Ditch the Bitch with Bash History

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.

9 thoughts on “Ditch the Bitch with Bash History

  1. <p>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)</p>
    <p>And that story really made my fear of commitment worse.</p>

  2. <p>I though you would post rather post this quick tip:</p>
    <p>sed -ie 's/^sendSMS.*$//' ~/.bash_history</p>

  3. <p>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.</p>

  4. <p>There's also an option to optimize depression with</p>
    <p>grep sendSMS ~/.bash_history | favourite_pager</p>

  5. <p>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!</p>
    <p>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</p>
    <p>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.</p>
    <p>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.</p>
    <p>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.</p>

  6. <p>Perhaps he and they should consider polyamory. The deception is lamentable but it sounds like they still love one another regardless of the infidelity.</p>
    <p>(Realizing this is old news and the issue has presumably long since been resolved one way or another).</p>

  7. <p>Great idea Jim! I completely agree (from some who has been there and done that...)</p>

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