Boyfriend of 2 years hides things from me. Not sure what to do.

Hi,

Just some background. I've been with my boyfriend for a little over 2 years. We've lived together for about 1 1/2 years. I would say we have a good relationship. We have fun together, we trust each other. I've had several bad relationships in the past so I've always been on guard to a certain point. The great thing about my boyfriend is that he's also had bad relationships in the past so he understands my need to protect myself. He has no problems with me snooping in his phone, we know all of each others passwords, everything.

For the last few months I have done minimal snooping because I've come to trust him totally and completely. Tonight I was bored and decided I would check out our phone records just for the heck of it. In the phone records I looked through the past couple months and the only thing I saw was a few text messages to a girl friend of his that were sent last week. They dated before we met, she is engaged and lives far away. They are friends on myspace and facebook and I'm fine with it. I'm 100% sure there is nothing going on and nothing ever would.

The reason I am having a problem with this is because I never saw these messages in his phone. We use each others phone pretty regularly. I checked tonight just in case I just didn't see them and I found that they had been deleted. Why???

I know nothing is going on, but why delete these messages. I know that if I say something to him about it, he will say something like "we were just talking and I knew if you saw it you would get mad". By the way, I would NOT get mad because I've learned to trust him.

A couple months ago another girl from the past sent him a message that supposedly just say "hi". He deleted it and never wrote her back. Again, WHY delete it??

Anyone have any ideas why he does this or what I should do about it. I'm planning on leaving him a nice little note for when he wakes up in the morning.... something like this...

Hi Dear,

If you value our relationship, I would STRONGLY suggest you stop hiding stuff from me. There is nothing worse than a liar and a cheater.. I don’t think you are a liar or a cheater but you are a sneaky son of a b*%#h who likes to hide stuff, which is almost as bad as being a liar and a cheater.

Final Warning!

Any suggestions or advice??

I suggest you wait until you cool off before you bring it up. It sounds like he was just avoiding unnecessary trouble. Sometime when you are both relaxed you could mention that deleted stuff arouses your suspicions. Personally, I feel that your relationship is intrusive if you both have access to everything of the other's.

Leaving a not like that would be WAY out of line. He could have deleted the messages just to make room in his inbox, or deleted the "hi" one because he had no desire to talk to that girl. You are getting way ahead of yourself for no reason by calling him a sneaky son of a * * * * * just over this petty stuff.

i wouldn't leave that message for him because it will piss him off and make things really bad. I would wait a day or two when you are not so upset and then bring it up.

And be ready to confess that you went through his phone, saw the messages, and saw that some of them were deleted. Before you accuse him of anything, give him the chance to tell you his side. If its a load of crap, you will be able to tell.

Were the messages you saw inappropriate or sexual?

I'm not sure if this is the case with him, but maybe he just likes an empty inbox? I religiously delete all my sent and received texts every night before I go to bed. I like waking up to a clean slate. Might sound silly but it's habit.

So I guess my question would be, are all texts deleted or just a select few?

That note is very accusatory, almost to the point of saying he's cheating on you, which you have no solid proof of.

If you need to bring it up, you should start with that you were looking through his phone and you found some things have been changed the last time you used it and that these changes were a little odd to you. I wouldn't go into details. Be general and see how he reacts. You don't want to accuse him of anything.

Thanks for all the replies.

He does NOT delete all of his messages. He only deleted the messages to and from this person. The others are there. So yes, He did talk to her, and then purposely went through his phone and deleted only the messages to and from her.

That is still no justification for leaving such a nasty note. I agree with the others that you should take some time to chill out and then talk to him about it calmly.

I agree that I should be calm when I talk to him.

I want to make it known that I don't appreciate him hiding things from me. I'm not sure how to say it politely and get my point through.

I got a little uptight just reading that. I'm not even in the relationship! Final warning. Holy wow - sounds like a threat.

I suggest you wait until you cool off before you bring it up. It sounds like he was just avoiding unnecessary trouble. Sometime when you are both relaxed you could mention that deleted stuff arouses your suspicions. Personally, I feel that your relationship is intrusive if you both have access to everything of the other's.

I agree.

And I think that the "everything is open to each other, no privacy" thing you have going on is more likely to cause lack of trust than build it (which I assume was the idea behind it). You either trust or you don't - I don't really agree that all personal privacy should be sacrificed to try and earn trust. Especially considering, this isn't a situation where he cheated on you or something and then later had to prove things are different.

You need to stop snooping, whether he says it's ok or not. He wouldn't have deleted those messages if he didn't think you would snoop through his phone. Sounds to me like he was ignoring them and avoiding accusations from you because for some reason (your trust issues) he feels he CAN'T be honest with you.

The only person you can change is yourself. If you trust him more, he will be more trustworthy.

You should make it known like this:

"Honey, I need to talk to you about something. I was snooping in your phone and I found these messages. I want you to know that I don't want you to feel like you need to hide things from me, so I'm going to stop snooping around, and trust that you will tell me everything you think might be important for me to know."

Then, if you catch him in any more non-disclosures or lies (without any snooping!), you should break up with him. But if you love him, this isn't that big of a deal. Just nip it in the bud before it becomes one.

I got a little uptight just reading that. I'm not even in the relationship! Final warning. Holy wow - sounds like a threat.

 

 

 

I agree.

 

And I think that the "everything is open to each other, no privacy" thing you have going on is more likely to cause lack of trust than build it (which I assume was the idea behind it). You either trust or you don't - I don't really agree that all personal privacy should be sacrificed to try and earn trust. Especially considering, this isn't a situation where he cheated on you or something and then later had to prove things are different.

I'm sorry that some of you don't like the no privacy thing. My boyfriend and I totally disagree. This relationship is one of the most healthiest ones I've been in. It's not like we give each other no privacy, of course we do, but everything is an open book. If I feel uneasy about something, I ask him and he shares, and the same with me.

Previously I was in a relationship with a man who hid everything. He held on to his e-mail passwords like they were the most valuable thing in the world. And now I know why, he was a liar and a cheater.

My theory is why hide things if you are innocent.

Do you know whats really funny...If I had saw these messages, I would have read them, saw they were totally innocent (hopefully) and not said a word about them. I don't care that he talks to girls, HE KNOWS THIS!! He has plenty of girl friends that he talks to, phone, my space, texting, instant messaging. He's usually totally open but for whatever reason decided to delete these messages. Wonder what they said that made him decide to delete just these.

Guilty until proven innocent. lol.

Well, it was only an opinion. good luck.

I know what it's like to be in a relationship with a cheater. My last boyfriend was cheating on me the entire time and I trusted him. Approaching him calmly and asking him about his "relationship" with the other woman only resulted in him telling me what I wanted to hear.

It's a touchy situation to suspect he has relations with someone and not 1) accuse him and lose him, or 2) tick him to be more careful about hiding his evidence.

Since he knows you have his password, etc. I say be up front and say that you've found out he's been deleting his texts and ask him, calmly, about this other girl. Hopefully he will be truthful. And if he isn't, and you catch him lying, you know what to do.