My boyfriend and I have been together for a year officially. We were best friends since we were in high school and started spending more time together since quarantine and decided to start a relationship within the past year. He’s the best person I know, he’s so kind and does so much for me, this is the only thing I’ve ever had issue with.
Before we got together he only had one serious relationship, him and his ex were together for about a year and a half and then mutually ended things in around 2019. I’ve asked him about the details of their breakup and he said that they just kind of drifted apart and decided they’d just rather be friends. Before they started dating he was crushing on her for many years, and after things ended with them I got the sense that he was still a bit hung up on her.
Before him and I started dating officially, we had a conversation about her. I told him that I would only be willing to give this a try if he was 100% sure that he was over her. When I said this to him he didn’t really give me an answer, he didn’t say yes or no so at the time we stopped seeing eachother regularly and took a break from hanging out all the time. He got really depressed after this and about a month later we met up and he apologized for not giving me a straight answer and after thinking about it he realized that he only wanted to be with me and he was definitely over her.
We start dating, but they talk just about every day. They message each other on discord, or snapchat and when I ask him about it he says that he and her promised that they would stay friends and that she doesn’t have a lot of friends so he stays in contact. He said they just check in every once in a while, but I know it’s more often than that.
A couple days ago, I was at his apartment alone while he went out with his friends. We don’t live together and I was staying at his place for a couple days. I’m ashamed to admit this but I snooped through some of his discord messages and while most of the conversations were very hi how are you type stuff, I saw a few messages where he was telling her about some personal problems that we were having and telling her about my family issues. They also apparently played a video game together and he never told me about it. Is it wrong to feel weird about this? I feel awful for looking at his messages and I don’t know how to bring this up without admitting what I’ve done. I’ve never done this before and have been feeling like such a horrible person but also I hate that he’s having conversations about our issues and personal stuff about my family. Is it wrong to ask him to stop talking to her? is it normal to talk to an ex every day like this?
I definitely have some jealousy issues, I go to therapy twice a week and have been diagnosed with BPD and MDD and he is aware of these things and we talk about it regularly. He’s been such a great support system for me. I want to get over these issues but I also want to know if it’s wrong to ask him to cut her off, especially considering the circumstances of how we started dating and her involvement in that decision.
For some more context, I have talked to her before and played some video games with her and my other friends before. She’s always acted friendly towards me. There are some red flags though. My boyfriends best friend also used to have a crush on her and he basically emotionally chested on his wife with her. She knew he was married at the time. Part of me feels like she just keeps talking to my bf because she likes the attention and has done similar things for attention in the past. All of this just gives me a bad feeling in my stomach.
I’ve thought about reaching out to her directly as well but I don’t know what i would even say. I really don’t know what to do or how to start a conversation with him about any of this. I’m sure this seems like a very childish problem but everything else is basically perfect and I don’t want this to turn into something bigger because of my own jealousy or insecurity. Any advice is appreciated.
TLDR: BF talks to his ex everyday, I snooped and saw that it was mostly casual but he’s shared private personal things with her about our relationship and it makes me uncomfortable. How do I approach a conversation about this?
3 comments
Just tell your boyfriend that he’s gotta pick; he can stay with you or go back to his ex but you can’t do both.
Also, your bullshit tolerance is way higher than mine; I don’t talk to anybody **every**day except my kids.
So you have snooped through his chats and found nothing of consequence except him talking about your problems. Although I have to say that couldnt have been easy for you to read did you truely feel there was any cheating happening???
If I were you I would talk to him and tell him what you did. I would also mention that even though you didn’t find any smoking gun his conversations about you to her bugged you a bit. Tell him you would like to amend the boundaries involving her. If he is going to be shareing all your personal information with her you want to be able to read all his conversations with her. Tell him she has also helped someone else have an emotional affair so you believe all of this is more than warranted.
I really did not read a single thing here that would make me break up with him. He truely didn’t seem to cross any of my boundaries. I also have ex girlfriends who I am friends with. I have always given my wife a free pass to read any conversation with them I had. One did push the EA boundary once, and although I never had bad intentions when my wife read that one convo I understood where she was comming from. I put alot more distance between me and that friend and she totally understood.
If he can’t make you comfortable then consider pushing to the ultimatum. Good luck
you were his best friend in high school while he was with her… now you’re together… she should have seen you two as a red flag. stop snooping.