AdviceGeneral.com

Dear Rob,
I’ll get right to the point: I have major trust issues with my boyfriend of a year.

He has given me reason to distrust but we are working on it. He is a great guy but sometimes I get an overwhelming feeling that he is hiding something.

Last night i snooped on his phone while he was asleep. I feel horrible about it but what I feel worse about is what i found. He was texting an old friend with a flirtatious “thinking of you” at 2:00am! I know of this friend and she supposedly knows of me. Her reply was simply, “thanks, i love you, i miss you.”

This broke my heart because I didn’t know what to think. There is every possibility that it could be friendly and every possibility that it could not. She lives in another city and I’m wondering if he has feelings for her but since she is gone, he doesn’t act on it.

I do not live with him but we are constantly together so I know there is no actual cheating, just unfaithfulness. I want to confront him real bad but I’m afraid to tell him I snooped. How should I do it? Should I do it at all? Am I over reacting? How can I make him see and understand how I feel without sounding like a crazy jealous, insecure girlfriend? thanks Rob.
Sandy

Hi Sandy,
If you want to ruin the situation you tell him from a cold start. But….

If you want him to come clean to you about what this girl means to him, ask him straight out, but like this “You know, I had a dream the other night and we were getting married and that girl you used to date showed up and you left with her. I was stranded at the altar. Are you hiding something from me?”
Just like that. Weird but to the point.

And let me tell you, if you have trust issues after 12 months of dating, there is more going on here that you talk about.

He’s hiding something, you just don’t know what. And you’re lying to yourself about what it might be, making excuses for him to yourself.

I hate to say “end the relationship” but give yourself a break… 12 months of dating and he’s communicating like that with his ex? He’s cheating on you, or at least he is “wishing” he was cheating on you. Because you’re together “every day” you give him no choice but to stay with you, but he doesn’t want you. Not totally.

You have to face up to this fact: he’s just with you until someone else comes along.

Start having a life that doesn’t include him. Be ”busy” once in a while, watch how fast he dumps you.

This will be a great test of your relationship: will he still date you if you aren’t “conveniently around” all the time?

Test him and act according to the results.
You need to know.
Best wishes,
Rob

Dear Rob,
Interesting set of events I have recently experienced.

I stumbled through most of it not knowing what I was doing, but today in a pensive mood I came across your website, and notice how spot-on relevant your articles have been to my experience.

Obviously I want the girl, but the question is the next move…

The story is that I met the girl who immediately made mention of a boyfriend.

No big deal because to me that is mostly a defensive move by a girl to figure out what you are at (what good looking girl doesn’t “kinda have a boyfriend”), at the time I wasn’t really looking, and if I decided to look, I figured she’d introduce me to some of her other single friends.

Soon, we started ending up at the same pub each week for a chat.

Well as you might guess, with me just hanging chill, a little aloof, and remaining in control and reserved, she opened up more and more to me.

I let her make the first phone call to me, the first text message, the first email. It was about that time that I began to notice all the body language ques she was initiating while chatting – fiddling about and “primping”, looking at my lips, glances to the eyes, invading my space, touching.

Honestly it was exciting to finally realize these things are happening… I’ve always been somewhat clueless. But I learned that she lived with her boyfriend.

She began to make excuses for me to walk her to her car… or find time for us to be alone.

At this point, Mr. Wussy came out and I internally made excuses for not making a move (“hey, I’m a good guy, I don’t want to break up her happy home life”).

Finally I made a weak move by telling her that if I didn’t think she were so happy with her current relationship, I’d push much more strongly for things.

Her response was that she “would keep it in mind.

She always thought something was there, but couldn’t do that right now.” Rather than the deathknell I figured that would work out to be, she seemed even more loving the next few times I saw her out. We never discussed her current relationship.

Finally during a innocuous conversation, she brought up that the previous night she hadn’t really enjoyed sex with her boyfriend and that it had been the first time she had had sex with him for several weeks.

I didn’t know if this was the homerun meatball I had been waiting on, or she just was toying with me. I just told her that my name isn’t Charlotte and I didn’t want to discuss her sex life…. I told her I needed to be away from her for a little while, because for this conversation to bother me, I am obviously too close to the whole issue.

I told her I knew what I wanted – her – but that I needed to get a grip on what the situation really was, and realize that it just wasn’t going to happen.

I walked out of her life, and returned anything she had “loaned” me so that I would have no excuse to contact her in the future. Basically at that point, I figured I was being strung along and didn’t want any more of it.

A few nights ago, after three weeks with no contact, I was weak and broke down, and decided to go out to see her.

I got an extremely chilly reception, which I had expected, and when she finally decided to talk to me, she hit me with “You just dropped me…”, “I’ve had to think about it every day”, “I thought you would be around for a long time,” “Its worse that you came back,” and then a barrage of things some pertinent, some not, just to see what would stick.

She concluded with “I always told you I have a boyfriend and where the boundaries were, and now I’ve lost a close friend and I’ve got to deal with that.

I think it is better if you just don’t come around anymore.” From the shotgun approach, I knew the real issue was that I had gotten to her, that she had to face those feelings, and that it was likely that it had somehow affected things at home. Incredibly, I also noticed when she calmed down and was listening to me that all those little signals from our good conversations were still there – it was a strange experience as most arguments I have experienced have been the gal just shutting down and shutting off.

And I absolutely had the feeling that she knew that I knew she was putting on a front and she didn’t really want me to leave.

So, my questions…. Was she all along just playing me for what she didn’t have at home?

Did my inner wussy stand in the way of making the correct move all those times and “rescuing” her from something she couldn’t decide to get out of?

Is this one dead?

Or is it better off dead?

If not what’s the next move?

Do I wait until she is single and then make the strong move – and how do I know when she is single if I am not in contact?

If I stay in contact, how do I do so without becoming the “friend?”

Really, really at the end of my rope and experience.
Thank you.

Hi,
Surprisingly enough I’ve had a similar experience… the girl used me for a while as a shoulder to cry on, as a testing dummy for her feminize sexuality, as a sounding board for her troubles with her boyfriend and as a crystal ball into her future.

What ended up was she dropped her boyfriend, moved out to her own place… and took up with a different guy within days, before I even knew what had occurred in her life.

Needless to say I was shocked to my core for being used that way.

After a couple of years I understood that what happened was destined to happen because I never could have offered her the life she had with her boyfriend, as troubled as it was, and that I was not the replacement for the man in her life, she just needed me to “push” her into taking charge of her own life.

I think that you’re on the same path.

This girl may really not like her life, but you offer a slice of sunshine, a ray of hope for change… whether that really will involve you, or you are just the launching pad of change in her life I cannot say.

From what you wrote I do honestly feel that the girl is lonely, stuck ina relationship that SHE refuses to work on improving, and is looking for greener grass and the will-power to move on, move out and get on with her life.

I do not recommend that you stay involved with her simply because she IS looking fir a change… and you are a piece of that fantasy life she wishes she had… but you really aren’t going to be a big part of, even if she does breakup with her current boyfriend, if she does move out, if she does date you.

This is just a bad set of events that do not make for a solid foundation for a relationship.

I hope I have given you food for thought.
Rob.