TLDR; Girlfriend has been untruthful and it is making me feel insecure and not very trusting.
Pretext: Me and my girlfriend have been dating since August 2022. We became official in the start of September. I was in a relationship from 2017 to 2019 that was really abusive. My ex would lie and cheat on me constantly. I found everything out after the end of the relationship.
My present girlfriend has been lying, or omitting the truth, about small things in our relationship. This has been really hard on me because of my previous relationship. The lies have varied from small lies, like saying stuff to make me feel better, to larger lies, like that her male friend who she has dated previously have only been friends since they started dating. It turned out that they hooked up again in February. This hurt, but we have mostly moved passed it. But it ignited the misstrust. Another important detail is that their “relationship” (she says that they were not in a relationship-relationship) ended because she met another of her old hook ups, let’s call him ‘F’. She ended her relationship with her friend after hooking up with ‘F’. She has not told her friend that she hooked up with someone while they were dating and he still does not know. I have no resentment agains the friend. We are even good friends now and I really enjoy his company. The problem is her omitting the truth and that she was, according to me, unfaithful towards him. It makes me warry.
The straw that broke the camels back was that she admitted that she has texted ‘F’ twice during our relationship. Once in September. It was just mindless conversation. She later texted him again in late October. ‘F’ invited her to a party and she could not go because she was with me. When he asked what she was up to instead of going to his party she said “she was out partying in \*My home town\*”. She completely omitted that she has a boyfriend. She confessed that she did this purposefully inorder to be able to have him as a back-up incase I broke up with her. She later deleted these chats because they felt weird. Since then she has recovered them after she told me about the incident. This was done so that I could read the messages. But it still destroys me. I found out about this 3 weeks ago now. It also sucks that she basically started doing the exact same thing to me as she did to her friend/ex-boyfriend. We had discussed that her ‘infidelity’ made me uneasy. She get defensive and says that she did not cheat.
We had a long discussion about this and I feel like I can not trust her and she feels guilty, but sometimes gets irritated when I bring it up. She feels as though I am questioning her too much. I notice it too, but I feel it is necessary. How can she rebuild trust? We have talked about the reasons she did it. She says it’s because she has never had a good relationship before so she was afraid to end up alone if I broke up, but I never showed a sign of doing so. She has even said that I could not be a better boyfriend. I feel that this was not quite cheating but it was a step in that direction and I really do not appreciate the lies.
What sucks now is that I feel really insecure, most likely because of my past relationship. What does ‘F’ have that I don’t. Can I trust her and how do I rebuild trust? And will I ever be good enough to not be cheated on.
Also: I am in therapy for this and other reasons.
Thanks for the help.
19 comments
If you’re not even 6 full months in and finding she regularly lies to you, it’s time to call it quits.
How the fuck are you not running for the hills, especially after having been with an abusive lying ex?
IMO Once the trust is broken, it can never be restored. Time to move on. She’s not ready for a real relationship or just does not respect you. Be done with her asap and don’t look back
It sounds like she cheated on you. And not that long ago. What are you doing?
What on earth are you still doing with her? Yeesh.
People who cheat tend to do it more than once. You were fortunate enough to get a warning beforehand, and she might not have cheated on you yet. I know how you’re feeling, I was in a relationship with an older girl who omitted things from me because she thought I was “too inexperienced to understand.” Girls like that tell themselves that so they can justify failing to uphold their end of the relationship.
>She confessed that she did this purposefully inorder to be able to have him as a back-up incase I broke up with her.
Oof!
Time to dump her, my dude
I actually do not agree with the replies saying that the trust is broken and it’s over. The better question to ask is, what would it take for you to trust her again?
Is it a question of time? E.g., if you are sure she does not lie to you again, will you be ready to trust her again in, say, the next 6 months?
Is it a question of action? E.g., if she were to (willingly, on her own) give you access to her texts or phone to prove that she is not texting people from her past, will you be ready to trust her again?
Is it a question of communication? E.g., if you felt more certainty that you two were aligned on the boundaries you have, and what constitutes infidelity, will you be ready to trust her again?
Is it all of these things? Is it none of these things? At the end of the day, I think this requires asking yourself what you need, and asking her if she can meet it.
I was in a similar situation with my bf, where I had “cheated” because we had different definitions of what it meant to “talk to an ex” (I interpreted it as conversation, he meant any interaction) and he didn’t trust me for a while. But I love him, and wanted to prove that I can be transparent and honest with him to gain his trust, and in return he went to therapy to work on being less triggered by reminders of infidelity (as he had been cheated on too). I’m really glad we worked it out – it was hard and took a lot of time and tough conversations – but now our relationship is in a better place than ever.
Sounds like you just have an issue with trusting women
– The straw that broke the camel’s back was that she admitted that she has texted F’ twice during our relationship.
“Why did one straw break the camel’s back? Here’s the secret: the million other straws underneath it.”
-Mos Def
That she gets irritated at your trying to work through the distrust is the biggest red flag imho because she’s trying to turn the tables.
My ltr ex would do things, then say she’s sorry, at some point she just said she was done being sorry and I was inexperienced enough to not walk away at that point and just accepted too much crap and eventually started tiptoeing around her.
Okay, so, experince time. My ex lied alot early in our relationship, and it made it hard to trust her, and I actually tried to voice my concerns to her, but it lead to fight after fight after fight, until she cheated on me amd got knocked up by someone else. But, from what your saying, she seems remorseful and wants to be better. I’d advise having a true serious convo with her about all of this. Explain, in detail, past traumas and why you are afraid of trusting her. Then explain exactly, with only your feelings and Info to explain, why what she did hurt you. But before all of this you need to think about 1 thing. Compare the time before to now, has she improved, has she been more open, or is she standoffish when asked about things? The work will show if she really wants to be with you or not. The effort.
Your gf makes me uneasy
Break up with her. Go to therapy. You need to sort yourself out before starting a new relationship. You also need to figure out how to date people who don’t back-burner their exes in case you don’t work out. Therapy will help with that too.
This girl is playing you so hard. Hope you snap out of it and leave. Your wasting very valuable time. Good luck.
It sounds like there is a lot of baggage and stuff going on. I don’t think this is worth your peace of mind, not worth it.
Until you heal from being attracted to ppl that lie and take advantage of you, YOU ARE NOT READY FOR RELATIONSHIPS.
Kudos for going to Therapy. Continue.
Learn to apply boundaries and undo co-dependency issues.
she is stringing another guy along and keeping the door open in case you dump her, if it was me, I would just move on the trust is gone and I am sure there is other things she is not telling you.
“I have to lie because I’m afraid of being temporarily single” is a very unstable place for her to be in. I think she needs to be single for a little while and learn how to cope with that and be honest in her future relationships. This is the root of the problem.
You feel insecure because you know she will manipulate you by telling you half truths or “minor” lies in order to control you. You are right to feel insecure when you are with someone who will frequently tell you what they think you want to hear rather than the truth.