Tom, I agree that I made a mistake, but I did so for a right reason....yet I was let go for that....I suppose that is what I am hung up on, how do I explain that.....

I started to write an argument and point out that you made more than one mistake, but then I read further into the thread and found this:

Well, now that I read back my own post, I suppose I am experiencing hostility myself, but I think I am justified, of course, there are always two sides to every story.....

I suppose I am just letting my frustration out, I suppose the advice I have had so far has a good foundation, let it go, better myself and continue life.....easier said than done though at this point. I thank you gamedev community for responding so far. Perhaps I am being harder on myself than I should be, but who is better to do that.....

Very mixed message you're giving us. You think you're justified, well that's wrong. You're being harder on yourself than you should be? It doesn't sound like it. Not if you still think you did not make any mistakes.

If you really think you were unjustly let go, you should get an attorney and discuss with him or her whether you have grounds for a lawsuit against your former employer. But I think you exhibited poor judgment (based on what you wrote above).

And besides your judgment, your attitude about that job sounds lacking as well. I maintain that you need to do much more soul-searching so you can become a highly valuable employee to someone in the future. The sooner you see your flaws, the sooner you'll be able to effectively seek a new job.

And as for what jms said about keeping distance from abused women is right. Give the lady the phone numbers of battered women shelters, battered women protection agencies, etc. Give her the phone numbers repeatedly and it's up to her to make a call. She needs to seek help on her own. Look up "white knight syndrome" and be afraid!

I agree with everyone's comments.

I think the first thing to do is disconnect the emotional element and look back at what actually happened (not how you felt about it) and what you could have done differently.

I think you are also overlooking that looking at it from the outside, it looks like you did something unethical, which led you to discover that your boss did something unethical, but that what you did looks a lot worse. To me anyway, peeking at your boss's private stuff for over a year and then showing it to a co-worker you had a thing for is much worse than being lazy and risking a marginal chance of a lawsuit (if it was an internal document, much higher risk if it was published somewhere public). From your writing at least, it sounds like you made the decision to read them long before you found anything suspicious, too.

By the way, just to be clear, my own being critical here isn't meant to be a judgement of you, just a judgement of your actions. Your actions were inappropriate, but I can sympathize with your being caught in a bad professional situation, and wanting desperately to make it better. I can sympathize that you wanted to help this lady, and that this brought emotion and drama into the workplace, and ultimately brought to light what would be your undoing. I don't get the impression that you set out to be a sneaky, kniveing, underhanded guy.

I would take head of Tom's warning of "white knight syndrome" -- To a degree, I've been that guy before, and while it may seem the "one true path", that path tends to be self-justifying in the mind of the knight, even when his path is clearly twisted to outside observers. Because of that self-justifying tendency, knights can be manipulated by outside actors, as they are compelled to fight every dragon--real, imagined, or made-up.

Hey, keep in touch with her. Since both of you are fired, maybe both of you can be good friends after all.