TL;DR
I’ll probably get a lot of hate for this. I (29F) used to frequently check my boyfriend’s (32M) cellphone, and lately, I’ve been using his laptop to snoop. He told me to quit snooping, because I will end up getting hurt. If I keep snooping, I will find something, and I will keep questioning his love for me.
My boyfriend and I met on Telegram last year on January 2021. We officially met in person in January 2022, and that’s when we started dating. We’ve been together for almost three months. At first, I never thought of going over his phone because I trusted him. While we were out on a date, he received a call from a girl (29F), whom I thought was his female friend. It turns out, she was his ex girlfriend. How did I find this out? He gave me access to his Facebook and Messenger. I scrolled through his messages, and it turns out that yes, he had dated the girl who was calling him. They dated for 8 1/2 years. They broke up on November 2020, because his ex girlfriend kept cheating on him, and their relationship was going nowhere. He and his parents tried to help her get her life on track, but she kept dropping her classes. She used to live with my boyfriend and his parents in his house. She said she would get her driver’s license, but it never happened. When I told him to block his ex, he did exactly just that. He blocked her phone number on his cellphone, and blocked her on social media.
My boyfriend told me I was blowing the situation way out of proportion. She called him because she wanted to get an iPhone case, and he couldn’t give the number of the owner of the kiosk or something. After Valentine’s day, his ex kept calling him because his mom would pick her up from Amtrak (she doesn’t drive). She needed to get her stuff from their house.
I found out he sent her money through Zelle back in March 2022. He admitted it and didn’t deny sending her money. He said he did it out of pity, because she doesn’t have a job, and they will close her bank account. I asked him if he never got caught, would he still send her money. He said no. This is crushing a rift in our relationship. He told me that she had asked him for money before, but he wouldn’t send her anything. He removed her from Zelle and have no way of sending money.
Yesterday, while I was using his laptop, I found out that he forwarded a screenshot to his ex girlfriend, which came from nerdify. She used his account in the past while they were dating. Anyway, he flunked her class. I don’t know how to stop this. I feel fearful and anxious. I need help.
3 comments
You shouldn’t snoop. Also, you should break up with him. He shouldn’t have lied about her not being an ex… if they dated for 8 years she was very serious and in a healthy relationship you talk about the people who you used to be with.
Even if their relationship panned out, you need to understand that they had been together for almost a decade, and adjusting to life after that isn’t always an instantaneous process. There’s furniture to move, accounts to retrieve, all manner of stuff to resolve that you don’t think about until after you stop living together.
But all this–the social media stalking, asking him to block her, interrogating him on every interaction, it’s not healthy. You’re the guy standing in front of the cork board, pinning yarn between receipts and trying to crack this conspiracy. You’re speculating yourself into an endless loop of suspicion and self-doubt.
I don’t begrudge you for feeling insecure about his past relationship with his ex. But has he been lying to you at all? Does he go out of his way to hide his interactions with his ex from you? If he does, then whether or not he’s cheating, it’s pretty clear that he should take a little more time before getting back into a relationship. And if so, then this relationship sounds like way more trouble than it’s worth for a, what, three month relationship? But if not, then you need to let it die. Maybe you can ask him to let you know whenever he has to interact with his ex, if that’s something you want to know. But stop invading his privacy, reading all his texts. Don’t you see how alienating that is for him? How that might make him question this relationship?
If you trust him that little that you are compelled to repeatedly dig through his private messages – something you know is wrong and an invasion of privacy – then what is this relationship even worth? You don’t trust him an inch.
He dated this girl for nearly 9 years, and it sounds like it was a messy breakup. It’s understandable that there’s some residual stuff going on – it’s hard to separate cleanly after a decade of having your lives intertwined, and there’s probably a lot of messy feelings on both sides.
You’ve been with this guy for three months, which is a nothing amount of time. You’re already having fights, and you clearly do not trust him. I would consider this relationship a non-starter.