Snooping Girlfriend

[confusedguy35]

My girlfriend and I have been together for 5 years and she is a wonderful girl that I lvoe very much. However, she does not trust me, and I suppose rightfully so. Two years ago I cheated on her after she went far away to college. I did not sleep with the other girlm but we did make out. After I told her about it she wanted to know the password to my email, myspace, facebook, and wanted to check my phone bill online to see who I called and how often. I of course understood where she was coming from so I gave it all to her. For awhile she checked these accounts everyday, but slowly she started letting go of the checking. It is now two years later and she asks me what my password is for my cell phone online account. I tell her honestly that I do not remember considering I never check my bill online I simply check my balance from my phone. She then urges me to call and have them reset the password so that I can then give it to her. However, I do not feel the need to. I feel that it has been long enough and I have proven my lvoe for her in these years after i told her about my infidelity that she shouldnt need to check my phone bill. I am not hiding anything but she now insists I am because I wont find out the password for her. Is this wrong of her?

[HellFrost666]

Well, I am sorry to say it, but you played and now you are paying. Did she trust you before you cheated? Assuming you don't cheat on her anymore maybe she will learn to trust you again, but it will take a while.

[Honey Pumpkin]

I couldn't bear a lifetime of someone checking on me, to be honest. I would feel like mygirlfriend had become my gaoler, if she had the right to ask for access to every part of my life.

 

You cheated (made out with) another girl two years ago - and have tried hard to show that you are sincere about your girlfriend. To me, this is kind of make or break - does she/can she trust you again? If the answer is no, can you put up with having someone walk into every part of your life without a second thought? Personally, I couldn't. A choice you have to make, I'm sorry.

[doyathink]

Apparently this is something she isn't going to be able to get over and get past. It has consumed her. You are going to have to make a decision...can you live with this until she can trust you...which may be never? Or do you need to get out of this relationship?

[heartlessromantic]

Why has she been suddenly struck by this bout of paranoia?

 

I hate to say it but you are paying the consequences of doing what you did. Sure, it was two years ago, but trust can be so fragile. If you think you have it bad, she probably has it worse. Her behavior would suggest to me that she constantly worries about when you're going to stab her in the back again. And of course, you are fighting against the old adage: "Once a cheater, always a cheater."

 

The best you can do is to continue to be accountable and hope that she comes around. There is a book called "Not Just Friends" which is written for couples or marriages after infidelity. Perhaps reading it together will help you mend your relationship.

 

I understand that being with somebody who doesn't trust you is no fun but you two have to work out how to rebuild that trust. Have you ever had a serious talk about how trust can be rebuilt between the two of you? Or has it mostly been just her asking for access and you giving it to her? Did she ever decide that she no longer needed your passwords?

 

Good luck!

[Rabican]

Fess up man... call and reset the passwords. You do the crime, you do the time. You made the mistake, If the relationship is otherwise good, I say you show her theres nothing there being hidden.

[lipostudio]

I can see where she's coming from - I was with a guy long-term who was emotionally unfaithful while still claiming to love me. I always had a sense he wasn't being truthful, which lead me to snoop and find incriminating evidence on his PC. I regret it in a way because it broke his trust with me, but at the same time, at least I found out. I doubt he would have told me had I not snooped.

 

With your girl, however, I think she's going overboard. Sure, you broke the trust. You relinquished all privacy to her immediately afterwards so that she could start to trust you again. It's been two years, she's found no evidence of more broken trust...I say you have a right to your privacy again.

 

I would phrase it to her in this way,

 

Honey, I know I abused your trust in the past. I've told you before and I'll say it again now: I'm so sorry that I did that/it was wrong/I feel awful about it. However, I feel like even though so much time has passed, you're very untrusting of me. I can't continue to show you every aspect of my life - privacy is natural and necessary. I need you to trust me without having every last detail of my passwords and pin numbers. If you're not able to do that, maybe we should look into getting some counselling to find other ways to build trust.

 

If she's not willing to build trust in other ways, I'd say unfortunately your one mistake two years ago has cost you the relationship. You can't continue to be in the relationship you have been with her, giving in to her every demand on your privacy. It's not right or natural, and it must really put strain on the relationship.

 

Good luck.

[lizziebee]

I can relate to your gf as I have very good reason not to trust my bf. Y'all have your laugh when I tell you we met online......but we fell in love, are in love etc. No sh**. Anyway, he has quite a sexual and dating past (yes we all know there is a difference) I see him mostly on the weekends as he lives quite a ways from me. He get calls and IM's while I am there from 'don't worry about her honey' girls. Well, there is one girl I do worry about and that is his rebound gf 1 month after hi '99 divorce. He saw her til 2004 and recently, while 'investigating' I saw her # on his caller ID when he had told me when I had called him after I got home (2 hours drive) that he had fallen asleep....lie. Yes he knows that I do not get upset at all about the ex wife calling as they have a nice relationship and we even had a nice ordinary chat. But I digress....SO, after checking to make sure he is still not on the site we met on occasionally, I check his CID every time I am there and can do it without him seeing me...God forbid I act like a jealous 'chick'! He thinks I am confident and strong and can handle it all, yes I want him to think this but not to the point where he thinks I can handle him sweet talking or God forbid sweet f****** someone else! Yeah, he is a flirt and I think we all are in some way....I'll stop babbling and tell you that you have opened the door for your girl to do her biz on your cell, computer, etc...and good for you, but now its time to give her the talk, the one from Lipostudio above. Good luck and take care and if you all have any input for me and my insecurities please jump right in!!!

[maladie]

i too can relate, because i am a self-admitted snooping gf. i found out that my bf had cheated on me earlier this year with THREE different women, one of them was actually an on-going affair. all four of us believed we were the only one he was seeing at the time. had we not found out at the same time, he would have continued pulling strings with all of us. a very dangerous game. needless to say i was devastated and highly disgusted. and yet i am still with him, trying to work things out. at the time he begged me not to leave him, claiming that he couldn't imagine life without me, that he knew he needed help and that he loved me. there were so many signs that i should have paid attention to and so many lies he told straight to my face that now i'm paranoid about every single person in his life, every phone call, every text message, every e-mail. it's not enough for him to just TELL me, he has to SHOW me that he's trustworthy. i believe that i and any other girl who has been in my situation has every right to be. once you betray someone's trust, you have to sacrifice many things to regain it. above all pride. i don't believe a man is obligated to give his gf his passwords or show her every single e-mail he receives. but he does need to 'give a little' more than the average never-been-caught-cheating guy.

 

while we've made a lot of progress and addressed a lot of the problems that led to his infidelity, to this day my bf not only locks his phone but hides it by stuffing it deep down in his bag at all times when with me! he has phones that i don't know the numbers to. he has personal e-mail accounts that i don't even know the addresses to (i only know his business accounts). he never uses my computer because he thinks i'm going to track his passwords. why go to such extremes if he has nothing to hide??? there is no way i feel like i can trust him right now. i admit that i snoop and i'm not proud of it, but i only do it because i have reason to. before when he was sleeping around with other women behind my back, i NEVER thought to go through his pockets or his phone. now i find condoms in his bag (which we don't use, we've both been tested and i'm on the pill) some look really old others look kinda new. i find text messages to random women that start off "hi honey, oh man rough day at work...". What the ****?! sigh...

 

when all the sh** went down earlier this year and he begged me to stay, he said "i'll do whatever it takes to make you trust me again". apparently not. cuz in my mind his primary objective should be to do whatever it takes to ease my mind and show me that he has nothing to hide. leave the phone out instead of hiding it, write e-mails while i'm around, show me who just texted him a silly msg. little things like that. what do other couples do? do you both formally exchange info? is there a way to have this conversation about boundaries and what happens when you both have completely different limits?

 

back to the writer's topic.... in your case, your gf demaning to see your phone bill seems a bit extreme. if you were quick to hide your phone whenever someone calls or abruptly close e-mail windows whenever she's around, that would be reason to draw suspicion. but if you've done nothing but right since that incident 2 yrs ago and it's still not enough, well what can you do? figure out a way to live with it or move on. have a serious conversation with your gf and figure out where her current suspicions stem from and see if there's a way to fix or at least address it.

 

my two cents...