrote a much longer piece with much more detail and (as Paul implied) decided that I didn't need to publish it. I just needed to write it. To get it out of my head, in much the same way that I wrote about my sister's tsunami experience. However I did feel the need to say something on my blog as the split has and will affect what I do and that needed context. So I took out the personal stuff and left the techie stuff as this is a techie blog.

Given that my blog usually gets around 300 visits a day and given that up until some bright spark thought that this posting was amusing enough to go on digg.com I'd had just a couple of sympathetic comments I figured the balance was about right. Having 50,000+ geeks using the 439 word entry to analyse and speculate on our lives and priorities wasn't really something that I expected.

Momus,

Yes, she does, actually.

Out of interest, what would YOU have done had you been in this situation...

that sucks dude. sorry to hear that.

on the techie side there is a way to monitor packets on a switched network. you swapped your routers/switches with hubs and that did the trick because hubs use a broadcasting protocol whereas switches only forward traffic to the node requesting it. another method of attack is called arp cache poisioning, this is also known as a man-in-the-middle attack.

basically what happens is this "arp cache" which sits inside your router (switch) is a table which your router uses to send incoming/outgoing traffic to the right computer (the one that requested it). with arp cache poisioning, you trick the router into changing that table and it reroutes traffic to a different computer than intended, ie yours. then your computer must be setup to re-transmit the data back to the original computer otherwise they wouldn't be getting what they requested and they wouldn't even be able to use the internet would they. ;)

there are a bunch of tools freely available that will help you do this

hope this is helpful for anyone trying to understand this

Good luck mate.

It's hard to move on, but you will make it.

FYI - This was also sent in E-consultancy.com's weekly newsletter...."Techie snares girlfriend" I think was the headline

They have thousands of subscribers here in the UK, probably another reson for the high responses.

Len, I really feel for you on this, it's not funny and it's happened to almost everyone at some point.

But the point I really want to make is about all you guys posting here who think that all women are cheaters and you should never give them everything and keep something back for yourself at all times.

What a load of bollocks.

If you don't give everything, you will not receive everything and thus probably cause an affair situation to happen in the first place...

Humans' intution is powerful, we all know when we're being lied to or not being given the whole truth (at least we would know if we actually trusted our intuition all the time). Treat someone as though they are cynical and they will behave in a cynical manner.

Len - I'm not accusing you of any of these failings, just hitting back at the losers who have posted some utter crap...

I think it was the Dalai Lama who said - "Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon"

(I'm a guy by they way)

Len, I'm sorry to hear about the break-up; I have a couple of friends who are going through similar things at the moment, and it sucks. The only piece of advice I can give is... after 17 years it takes time to get back on your feet. Lots and lots of time.

The number of responses that say "all women are whores" is really scary. Not all women cheat. Not all men cheat. And sometimes people just grow apart, but don't have the guts to jump ship before they find something new.

Anyway, good for you for behaving like a grown up.

If Michelle is a lawyer (as you seem to have implied) watch your back!

Lawyers - can't trust them. They lie for a living, no wonder they bring it home!

ok..

all women are not all whores....

all women are not out to screw u over....

just the vast majority:)))

my wife of 28 yrs was bangin her boss to move on up. i find that she was doing this for yrs at different places she worked...everyone knew it but me. my mistake was giving her more credit that that...

the first 6 months after the divorce was the worst. but u get over it. it's no different than giving up a bad habit. that was 7 yrs ago, i don't miss the bitch 1 bit...

the bright side is i have her creditors calling me:)))) when they find out we've been divorced for 7 yrs they will ask if i know where she is..

the answer is always the same....

hell no, i don't care if the bitch is selling blow jobs on the street corner 5 for a nickle:)))

can't speak for the bosses, but in my experience....she gives lousy head:)))

time is all it takes....u'll get over it...piss on the bitch...:))

the funniest part of all this is the ads that google has matched up to this lame blog.

Wow the trolls are really rolling in, "momus" being the king (of idiots).

Hi Len.

I hope you're right about the legality of what you did in the UK. It strikes me that since the other party is a lawyer one might possibly want to be a little more careful when skirting so close to wiretapping statutes (as they call them here in the US).

I also note that you fulfill all of the requirements to be called a common law couple, at least according to NY laws. This means the computer equipment could arguably be partly hers too. Presumably you have lawyered up so someone has your back. If not, now would be a good time to rethink your strategy.

I love the badly spelled and ungrammatical comments from people complaining about the lack of communication between you and your ex. Irony _should_ be a very big part of this experience, given the circumstances.

May you come out of the other side of this trainwreck relatively unscathed.

Steve.

If sniffing is a bit advanced for some of you guys, remembed you can turn logging on with most MSN/ICQ/AIM type programs :)

Steve,

There's actually no such thing as Common Law Marriage in England, many people think there is, but it's a myth; see here for details.

Actually it's my company that owns all of the networking equipment and paid all the bills.

I don't wish to, or intend to, fight with her. I don't think it's actually in her interest to fight with me over my evidence gathering techniques. That would simply mean that more people would need to know more details and neither of us want that.

Hi Len,

I'm sorry to hear that. I was checking your blog regularly and noticed there were no new posts for some time. I knew something was going on but didn't know exactly what. Keep the faith.

Alec.

Did it ever occur to you to maybe ask her what was going on? Maybe go as far as follow her around? Check her cell for any errant numbers? Check bank statements for unusual purchases? Look at the mileage on her car?

Also, it sounds like you're quite the techie, wouldn't your partner know that? Wouldn't she stop to think that you would have the knowledge and ability to check up on her using a packet sniffer?

As for myself, I lived with a woman for about a year, and in that time I got to know her comings and goings, to the point that I knew, with about 99% certainty that there was little chance that she could or would cheat on me. And you were with her for 17 years? Holy smokes! I would think at that point that you would be able to predict when she needed to go to the bathroom, let alone sneak around with someone else.

To be fair, it's a awful thing to happen to you, and as a random dude, I feel for you. Chalk this one up as a life lesson, and it's o.k. to hate her a little.

If "non techies" are to get anything out of the ridiculous amount of coverage this non-story is getting then it should be this:

Networks (and by definition, the Internet) are generally not that secure. Do not be at all surprised that other people might be reading your mail or watching what you do on the web.

Network monitoring is pretty easy to do and it can be pretty difficult to spot. There are ways that you can make things more secure but you have to know about them and use them to benefit!

If you're reading mail in a web browser and you're given the choice of a "secure" login, use it, you'll probably find that the address in the browser window now starts with https:// and that you may have a little padlock symbol showing somewhere in your browser… This means that the connection is encrypted so that eavesdroppers have to work much MUCH harder to snoop what you’re doing.

If your browser address bar reads http:// then assume that other people can read what you're reading and writing...

Some links on network monitoring (packet sniffing):

http://netsecurity.about.com/cs/hackertools/a/aa121403.htm
http://www.iceteks.com/articles.php/packetsniffers/1
http://www.windowsitpro.com/Article/ArticleID/40949/40949.html

I've read a lot on here, including some thoughts close to my own, but I feel like I still have something to add. Everyone has different standards of what they want and are willing to accept in a relationship. I value trust above all else because I don't want to be wasting the mental energy worrying about the girl I am dating, and I don't want to have to worry about something I say or do being misinterpreted by her.

One thing that fosters trust, in my belief, is a willingness to trust. As in, she can trust me because I trust her. If I read through a g/f's email, I'm sure I could find *something* that I wouldn't like. Maybe she said something bad about me in anger to a friend. Maybe she flirted innocently with a male friend she would never do anything with. The point is that by reading these things, I might start to distrust her for no good reason.

I've even been in a similar situation. A girl I dated for over a year started cheating on me. I could have easily spied on her the moment I got suspicious, but I didn't. Why? Because there are only two outcomes -- either I prove my suspicions correct and the relationship is over, or I prove myself wrong and the relationship is over because I violated her privacy. Part of the trust I want in a relationship is the ability to trust that what is private stays private. I don't want to filter everything I email to my friends to think if my girlfriend might be offended by it. Anyway, in this case, eventually it became too obvious and I cut things off. Do I regret the time I wasted? No. I am happy that I stuck to my morals because it is the same thing I hope to do in the future. At least the way I let it play out, there was a chance of things being ok.

Now, there is some moral grey area when proof is needed. For example, it may serve as protection in a divorce. But I would break up with anyone who was snooping on me (I don't password protect anything and I expect that the ability of someone to snoop on me is enough to allow them to trust me without actually snooping on me), and I would expect them to break up with me if I violated their privacy. I dated a girl who kept her diary OPEN next to her bed and I still never read it. Sometimes it is hard to resist, but if you require absolute trust like I do, spying on the one you love will ruin the relationship anyway.

Everyone has different standards for relationships, but those are mine.

Len,
As someone who clearly knows the difference between "your" and "you're", I figure your communication skills are probably better than most of the fiction writers I've read.
I feel for you though. I just hope you have some good friends around to help you through it - maybe you're strong enough to do it alone, but it's got to be pretty hard after 17 yrs.
God bless,
J

Jeff,

I understand where you're coming from. Up until the day of my suspicions I trusted here completely and, I believe, she trusted me the same. We'd never really had secrets from each other. It just wasn't the way we were. There were no secret, private emails that I couldn't read or she couldn't read. No secret email accounts, etc. I maintained her laptop and her Outlook was always open and it didn't bother either of us. I didn't go rooting around in her mail folders but I wouldn't for a moment have not done so if I needed to whilst trying to fix something; the thought that there might be stuff that she didn't want me to see just wouldn't have entered into my mind. Our relationship just wasn’t like that.

The reason that I used the network monitor was that I knew she had suddenly started hiding her browser history from me and then, whilst trying to fix a problem she’d been complaining about with her PC, I noticed that she was using two new web based communication systems. I found this a little strange, and so I brought up the possibility of her using something similar to solve a specific problem that she’d recently complained about and she said she didn’t need to do that any more and, basically, denied knowledge of the existence of systems like the one that she was using… Some other investigation gave me more circumstantial evidence and at that point I assumed the worst but I HAD to know and, as I said before, I had my own reasons for feeling that I needed to have hard evidence before confronting her.

So, I don’t really view this as the same as reading a diary that she had always kept; it’s more like suddenly finding out that she’s sending and receiving lots and lots of letters to someone that she has no reason to be communicating quite this often with, and then having her deny it...

It was a complex situation and it all happened very fast but I don’t regret any of my decisions. However, if anyone knows of a time machine so that I could rewind time to before this started and nip it in the bud then please let me know.

You suspected she was cheating on you, so installed a sniffer to find out if it was true.

I don't give a damn about that being 'illegal' or 'immoral' (as others have put it), but by God does that show a lack of testicular fortitude on your behalf. Well done on confronting her directly there, sport.

You're not a man, you're a lowly little weasel.

The msogynistic comments people on this blog have made make me want to puke.

Women are individuals -- all different -- and so are men. Any attempt to generalize, especially with the hatred and bile that so many guys have expressed here, is ridiculous.

And for the record, I had a girlfriend of three years who told me that she loved me, was my best friend, never wanted to live without me, that I was the most romantic man in the world -- until the very day that she suddently told me she didn't want to see me again, and that she'd just cheated on me with two different men.

That girl was and is damanged and pathetic -- but does she have ANYTHING to do with any other woman I might know in future? Absolutely not -- and if she had made me bitter and twisted enough to think so, she would have won. Which she hasn't.

This whole thing with women and relationships... ideagasms.com

Len, you've certainly provoked some fascinating commentary.

I have busted 2 cheating women in my life via the computer. I felt zero guilt about it. This is an interesting moral issue. Had they been innocent, I would have felt badly for spying on them. Had they been innocent and caught me spying, I wouldn't have blamed them for breaking up with me or never trusting me again. One thing is for sure: when you are ready to go to this extent, you are ready to bet the relationship to find out the truth.

You've been given a lot of good advice already, so I'll just say good luck and add one more bit that I haven't seen said quite like this:

Regarding your temperate response to this betrayal and your wish to continue to be friends:

You should let at least a year pass AND you should be in a new relationship or have had several casual relationships before having more than business contact with your ex. If you're not in a new relationship within the year, then STAY AWAY till you are.

You will get over this much faster and kill nagging hope much more quickly if you take away excuses for hanging around and mooning after her. She's likely to give you room to hope at some point, and the only way you'll resist temptation is not to even know she's dangling a lure. Think of continuing to see her socially as like trying to go on a diet with a big chocolate cake in the fridge. You know how you love chocolate....

The most astounding thing about this is that correspondants to this page have spelled "loser" wrong as many times as they have correctly.

Losers....

For what it's worth, I had a roughly similar situation. The girlfriend was off on a business trip and sent an email from her Yahoo account the evening she was supposed to be returning home saying "My connecting flight had mechanical problems, I'm stuck in Cincinati". Then a minute or two later another email saying "I'm using an internet kiosk at the airport".

Wow! I'd never gotten an email from an airport kiosk before and I was genuinely curious as to their connectivity... was it DSL? broadband? T1? And so in pure geek curiousity I do a tracert on the originating IP.

Imagine my surprise when that IP went to the cable company in my hometown! Hmmm... I called up an associate who happen to also know the girlfriend's exboyfriend. I asked him if happen to have an email from the ex. He did, so I asked him what the originating IP was. Bingo... perfect match.

So I confronted the girlfriend, telling her "So you actually did get back last night... what's going on?" She denied it up and down, left and right. How *DARE* I question her honesty like that, etc. After letting her dig a deeper hole, I dropped the bomb of my IP tracing... only then did she *finally* admit the truth.

Good call Len. Gather your data before you confront the issue.

Similar thing happened to me just over a year ago, after 10 years together, 3 of them married.

It's flipping hard, but (I guess fortunately) the cliche is true: time really does heal the wounds. I'm not over it completely yet, but after a few months I could think about it without feeling sick now, and the pain is gradually fading away.

It helped me a lot to discover just how common these betrayals are - check out some of the support group forums around on the net.

I left too, and don't regret it. I hope your plan to remain on good terms with your ex works out, but don't rely on it.

Good luck for the future mate
James

I've been through a similiar thing recently, and I'm totally feeling your pain. My wife of 9 years started an online cybersex/flirting thing with a guy who lurks on some music forum she frequents. Eventually, she took the opportunity to go 'see the band' and spent the night with him. She also planned to do it again at a future time. I found out all this by simply installing a very basic keylogger on her machine. She's an IT professional too, so she really should have known better. But I only needed the keylogger for evidence to confront her, denying her the option of bullshitting me - I already knew something was going on. Behaviour changes, people stop talking. When you've been together so long it's obvious. Anyway, we've decided to work it out, and she says she understands how stupid she's been and wants to stay together more than anything else. I'm dealing with it at the moment, but my heart certainly still isn't at peace. I don't regret spying on her - in some ways it may have saved our marriage. If she'd had a 'protracted' affair before getting caught, instead of the one time, I don't think I could have gotten past that.

Keep your chin up mate.

why do people expect fidelity for life... sex is a basic need of the body and the brain, our behaviors are built in from millions of years...
cheating is the bad part but does the partner have a choice. How would you react if you partner says I would like to fuck that guys/girl or more romantically i am quite physically attracted to that person, do you think I could enjoy it?

for some people this has become the norm, accepting that the partner or both together can have sexe with other partner is normal, and for most of the people I know it has helped grow the relationship and the trust. No BS, no cheating, no lying and a incredible pleasure to let the other one enjoy what she/he truly wants to try.

We have some friends who share this way of life with us and have made incredible connection, developped amazing relationships with people who share the same life style, you would be amazed to see the bonds that can be created between people who go to the extend of sharing their partners.

sounds weird, probably to many of you, and it took me a long time to try it. When i was 20 i would have said only guys with a prostitute would do this, today I am 54, I have been doing this with my wife for 15 years, we discovered it progressively together and we are glad we did...

ever thought of this as an alternative to forcing your partner into fidelity, to some extend from our point of view, it is only a few steps in the direction of clothing your woman in black clothes with a leather mask showing only part of her eyes... we are at the other end of the spectrum, we have nothing to lose, nothing to lock up...

oz

Oz,

That's certainly one way of looking at it and I'm glad that it works for you.

Given all the publicity that this blog has received recently over my relationship break-up I thought it might be a good idea to give any new visitors a jumping off point into some of the more popular technical pieces. Believe it or not, this blog isn't all about network snooping and infidelity. More often than not it's about C++ on Windows, Test Driven Development and my opinions and whinges about software development issues.

So, here are some of the blog posts that will give you a feel for what this blog is really about.

• [0] - the first entry
• 80 00 1A 00 0F D7 - Bluetooth and OBEX. Lots of comments about how to get various bluetooth devices working with XP.
• Army of muppets - less is more, lots of programmers are crap, don't stuff your team full of them...
• Assert is evil, except... - my, apparantly, controversial views on the use and misuse of the humble assert.
• Async OpenSSL - integrating OpenSSL with asynchronous sockets.
• Bluetooth Sockets on XP - a simple snippe