H4U, sorry for the hijack, but it sounds like Newgal's thread may have been hacked, so I am going to answer her here.
Actually, Newgal, the two things you mention -- detachment and "snooping" -- were not at all unrelated for me. I found that by gathering the intel I needed, it was quite EASY to detach from my wife! In fact, I had a harder time still maintaining my LOVE for her after some of the things I saw and heard!
I too could not afford a PI. I did at one point use someone local, from another marriage message board, who helped me follow my wife and OM a couple of times, in exchange for me paying for her gas and giving her and her husband a gift card to an affordable restaurant when we were done. Money was very tight (still is!), and I also had no time nor inclination to drive myself nuts for 24 hours a day following her around and constantly checking up on her.
So I decided to let technology do it for me, and so I used:
- a voice-activated recorder Velcro'd underneath the front seat of her car (appr. $70);
- a pay-as-you-go cellphone from BoostMobile ($40 for the phone; and since I wasn't making any CALLS with it, no usage charges whatsoever) -- just a $4.99/mo. add-on called "MapQuest FindMe". I silenced all sounds on the phone and hid it in the trunk of her car, and I could then track her movements via the internet. The program even allows you to set up e-mail alerts when the phone comes within a defined distance (say, 100 yards) of a predetermined location (say, OM's house), and it worked VERY well, about 95% of the time.
- a keylogger on our home computer (less than $100) which allowed me to see who she's chatting with, what they're saying, the websites she visited, and which also picked up her logon/password combinations for her e-mail accounts.
Trust me, once you hear your beloved spouse having sex in the car with their OM/OW, it's not that hard to detach.
I would caution you two ways, however:
1) LEGALLY. You can only put a keylogger on a computer that YOU own, and you can only put a GPS in a car that YOU own or own jointly. Also, different states have different laws about recording conversations. Most of it is NOT admissable in family court, but that wasn't my intention anyway. My intention was to help form my decisions as to how hard I was going to fight for my marriage, and whether or not I was going to go for custody of our two sons. If their mother was behaving in a reckless manner, then I needed to know about it.
2) EMOTIONALLY. This sh&t is NOT easy to see/hear!!! If you don't think you can handle it, DON'T DO IT. DB says not to snoop, and even I don't think it's healthy to keep ON snooping once you know what the situation is. But as part of an overall plan to know what you're up against and deal with it accordingly, I found it incredibly useful, and I was even able to hear the things about the OM that pushed my wife away, and then counter them in my own dealings with her.
I hope that helps. I'll probably get blasted for all of this, but I have just never understood how it's a GOOD thing to have NO CLUE what's going on with something as important as your husband or wife, and -- indirectly -- your kids.
