Originally Posted by bluecastle
The trouble, as I see it, is that you've never really had a productive conversation about all this—a conversation that should have come early and, ideally, been the end of it. You're a month or two into dating someone, say, and they're still super intwined with an ex-FWB. At that stage, before the cement as set on the foundation, it's very easy to let you someone know that you're not comfortable with someone with this sort of relationship. No judgement—just telling someone who you are, and then observing if you two can work. If you can't, you wish them well; if you can, you step forward.
That didn't happen. The snap chatting and so on continued, the cement hardened, those two months became a year plus, and at some point in there you were so blitzed out about it that you jumped the rails and read her journal. Kerosene on the fire, right there. So now you get to have the Big, Hard Talk where you apologize for that and she apologizes for whatever, and all is forgiven as the dust of emotional exhaustion sets in in such a manner where it feels like a shared revelation. Except, well, it's not forgiven, not really. What you saw in the journal left a mark. You reading her journal left a mark. Those marks are like pickaxes to the foundation.
Recently you were going to split up. That's generally not how people who "get along like a house on fire" and who "love each other to pieces" celebrate their bond. No, it's generally what people consider doing when the cracks in the foundation start to show. And, hey, it kind of sounds like she's already "living her youth" inside this relationship, since she gets both a boyfriend and a thirsty FWB to chat with when things get rocky with her boyfriend. Trouble is it doesn't sound like you much like being the stage on which she lives this version of her youth. Can't say I blame you.
What to do, in your shoes? No more pressing, just observe. All the information is out there. Big, Hard Talks become pretty hollow when they circle the same narrative and don't produce much. She can do whatever she'd like. Maybe it's dialing all that back—maybe. I'd say that's highly unlikely since, for all the talks, this guy is part of your foundation—not something either of you ever set healthy boundaries with in order to ensure that the relationship could be built on solid ground.
Sucks, I know. In an ideal world we get to learn Big Lessons inside a relationship and apply them to that same relationship, but ideals and reality don't often align.