Any Submission With Missing: Fill & Download for Free

Marital relationships are different the world over, and I can’t speak for the entire planet. That said, I’ll concentrate my answer on what was going on in the United States during the 1950s.As an outsider looking in, I’d say that many housewives appeared to be submissive to their husbands to the rest of the world. Behind closed doors, however, things might have been quite different.“Housewife” is an outdated term, and I refer to it here, meaning a married woman who did not work outside the home.This implies a lot. It implies that men were the breadwinners and the head of the household.If we look at advertising during this time, we see that the theme of submission is prevalent.I’m not easily surprised, but this Heinz soup ad from 1950 left me with my mouth hanging open. The second sentence reads: “Most men, nowadays, have stopped beating their wives…”.Basically, this ad tells housewives that men are still frustrated by having the same old meal night after night, but thank goodness you no longer have to worry about being beaten for that sin. Soup will save your marriage.Here is a 1952 ad from Van Heusen. This ad is just weird as hell. To start, I have to wonder why the man in the ad is shown propped up in bed, sheets from the waist down, and wearing a dress shirt and tie.The woman, supposedly his wife, is kneeling at the side of the bed, offering up food to the man as if he were Zeus on Mount Olympus. Above this bizarre scene is written: “Show her it’s a man’s world”.To further drive the point home, Van Heusen has named their product “man’s world ties” and starts the ad's text with the exclamation, “For men only!”.The people who conceived of, approved, and wrote this ad were clearly off the deep end.By 1952 it gets worse. This print ad flat out tells women that they can avoid having their asses beaten by their husbands for the sin of bringing home flat, stale coffee simply by buying Chase & Sanborn brand coffee.The photo says it all.At least this 1953 advertisement doesn’t mention beatings, but it is still quite offensive. What is being sold here is the fact that the new Alcoa aluminum bottle cap opens without the need of a knife blade, a bottle opener, or even a husband.This Pitney-Bowes ad more than makes up for the violence that was missing in the first one. In general, the unhinged looking man to the left looks like he is about to cause great bodily harm because the office stenographer can’t run a postage meter.He is so bent out of shape by this fact that he contemplates murder. Can you believe a major corporation thought this was a good way to try to sell their new product?This Budweiser ad is from 1956, and it is clearly targeted at married women. I’ve read this ad several times and still don’t get where the idea of marrying two men comes from.Nevertheless, the ad is about how women can make their husbands more content and feel better about themselves at the same time simply by choosing Budweiser beer.This ad is big on the use of italics, and apparently, “It’s a fact that Budweiser has delighted more husbands than any other brew ever known.”I’ll go out on a limb here and say that’s a bit of hyperbole. I’ll also note that not many men would describe themselves as “delighted” by a particular beer.There are many more examples of these ads out there from the 50s, 60s, 70s, and beyond.Fortunately, as this Virginia Slims ad says, “You’ve come a long way, baby.”—If you enjoyed this, you’ll love my new Space, Snapshots of History

(Dec 2019) With this disappearance there is too much that doesn’t make sense in them getting ‘lost’. The missing photo 509 that Dutch intel couldn’t retrieve (not even a portion of it, as is more likely after manual deleting and then being overwritten by new photos). The bones from Kris being found bleached and with phosphorus on them, after only a few months in the wet cloud jungle, whereas Lisannes foot was found with skin still attached to it. And at the end of August 2014, a rolled up ball of SKIN from Lisanne was found and investigated by a coroner. It looked in a very early stage of decomposition, not matching 5 months (by then) of being deceased. The dry and mostly clean backpack with undamaged phones, digital camera, cheap sunglasses, folded bra’s of the girls… Found supposedly near a rice paddy, right next to the river. The scattered handful of remains, some found upstream and all quite some distance from each other. The FEW bones found; mostly all of their skeletons and skulls have never been found. The fact that Kris’ shorts were found without blood and with hardly any damage: no signs of an animal attack or a deep fall in a ravine for instance.. The fact they walked a trail that was easy and ongoing after they went past the summit; by the time they made their first emergency call it was still daylight and they couldn’t have ventured off far enough to get lost from this one, clear road. Why didn’t they turn around? Why did they call emergency services so early, when there was still daylight? Why didn’t search teams find them anywhere, despite combing through the jungle from day 3 onward? Why no trail markers from them, no signs, no broken tree branches to show their route and most of all: why no videos or photos of themselves or their surroundings after their first emergency calls on day 1? Why no messages left behind? Eight days went by with no documentation whatsoever, despite carrying a digital canon photo camera which still had enough battery life when it was found after 10 weeks.The issues I have with the Getting Lost scenario; the official version of events is that they either fell into a river and drowned, or fell in a ravine of sorts and couldn't get out, OR were eaten by wild animals. Pick your favourite and then try to explain how that makes sense considering that:1. Ravine: firstly; this Pianista trail they were following was well kept, clear to follow, and no-one has to date fallen in a ravine there. So for this to happen to one of the girls, on a clear sunny day without rain or mud on the road, is hard to imagine. But for two of them, both, to fall in a ravine on this beautiful day of April 1st is near impossible. But ok, what if.. Assume they slid off a steep slope, and this slope may have been too steep for them to climb back up on without any gear and they were stuck. Going by the dates on their pictures and mobile phones use, at least one of them must have been stuck there then for at least 11 days. No heavy rain fall was washing them out there in this first week as there was hardly any rain, only short showers: checking statistics about the local weather in Boquete that week. However, the place where some steep edges are, lie close to the summit of the Pianista trail, and if they had fallen there then rescue teams and searchers had definitely found them. The army and rescue teams as well as dogs combed through the entire jungle there, multiple times (especially the trail of the Pianista itself), and were certain the girls weren't there. Teams and volunteers even scaled down on ropes in the places where one can fall down, as was shown on TV camera. The girls weren’t there, and neither any signs of them or from someone slipping down there. Also, the girls were for many days to come capable of using their phones attempting phone calls or looking for reception; they were conscious and had heard the rescue teams, dogs and all that came with it if they had fallen close to the main trail or in that jungle at all; there was a big reward for the person who found them so there was extra incentive to find them. Yet, nobody did.. This Boquete side of the Pianista trail also has phone reception, so it seems unlikely that they were in that area, yet couldn’t make phone contact for the entirety of their disappearance despite them trying dozens of times. And even if this scenario is true: how did their backpack end up from the bottom of a ravine into the river, many kilometers up north, without any decomposing fat on it, no blood, and most of all; everything in perfect order? You think two cheap sunglasses would come out of a 40 meter fall without a single scratch, yet these girls were broken up from it? The backpack itself was as good as undamaged, the content was undamaged. Not the clear damage on the shoes that were found or the bag or the jeans that you would expect from sliding down a stone wall or muddy ravine slope. And how would their (very few) found remains been scattered over a huge area then? Animals there are not eating bones and wouldn't drag a foot or a pelvic bone for many kilometers, and they are ruled out anyway as the bones found had no microscopic teeth or claw marks, damage, dragging bruising or anything whatsoever; they were completely clean of markings. Besides, Kris' shorts were also found near the river and their bra's were in their backpack; would they have fallen off a ravine naked then? Unless they fell down, at least one got injured, they somehow made their way from there to the river and... waited?2. River: at that time (first week of April 2014) the rivers were rather shallow and not wildly fast flowing yet. And although those monkey bridges are feeble, you don't cross them together at the same time; only one person can go at a time, so the chance that both girls fell into the river there seems also small. Besides, then their backpack would have gotten wet, not to say soaked, and instead it was found as good as clean and with dry content. If a river is said to be powerful enough to tear apart dead bodies, it can't leave a cheap lycra backpack floating in it clean and undamaged. Also, along the river near the monkey bridges are native people living; why wouldn't they go to them for help, instead of passing a monkey bridge and river, moving even further away from the Boquete region where they had to go? So with no marks found on the few bones they did find, no animal jaws and teeth could have torn the foot off, in Lisanne's case, but there were also no microscopic signs of the river and rocks in it breaking up the bodies or damaging them. How did her severed foot end up almost under the root of a tree alongside the river, if she was floating in it?3. Animals: The black panther and puma are rare sightings there and shy; they don't go out to look for human contact. A jungle specialist from the region has wandered that jungle for 40 years and never ran into one, he said they don't even live in the Boquete region. And even if we wildly assume a big cat attacked, them then the bones found would have had bite or drag marks and their clothes wouldn't have been found the way they were; the jeans shorts from Kris would have had blood on them or been clearly ripped or damaged (it was not, no blood or other bodily fluids on it and no clear tearings as you’d see them from animal claws or teeth). And a big snake such as the Bushmaster would have also left marks on the bones (and none were found on them). And none of those animals can crack big bones or eat and digest big bones, so where are their skeletons? Their skulls? Hardly any bones have been found, other than one foot, half a pelvic bone and one rib. If a wild animal had killed them, blood would have been found on the clothes worn by the girls, and there was no blood at all found. The clothes and backpack were also not torn or damaged in such a way. So this in itself (and the fact Dutch investigators found completely clear bones with no microscopic signs of teeth, damage, bruising, biting or violence on the bones, which would be visible if an animal ate them clean) more or less debunks the animal attack theory. IF a wild animal in fact did kill them, how did their clothes come off - Kris' jeans shorts was found in one piece in or near the river and both the girls had their bra's neatly folded in their backpacks? So this official statement was pretty vague and unfounded, and it wasn't well received.Jungle expert Rick Morales (who was born there and tracked through the entire Panamanian jungle from north to south in 2011) has stated that he considers the chance that they got lost very slim. The Pianista path is clear to follow, and even íf they actually had gotten lost, they would have been found in due time. Many other tourists endured the same thing near Boquete and they were found back by rescue teams. In this area, you do run into other people within a day or two. He also thinks it is unlikely that they had an accident. If one of them had fallen or hurt herself, the other would have been able to get help relatively quickly. Even if they had gotten lost, you normally survive multiple days in this jungle. It has no wild animals that actively prey on humans to kill them (the black panther and puma are extremely shy and rarely show themselves). Rick has never seen one of the big cats in the jungle of Panama, which he has walked regularly since the age of 13, and he also says they aren't to be found in the region near Boquete. The entire region has been combed through, including other trails in the region, and they didn't find them. Rick Morales thinks they were the victim of a criminal act. Otherwise, the girls would have been long found, he stated, either dead or alive. More pictures and info on this case, as well as Case Updates can be found here;Koude Kaas - Cold CaseThen there was the digital camera in Froons backpack which had not the same battery problem as the mobile phones, so could be used for a much longer time. In fact, the battery life of this Canon SX270 HS digital camera is said by users to be amazing, and if the camera is not used it is known to last for a whole year even. The camera was also reported to have been found in relatively good condition and its SD card was accessible for researchers. They were able to view around 133 consecutive photos (only one was missing, more on that later). The photos that were published look sharp and fine, in the sense that there is no seeming (water) damage to these files. This camera has no GPS location option, so investigators could only establish or guess the location of the photos based on the surroundings that were visible on them.   -   The first photos showed the girls in good spirits on April 1st, confirming that the women had taken the Pianista trail and wandered into some wilderness, hours before their first attempt to reach 911, but with no signs of anything unusual. The girls took photos of each other and the weather was good; sunny and no rain. These first sets of photos show them walking up the trail, as well as shots of the scenery around the trailhead. As this blogger who took the same route (on a cloudy wet day instead) describes it: " El Pianista Trail is one of the moodiest cloud forests I have ever adventured into. Rain droplets falling to the ground from every leaf and branch while mist floats through dramatically. The early stages of the hike are open fields, with mountains on all sides. You can already see the clouds hugging the summit of the mountain. You know what you are heading into. I enjoyed the early parts of this hike with the beautiful hills on either side and the sounds of the river cascades to the right. " And in this blog the Pianista Trail is described as follows: "The trail can be broken into three "sections". In the first 45 minutes, you will walk through open area pasture land with gorgeous views of the surrounding mountains and downtown Boquete. Second you enter a dense jungle surrounded by lush vegetation, birds and insects. In here you will walk for about 1.5 hours and enter the cloud forest where it is very humid and magical, as you are literally walking in the clouds! Finally after another 30 minutes climbing the mountain, you will reach the top and will be fully enveloped in the cloud forest. It's really an amazing experience!" Photo IMG_491 shows Kris with a stern look on her face, holding a water bottle in front of her. This picture was taken a little bit before the summit. It was taken at 12:03 pm. Photo IMG_493 is said to show the trail up the Il Pianista, around 700 meters before the highest point: the (Mirador) summit. It was taken at 12:42 pm. That is the recalculated time, the official time stamp on that photo was 18:42 pm, but all these times were recalculated by investigators because the girls seemingly nevhttps://koudekaas.blogspot.com/Also, all in all many questions have never been answered. Who erased data from Lisanne Froon’s camera—and why? Why won’t Panamanian national authorities release the Holandesas’ full autopsies? Why haven’t they followed up on the leads produced by their own forensic examiners, the Chiriquí police force, and local reporters? Or launched a thorough investigation into the other unsolved deaths and missing person cases in the area? Why do we not know whose finger prints were on the digital camera and the phones? We really do need to know who made the last phone calls to 911 and 112, finger print analysis could help with that. How about the water bottle? Why were there no DNA samples from saliva on it taken or released to the public? How about the water remnants, was it from local sources or was it supermarket quality water that was last in it? There are many wooden sheds and small wooden cabins along the river and scattered around the terrain where Kris and Lisanne could have ended up, going by the location where their remains were scattered: why wouldn't they have hidden in there if they truly were lost? Waiting for the rescue teams to find them there? Why has the exact location of the 90 nighttime photos never been thoroughly investigated and established? Why are so many witness statements off with the time at which they stated to have seen the girls on April 1st? Why have the video recordings of them in Boquete that day never been released or even fully investigated, and why do we not know therefore what time they were still in Boquete on April 1st? How could they get 'lost' on a one way, easy road, and in an inhabited world where Ngobe natives walk the mountain trails daily with their cattle, on top of it all? Why did we hear nothing about the drugs- and gang wars going on in Boquete around 2014, with at least 15 local gangs rivaling for power? How is it possible for the Dutch forensics to conclude that the 90 nighttime photos were all dark, when at least five photos have since turned up and out to have a clear landscape on them once the photo settings were slightly altered? And why are the other 85 or so nighttime photos so closely guarded and do officials and family refuse to make them public, claiming they also show 'nothing but blackness'?? How was it possible for Kris and Lisanne to switch their phones on so methodically at set times, without having a watch or means to know the time in the jungle? WHY were there no more photos or even videos made of the girls and by the girls for EIGHT WHOLE DAYS AND NIGHTS after April 1st? Why did they not once try to call their parents at home, or their host family nearby? Why were there no draft messages or other signs of life for their loved ones found back? How come nobody could retrieve even a few percent of photo 509, despite this being the norm when a photo is just manually deleted? How come after 5 days alone in the wild (supposedly), the girls seemingly didn't memorize each others telephones pin codes? If they were lost and realized this, why cross two big rivers, leading further into the wilderness? (Because their remains were found in an area where you had to cross those rivers). If they were lost for 11 days, how come nobody found them despite Indians living there and many people using the area behind the Pianista, not to mention the legions of searchers? Why have we never seen or been given the exact location where they supposedly fell and 'perished'? Where is that ravine with photo proof of their remains, or parts of clothes, or even markings of their shoes? Plus an explanation from the rescue teams about why they were never found on that spot, despite weeks of thorough searches and a team leader declaring they were not there as every stone was turned? Where are alll their other remains, aside from the handful of small bones found back? Why were their remains found so far from the summit of the Pianista trail, and scattered around? Why are there anonymous and persistent statements about foul play? What was the real reason that the taxi driver died? Why was there bleach on one Kris' bones? How come the backpack is said to have been floating in a 'wild river' for weeks, but the electronics inside had no water damage and was in full functioning order? And how about the newly surfaced swimming photo, showing Kris and Lisanne with two local youth? Both boys were dead within a year, one drowned under strange circumstances a few days after that photo was made, the other died in a hit and run. When was that photo taken?We may never have satisfying answers to such questions. This case is closed and stuck in Accident mode. The Dutch prosecutors have admitted to having had a more diplomatic, submissive role in all this. Panama was leading in the investigation. Perhaps their main focus point from the summer of 2014 onward was the extensive investigation into the MH17 air disaster.. And with prosecutors in Panama and the Netherlands currently not interested in reopening the case, the only way this case can be cracked open again is when new evidence, testimonials or witness statements turn up.As the great Panamanian journalist Adelita Coriat put it: “Whoever did this is very smart. He didn't leave much evidence. And it won't be easy to catch.” In the end, I believe that the backpack was planted by perpetrator(s) and that the entire series of night photos was taken by a 3rd party to continue a fake trail that was already set up with the fake phone call attempts in a region where they knew was zero cell tower coverage. There may be a very small possibility that the girls actually escaped their abusers in the night of April 8th and were caught again later, and that they did make those night photos themselves, but my bet is that they have been completely faked and taken by someone else. Hence why there are no notes or draft messages in the phones, or normal selfies, or photos from each other. And neither any videos, explaining what was happening with them. Then silence. It was only after 2 months, when the Dutch families kept coming back to dig into their jungle, that the backpack was suddenly found along the river. Then some breadcrumbs in the shape of some bones were found. Only bones which could not help investigators determine a cause of death. New released info shows Kris and Lisanne swimming in what appears to be a river near the Caldera local hot springs, together with two young men. Is it possible that they did this áfter finishing the Pianista hike? Because in their diaries they mentioned nothing about swimming or the Pianista hike in the previous days, seemingly pointing toward the possibility that this all took place on the day they disappeared. See for more on this here, here and here:

Writing anonymously as I have Christian fundamentalist family members who would literally cut me off me if they knew some of these things.Lets set the scene first;I was a “problem-child” in the eyes of my parents, the kind of girl who was popular in school, got asked out and made friends quickly… but despite being social and friendly… I wasnt allowed to go to parties or hang out with friends after school without a barrage of questions and guilt about hanging out with non-believers. Admittedly, I had tried weed, smoked a few packs of cigarettes and snuck out the basement window numerous times to meet up with my boyfriends and friends. To the typical North American parents I was probably on the lighter end of the bratty scale and never did hard drugs, got pregnant or treated my teachers and elders with any disrespect. I stayed in school and was considered a very nice girl… a nice girl with an odd religeous background.Post graduation, my dating life was a total mess… I belonged to a strict fundamentalist sect where people only married within the church and very rarely could bring someone into it. We went to Church 3 times a week, I wasn’t allowed to get my ears pierced, join a union and if i chose to leave for a different church, i would be excommunicated and treated as if i were dead. Worldwide, this sect contained less than 2,000 people with its numbering diminishing year by year with various divisions and conflicts plaguing it. It was a depressing place to be. My parents were hardcore churchgoers and truly believed that this was the ONLY true church in all of Christendom. As a result I only dated within my church from age 18–25. My first relationship was with a manic depressive childhood friend who everyone thought I would marry because he used to flirt with me as a kid. It was an utter disaster, and a terrible first relationship for an impressionable young girl at 18. His controlling tendencies and volatile temper came to a point where my parents and relatives became involved and advised me to leave the relationship 4 months in. I did, that was 10 years ago now and I still recieve messages from him trying to get me back… all of which go unanswered. My second relationship in the Church was the longest i’d been in, spending nearly 2 years with him, but discovering eventually that he was dicking around with a cousin of mine for half of that time (a girl who was 5 years my junior). It was also the first time I’d genuinely had my heart broken. The third guy I dated within the Church left me for his ex within 3 months of committing to me, and much like the other two guys i’ve been with, he still seems to have trouble settling down and has split and reunited with that girl several times now. Out of those 3, I never snooped. I just got my heart broken or left when I felt it was time to ask the hard questions. Needless to say though, my self esteem had hit a low by the time I was 24. All the guys I dated are still currently single and somehow it gives me hope that I might not be a total screw up.By the time I met my 4th and last boyfriend within this Church, I was ready for something serious and felt it was my last opportunity to be the good Christian girl and settle down with a man who pleased my parents. He was English, so it was long distance but we met in person on a ski trip. He was 10 years older than me (35), had a fantastic job, was attractive and very established with a nice car and owned his own home. I was attracted to him too, and it felt like the real deal. At first he seemed a little needy, and it made me wary… telling me he adored me within days of meeting me and talking about marriage without having been on an official first date yet. Alarm bells went off, but i carried on. On my first trip overseas to see him, he took me to Venice, treated me to expensive dinners and was a very good boyfriend in those initial honeymoon phases. He cuddled me and held my hand, introduced me to his family & friends and it felt like things were actually going somewhere. But soon after i returned home, he slipped into a routine of getting drunk in the evenings with his golf buddies, ignoring our scheduled facetime sessions and overall seeming rather indifferent to our budding relationship. His behaviour got shady, and he stopped having things to say to me over the phone. His parents clearly showed anxiety over the situation and I started to get an uncomfortable feeling in my gut. So i started down a rabbit hole of online stalking which led me to two discoveries. The first was that he was in regular contact with his ex and her friend (who were even younger than me and had been intimately involved with him several times over in the past few years). He also would get home really late from apparent “business meetings” and developed a “don’t call me, I’ll call you” routine. I started feeling that familiar sense of loneliness and dread. Still, I continued stalking, hoping to unearth some kind of logical explanation and be proved wrong. Here’s where I regreted my snooping…The day he flew in to see me on one of our scheduled visits, I’d been noticing how often he was online with his ex. I had her number and could see them online at all the same times and had turned into one of those pathetic females who continues to stalk bad behaviour while not taking any action. I was pathetically hopeful he would turn into the strong, caring, competent man I wanted to finally settle down with, that he would see my value. Once he got on his flight and turned his data off I realized that my state of anxiety was out of control, I needed solid PROOF before he arrived… but I wanted prove I was crazy, I didn’t WANT to be right. So on a random whim i googled his IG username, and what popped up almost made me vomit. Bear in mind he was on a plane coming to see me during this discovery. The first result on the search engine was of course, his private IG account… but the second result was a tumblr page under the same username, which was linked very clearly to his email… and the contents of that page almost made me sick. My heart rate picked up as I scrolled through years of reposts… hundreds upon hundreds of porn gifs and abusive clips of women being slammed on tables and pretty much sexually assaulted. I am no stranger to porn, and I understand everyone has a level of curiousity. But the recurring theme in his content was teenage girls, hardcore school girl roleplay, him being called daddy, extreme submission with crying and screaming, deep throating/vomiting, hate f***ing, and slapping women in the face. He had a bizarre and intense obsession with fake boobs beyond anything i’ve seen in a teen boy with raging hormones. Further he was obsessed with a porn star called Madison who looked almost creepily identical to a girl who dumped him. It wasn’t just a fascination, it was borderline worship. He also frequently referred to an underwear model he used to date in the comments, whining about missing her and having missed out on the love of his life. He also kept in touch with an erotic writer by reposting things she put up, and commenting on her photos about his director job and financial status in an apparent effort to try and impress her. I scrolled through reposted pics of Ducati bikes and Ferraris… and it occured to me that I hated the vintage ferrari he’d bought years ago. I grew to hate it more as stories began to surface from his friends about how he would use it to get laid on nights out, and once told a pair of young girls to “f*** off” once he proved to them he actually HAD a ferrari. He was slowly emerging as a chauvinist pig , and even his friends knew it.The reason I regretted finding all this out tho…. was because it didn’t make me feel more or less confirmed about dumping him. But it did make me feel worse about MY body image, MY self worth and MY optimism about ever finding someone who would love me for who i was. I started to see all men as complete ass-wipes. When he arrived later that day, I couldn’t even look him in the eye or kiss him properly. I suddenly saw him as this creepy guy in his mid-thirties with a porn addiction and a strong obsession with women in their late teens. Everytime I looked at him I just pictured some of the worst clips and images and my skin would crawl when he stroked my leg and smiled at me. Thankfully, the discovery took those rose tinted glasses away. I started to see how two-faced he was, how flirty he would be with other females, how quickly he’d throw his friends under the bus and how he had a strong distain for women, particularly his friends wives. I confronted his behaviour carefully without exposing my stalker behaviour, and was met with a barrage of lies and explanations that were so convincing but ridiculous that it immediately destroyed all trust I had in him. Eventually, after he returned home, he slipped up and went on another drunken bender and I opened the door for him to leave. Thankfully… he did. After that, pictures surfaced online of him taking his trousers off in a pub while completely hammered, and selfies with a tattooed 21 year old girl he was sleeping with showed up on his tagged photos less than a week after we split. I was so far into keeping tabs on him that the stalking just left me hating myself even more and feeling hopeless about being a woman a man could ever love. I truly felt that it was my responsibility to do a background check on every guy I was with before giving him my heart.Fast forward to a year later, I opened up a tinder account to broaden my dating experience. Overall, I met some fantastic people and made it clear in my profile I wanted to make friends or have a serious relationship. No hook ups. For the first time I felt like I was actually PICKING men to hang out with and developing healthy preferences. Most of the dates were one-off things, i never slept with anyone, only dated serious people… some of them called, some of them didn’t… but wow, it felt good to get out there and be considered an attractive woman. I was wine and dined, taken to painting classes, photography outings, cool breweries and went for walks in the park and hikes in the mountains. One guy took me for afternoon tea and I just felt really happy to be meeting some normal people who asked me normal questions. I never hurt anyone and was always very clear about whether I wanted to see them again or not to avoid ghosting and dishonest behaviour. I was maturing emotionally.One evening in a brewery, I met up with a tall, blonde, bearded hipster. He wasn’t actually a hipster, just dressed the part but I felt that instant spark of chemistry. He was smart and funny, educated and fit, and took me on really nice dates and made me laugh hard. We’d talk for hours and hours. 3 dates later we hooked up passionately, and i went home feeling a little dazed and pleased with myself for finally finding my very first gentleman who would open the car door for me and buy me breakfast. I had no expectations, felt confident with my sexuality, and to make things better… he wanted to see me for coffee a few days later and it just felt very natural to sit with him and talk about our childhoods and life stories. I’d learned by this time not to get too invested, but i started to lose my grip and fall for him a little. He was kind, i enjoyed that, and i was always smiling with him. He was a nice catholic boy who hugged me and teased me and treated me like his equal, something i wasn’t used to in a sect environment with severely misogynist men.But my anxiety got the better of me, he was too good to be true… and I started to go through his friends lists to look for any red flags since he was very reluctant to talk about his past relationships. Unfortunately I hit the jackpot, I came across wedding photos of him and a gorgeous Spanish looking girl… from just over a year ago. My heart sank, I was crushed. 4 dates in and he still hadn’t told me he was married, or separated, or (unlikely based on the recent time frame) divorced. I felt like ‘the other’ woman. To make it worse, she was still his friend on social media, and her profile pic was her signing the wedding book, a terrible sign of a couple still dealing with the effects of a separation. I had been to his home and there was no trace of a girl, he referred to his last relationship as a “long term situation that took away my twenties” and mentioned he shared ‘custody’ of a dog with her but never brought up the fact he was married to her. I didn’t judge him for being married, but I knew there was no possibility he was emotionally available despite our connection and I was hurt by his lack of transparency and it really sucked to know that this wasn’t going to go anywhere - except probably the bedroom.My snooping sent me back into a pit of depression and I sobbed hopelessly into my pillow that night. I still have no idea what his marital status is, but tomorrow night he invited me over for drinks and I will likely ask him why he didn’t tell me he was married/separated or whatever before leaving. Weirdly, i dont care what the answer is, because i’ve already lost faith in him, and in myself for continuing to not be good enough for a man to just tell me the truth, for being foolish and fanciful. Im still just the convenient side piece, the nice girl who would be great to marry one day. Always option B.Im sure i’ll find that special guy one day, I just have to keep on looking. For now i need to heal the re-opened wound.But after all the pain and disappointment, what I came to realize was that snooping really was the most useless and hurtful thing I could have done to myself... I wish i had never done it in any of my relationships because all it did was make me weak and pathetic, scared of love, and hate myself. Sure, it helped me realize I was with jerks, but did i really need to go that deep to figure that out?Instead, I should have abandoned the situation as soon as it wasn’t serving my needs. Because there doesn’t NEED to be an explanation, you don’t need to have PROOF that someone isn’t meeting your needs - like i’ve always believed. You just need to stick to your standards and say “yno what, I dont know whats going on here, but you aren’t remedying the space between us, you aren’t meeting me in the middle, you aren’t going to become different, and I don’t want to marry someone who isn’t capable of loving me to the same capacity I love them. So im going to move on from this amicably and find my soul mate.”Sometimes having all the facts doesn’t matter, and its better to be oblivious for your own sake, and just say NO and walk away when things feel wrong. I wish I had done that. I wish i had said no to my church, to my parents, to the men in my life who walked all over me because they knew i didn’t have a lot of options in marriage. I wish I had lived for me and not for others. But its a new start today, a new beginning… so to all those paranoid girlfriends/boyfriends out there who are snooping, who are afraid to confront their significant other about their suspicions… turn the computer off, set your phone aside, pack up your stuff and have that difficult conversation. It won’t matter how much you find out, you will still always find a way not to believe it. Until you decide that the minimal effort they are giving is not good enough for you - you will stay, and you will stalk their actions and you will write up scenarios and explanations for things until one day, they leave anyways.You don’t need to tell him/her why, just go… and don’t look back. Its what I’m slowly learning.