Ditch the Bitch with Bash History

7 August 2007

I just read a long and heart-wrenching story about Mark Felder, a Gentoo Linux user whose long-time live-in girlfriend successively cheated on him with someone she caught with from a school reunion. The proof was in ~/.bash_history.

"I was with my girlfriend for the last 6 years. It has been wonderful. For me at least. I have loved every second of it and she is the most important thing in my life without a doubt.

...

In May I had written a perl program to send SMS to phones via email gateways and it made it really easy to do and didnt cost us a thing (we didnt have a messaging plan). On her laptop via wonderful .bash_history I found she had been talking to him. Dirty talk too. This is how I found out she had sex with him. This is how I found out lots of details she didnt initially come forward with but admitted when I asked.

...

I need comments. Suggestions. Points of view and support. WTF do I do? I seriously dont want a life without her. We had plans to get married... have kids... etc. I know she still loves me and this has been affirmed. This is seriously tearing me up. The last 3 weeks have been hell."

Since we are talking about Bash History, a quick tip is that you can use your history to auto-complete a command that you have made before. Just hit Ctrl+r and then type the command and it will suggest the most recent match, keep typing until you have the match you want, then press enter.

1 Anonymous says...

This looks a bit like the history-search-backward function for your ~/.inputrc. Are there any special keys you can use to browse around? And it's a bit inconvenient when you type a sequence that isn't found and get absolutely no feedback. (e.g. what you have typed, or even how many characters) (I guess I should read man bash again)

And that story really made my fear of commitment worse.

Posted at 5:31 p.m. on August 7, 2007


2 jwickers says...

I though you would post rather post this quick tip:

sed -ie 's/^sendSMS.*$//' ~/.bash_history

Posted at 1:52 a.m. on August 8, 2007


3 Hebi-kai says...

For your friend, I'd suggest this: dump the girl. She messed around on you, dude, drop her like a bad habit. You say you couldn't imagine life without her. I can't imagine a life WITH someone who'd do that. Thing is, you're holding on to an image of who this person is that isn't real. She lied to you and cheated on you. Dump her now before you get hurt worse.

Posted at 5:05 p.m. on August 8, 2007


4 yac says...

There's also an option to optimize depression with

grep sendSMS ~/.bash_history | favourite_pager

Posted at 7:33 p.m. on August 8, 2007


5 Owen says...

Love is hard. I've been cheated on and dumped her. But at the same time each case is conditional. It depends on the give and take. It also depends on whether you can let this go and NEVER speak of it ever again! NEITHER OF YOU!

It will be a pink elephant that you will have to walk around or you will have to just come out and logically decide to openly scream amnd scream and scream about it and cry until you finally break down laughing about it all. At that point, you have made it through

You're in the middle of the storm and you will reach a calm point in which you can make a decision to go back the way you came alone or whether on together. And you can whether on together as a team and be stronger but it HAS to be a group decision and it has to be 100% by both people.

And if you ever loved her, you already know that the only decision is to forgive her. If she ever loved you, the only decision for her is to beg for forgiveness. And you need to try to find a way to pull yourselves tighter than ever before. Not in a clingy way but in an emotionally connected way.

So that if you do lose her and she loses you. Both of you will always live with a fondness in your hearts for each other rather than a hate that will consume you.

Posted at 8:05 p.m. on August 8, 2007


6 Brock Noland says...

Good thing he didn't tell her about history -c.

Posted at 6:18 a.m. on October 15, 2007


7 Mr Stuff says...

"Ditch the Bitch" is the right advice in this case.

Posted at 7:02 p.m. on December 16, 2007


8 Jim says...

Perhaps he and they should consider polyamory. The deception is lamentable but it sounds like they still love one another regardless of the infidelity.

(Realizing this is old news and the issue has presumably long since been resolved one way or another).

Posted at 12:28 a.m. on May 11, 2010


9 Cassie says...

Great idea Jim! I completely agree (from some who has been there and done that...)

Posted at 5:08 p.m. on May 18, 2010


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