Hurt the person I love most and need advice on rebuilding trust.
Good evening all, I made quite the screw up and need some second opinions/wise words. My girlfriend and I have been dating for 4 years now. We’ve had an amazing relationship thus far, however I really screwed up and I’m stuck in a hard place. Approximately a year ago, she asked me a question regarding saving her nude photos. Wanting to tell the truth, I told her that I had been since the start of our relationship. Even though I didn’t try to hide this once prompted, she was reasonably upset and felt like our trust had been broken. I deleted all the photos, and asked for her consent to save them from then on. We both felt satisfied with the situation after lots of discussion and rebuilding our trust. Heres where my massive lapse in judgment happened. I deleted hers as she asked, however I still had my previous girlfriends nudes still saved on my phone from years ago. Why I justified keeping them is besides the point, I’m just as disgusted as you are and it was always something I just thought was okay to keep (for some reason) until yesterday. While sending herself some photos from our date, she saw the nudes of my ex girlfriend, which were plainly in sight on accident. She was appalled and was extremely upset telling me how I had broken her trust just like I had a year ago, when I was supposed to not hide stuff anymore. Obviously I had no room to defend myself, I still don’t, its wrong and I should have deleted them a long time ago. Even though she knows that I know that, the trust is still broken and she won’t resume our relationship until she knows I’ve changed permanently. This was the last and really only secret I’ve ever kept from here, I’ve been extremely loyal and honest with her this whole time and my dirty secret destroyed my reputation of trust. How should I (or we together) work on either building back trust or showing that I can be trusted? I’ve realized how nasty what I did was, and I’ve been extremely distraught since I saw how it hurt her. I don’t need to be told why what I did was wrong, I just need to see how I need to move forward for the better, because I can’t lose her over this, if I hated myself now I’d never forgive myself if we lost what we had over my stupid mistake. Anything helps, thank you for reading
TL;DR: Girlfriend found nudes I was keeping of Ex girlfriend when a similar trust breaking event happened a year ago and now doesn’t trust me.
2 comments
I really don’t think you can call that a mistake. You’ve been together for 4 years; it wasn’t an accident that you kept your exe’s nudes. That was a choice. You need to understand the difference and stop calling it a mistake. That’s the first step.
Secondly, you need to be extremely honest with her going forward. You could show her your phone if you want, but if you do that, don’t you even leave a single trace of an ex on there.
After that, give it time. By being honest, you *might* be able to show her you’re going to do your best. If you’re lucky.
Man, you really screwed up. You broke your girlfriend’s trust and now you have to figure out how to fix it. It’s not gonna be easy, but you gotta be willing to do whatever it takes to make things right. That means being super open and honest with her and accepting any consequences or punishment she sees fit. Trust is a delicate thing and once it’s broken, it’s hard to fix. But if you really love your girlfriend and don’t want to lose her, then it’s worth the effort. Just pray she keeps you around. And really, don’t screw up again.