JEDDAH, 20 February 2003 — Beware! If you are cheating on your wife, that is. In all probability, you are being watched. The modern Saudi wife is armed with the latest surveillance gadgets available on the market, according to Sayidaty, a sister publication of Arab News.
This is a classic scenario: Trouble begins to brew at home when the husband spends many hours on the phone and slowly loses interest in his wife and children. Soon, he is a stranger in his own home, coming home late and becoming very uncaring. The wife wonders if the theory of diminishing returns has come home to roost. Obviously, he is not on the phone talking about the weather. The wife becomes suspicious and life becomes miserable for the whole family.
Enter: The other woman.
The wife becomes determined to track her down and she loses no time in buying high-tech gadgets to tap his phone and monitor his activities.
More and more women are resorting to these gadgets to keep a tab on their wayward husbands.
Now the question becomes: Will the cat be belled? And if she fails, what is going to happen to her — divorce and an insecure life?
Kholood, from Jeddah, told Sayidaty: “The wiretapping device that I put on the phone exposed my husband. After the most beautiful years of my married life, I discovered some sudden changes in my husband’s behavior. He hated to stay at home or talk to the kids and me.
“If he was at home, he would sit near the phone making long calls, often whispering. I was suspicious and I decided to find out what was going on. I bought a tapping device to record my husband’s conversations. I wish I had not done it, because what I discovered added to my miseries. I discovered that he was cheating on me with my best friend to whom I used to divulge all what was happening between me and my husband.
“When I confronted him, he denied everything and accused me of being jealous and sick. When I showed him the tape, he said it was not his fault and it was my friend who was trying to entice him.
Nouf, from Riyadh, narrates what happened in her life: “I was married to my cousin 15 years ago. He was a very successful businessman. He always talked about me saying what a wonderful wife and mother I was. Lately I began to notice some changes in his behavior. He was thinking a lot and he would spend so much time outdoors. He began to receive suspicious phone calls late at night and many text messages as well.
“Despite all that, he was trying to show his interest in us by giving us lots of gifts. I ignored the changes in him until last summer. After a phone call, my husband suddenly decided to travel to Riyadh saying it was a business trip. I was suspicious about this, so I decided to travel to Riyadh the next day. I knew which hotel he was in, so I went there and asked for the phone bill of his room. There was only one number that was repeated many times, a number that I knew about.
“I was sure at the time that there was another woman in his life. Using my own means, I found out the name of the person and where she lived.
“I decided to confront my husband. He did not deny anything saying that she was his wife and they were married in secret. He did not tell me why he married secretly.
“So I decided to leave the house until both of them were divorced. After two weeks he divorced her and I came back, but our marriage life was on the rocks. I did not trust him any more, so I decided to spy on my husband’s phone calls using a wiretapping device to record his conversations.
“I discovered that he had three love affairs going simultaneously. When I questioned him for the second time, he was quiet for five minutes before he apologized and promised that he would not cheat on me again. He began to shower me with presents.
“I think he stopped calling women because he didn’t have a clue about how to escape my surveillance.”
Feda, another wife, said, “I was married for 10 years. We had three children. My problem is the computer, or a woman that talks to my husband through the computer. I cannot catch this woman and I cannot confront her, she is like a ghost.
“It all began when I spotted my husband chatting on the computer. When he saw me, he shut down the computer immediately. Days later, I caught him again. When I asked him what he was doing, he shut down the computer again.
“I told him that I suspected his behavior. After a long interrogation, he admitted that he had a relationship with a girl from Syria, but it was an honest relationship and he would never do it again. To monitor his behavior, I decided to get help from my friends who told me about a hacker who could help me. I contacted him and told him my story and gave him all information necessary to hack into my husband’s account. After few days he gave me his password. I logged into his account and I talked to her, pretending that it was my husband.
“I told her everything, that I was married and I had children. My husband had told her he was single. I confronted my husband the same day and told him about what I found out.
“He was mad at me and we did not talk for two weeks. He came back to me after that saying he was sorry for what he did and he would never do it again.”
Marwan Ismail, a phone shop owner who sells electronic gadgets, told Sayidaty that most of his customers were women who came in to buy phone devices. “Everyday we sell a good number of these devices because wives want to confront their husbands with hard evidence of their misdemeanors.”
