i dont know if i can trust him

LegacyUser

My bf and i (we're in our mid and late 20's) have been living together for the last 2 and a half years. We are are supposedly very committed to each other and are planning to buy a house together. In fact we would have bought one already but the deal fell through.

The thing is he keeps doing things that make it hard for me to trust him. Last year I found texts in his phone from another woman. I know I shouldn't have been looking at his phone but we were going through a very difficult time and I was hoping to get some insight into what was going on. The texts were hidden in a folder and were very weirdly sexual. I rang the number and the girl hung up when I asked who she was. I confronted my bf who said the sex thing was a joke. I'm not sure if i believe this, I do most of the time as the act being described was so off the wall and for some reason him and a couple of his male friends seem to have ongoing gross each other out by describing weird sexual acts to each other text competitions. He said he and this girl were doing similar, and he saved the texts to a folder as he didn't want to delete them because they were funny. (god typing this out makes me feel so stupid for believing him).

He did admit that the girl was an old friend who had contacted him a few months before and they were in contact ever since. He had told her about the problems we were having and they were flirting with each other a lot. This was all via phone and email as she lives in the uk. I felt that things hadn't gone further than he said. Partly because i wanted to believe him and partly because the geography made it unlikely that anything physical had happened. But I was hurt that he had been doing this and even if nothing physical had happened I felt cheated on.

He cut off contact with her and we worked very hard at rebuilding our relationship. When the deal with the house were buying at the time fell through we decided to put that on the backburner for a few months. We went to counselling together and things got better and better between us. In the last few weeks things have been amazingly good, the best it has ever been in some ways. They weren't perfect, but there was a new intimacy and closeness that had never been there before. I mostly trusted him, not with that deep core belief I had before this happened, you know that way that you know night follows day. I used to trust him like that and that wasn't back but I felt we had come a long way.

2 days ago I found out he had been to lunch with a female friend, who is also an ex, of his. I was surprised he hadn't mentioned it. I asked him what he had done for lunch that day and he lied. I told him I knew what he had actually done. He said the reason he lied was that when I asked what he had done he realised he hadn't told me he was meeting this girl and didn't want to tell me when I had asked in case it upset me that he hadn't told me earlier.

One of our problems in the past has always been my discomfort with his exes. He is good friends with a number of them and I used to hate it. It was a repeated cause of arguments. Most of my exes cheated on me with their exes and part of me was waiting for that to happen with this relationship. But it is something I've worked at and it has been around 9 months since the last time I let this bother me. In fact, while I haven't been around the 2 exes of his that he is friends with a lot, whenever I have I've been friendly and relaxed around them.

I do understand why he was worried I would be unhappy about him meeting this girl. But I can't believe he would lie about it. It makes me question trusting him again. All the intimacy we had built has vanished. All of the doubts and insecurities that I had when I found the texts last year have resurfaced. The story of keeping the texts in a hidden folder because they were funny seem ridiculous. I cant believe he would lie to me when he knew i had worked so hard to learn to trust him again.

So what would you do? Part of me just wants to leave him, but I don't know if that's because I really don't think we can make this work or because I want him to see how much this has hurt me and take what I’m feeling seriously. Lately everything he does makes me mad and I end up yelling at him when he hasn’t really done anything wrong. I think I’m testing him, that I’m seeing how far I can push him before he leaves when all I really want is for him to hold me and tell me how sorry he is and that he understands why I’m being the way I am.

I don’t want to lose him, I wish that this had never happened. Is what happened really that big a deal? Am I hurt because of something that I should barely notice or am I deluding myself and is he sending me the message that his heart isn’t really in our relationship?

idontknowmyname

Think you need to have a time out and see if both of you really want to be together and to make it work.

If you can't trust him then its hardly a relationship. You'll just be insecure about everything and question if he's lying about anything he's telling you. Time out will let you assess your relationship and maybe change a few things.

Chinafoot

yea i agree with the previous poster. if you dont trust him it wont work and you are only going to end up hurting yourself even more.

i know how easy it is to kid yourself into believing them. one of my exes came back from a 21st with a hickey!! and told me that this really drunk girl just sat on him and did it !! and whats worse......i actually believed him because i was in love and i didnt want to believe that he would do that to me. then in the end, obviously, i found out that he was cheating on me. its really not a nice feeling.

maybe you're right, maybe he is trying to tell you something. maybe he doesnt see a problem with the way he acts. maybe those text messages were a once off. who knows? the only way you'll find out is by talking to him. could be that hes getting cold feet about buying a house together, some men despite being in longterm relationships, might see buying a house as something very final and serious. but again you'll have to talk to him.

like the previous poster said, take some time out for yourself and see how you feel. go away for a few days with a friend. You never know, it could be the kick up the arse your boyfriend needs.

best of luck

Rock Climber

I'd say you have nothing to worry about.
If he's keeping the texts,and risking you seeing them you can be pretty confident nothing is going on.
Be glad that you have him and not the other girl,all she probably has to cuddle up to at night is her phone.
The fact that he wants to buy a house with you is a sign of fidelity even if ye are going through a rocky patch.
No man in his right mind would be considering that if he didnt have faith in the relationship

originally posted by : peachypants
maybe you're right, maybe he is trying to tell you something. maybe he doesnt see a problem with the way he acts. maybe those text messages were a once off. who knows? the only way you'll find out is by talking to him. could be that hes getting cold feet about buying a house together, some men despite being in longterm relationships, might see buying a house as something very final and serious. but again you'll have to talk to him.

Thats idle speculation which might be valid for teenagers or someone up the age of 22 or that who hasnt shaken off their teenage habits but in no way would it hold true for someone that has the means to buy a house and who is willing to do it with his girlfriend.

Chinafoot

Rock Climber wrote:

Thats idle speculation which might be valid for teenagers or someone up the age of 22 or that who hasnt shaken off their teenage habits but in no way would it hold true for someone that has the means to buy a house and who is willing to do it with his girlfriend.

if you'd care to read it again you'll see that i used the words could and some. in other words i am not referring to all men. it could be however a possibility. just because somebody has the means to buy a house doesnt mean that they want to go through with it. i am not suggesting that this is the definite case with this situation. i am merely sugesting that cold feet is a possibility.
just as its possible that she has nothing to worry about.

and as for my "idle speculation", all threads on PI are full of idle speculation as we do not know the ins and outs of the entire relationship and can only go on what the OP has told us.

torn up

torn up wrote:

2 days ago I found out he had been to lunch with a female friend, who is also an ex, of his. I was surprised he hadn't mentioned it. I asked him what he had done for lunch that day and he lied. I told him I knew what he had actually done. He said the reason he lied was that when I asked what he had done he realised he hadn't told me he was meeting this girl and didn't want to tell me when I had asked in case it upset me that he hadn't told me earlier.

One of our problems in the past has always been my discomfort with his exes. He is good friends with a number of them and I used to hate it.

Would it not occur to you that he didnt tell you because,he thought you would react that way?
Given that you have been through bad times and given that it would be obvious to him from the texts thing earlier that you are sensitive and worried about his exes then maybe that is it.
It has back fired on him though, but its not something to worry about in my opinion.

What I think you did wrong, is perhaps the fact that you confronted him with this straight away.
For your own peace of mind, you should have monitored the situation untill you could be certain that either something is going on or not.
More than likely, you know nothing might be going on.

Then you have a talk about it with him, gradually easing in the information that you have and saying to him hey Lad,I know you have done X,Y and Z but I know theres nothing in it and I'm not jealous.
You'll hopefully be able to do that because upon research, you will know theres nothing going on and also it will show to him that you are a more confident less worried and more relaxed person.

WhiteWashMan

if he is friends with his ex's then he is friends with his ex's.
bit wierd imho to have strange sexual texts going on, and i know in the past when i have done that, they havent been innocent.

have you thought about meeting them. personally, i think my partner has met all of the ex girlfriends that i still am in contact with. and they are good mates now. my last girl was someone who hated the thought of me ever having an ex, and so any mention of one, would set her off.

to be honest, we all have little secrets from our partners. figuring out which ones we should keep is what being in a reltionship is about
it sounds as if you are both fine, so i would talk about it, see if you can t meet and get to know his ex's, and get on with it.