I (33M) have been dating my bf (33M) for almost a year now. For the first seven months he was extremely jealous and didn't trust me at all (for no reason, I never cheated on him or lied). He was paranoid and constantly asking where I was, who I was with… he'd find excuses to come and say hi when I was hanging out with my girlfriends etc…
When I found out he went through my phone when I was sleeping (he didn't find anything but he accidentally called a friend of mine–that's how I found out) I decided to break up with him. I was still in love and the breakup was hard. So when he came back, telling me he would start therapy and work on his behavior, I decided to give him a second chance.
To show me "how good he was to me", during one of our arguments he told me to check his IG to see that he has nothing to hide. That wasn't the first time he offered, but in the past I had always refused to check his phone. That day, I unexpectedly accepted his offer and looked at his IG.
I found out he was reacting to provocative pics of girls he knew (and ex fuck buddies) sending fire emojis, heart emojis… WHILE we were together. I was so hurt. I know he knew it was wrong because he would have gotten sooo mad at me if I had done something similar.
However, the reactions and the likes were all from BEFORE we broke up. There were no new reactions or inappropriate behavior. He says he won't do it anymore because he realized he really cares about me, he loves me for real and he won't break my trust like that anymore.
He's started therapy and he's been putting in effort to control his jealousy and bad behavior. The problem is… I'm finding it hard now to believe him and let go. I am starting to become the paranoid one and I don't know if this is normal, if I just need time or if I just can't trust him anymore.
It's been two months since we've gotten back together and I'm starting to feel better now, but I still find myself having weird thoughts and not trusting him fully.
What do you think? Is it just a minor and acceptable bump in the road?