Healthy Relationships Support Group
No relationship is perfect. A long-term relationship requires constant effort to understand each other, fix misunderstandings, solve problems and continue to grow as both individuals change and evolve. How we deal with our misunderstandings is the focus of this community. Join us to find support, get advice, and share your experience with your relationship.
Some background info:
It was/is my first relationship. I am 22, I've been with him for about 5 years now. It was a bad start. I met him at 17, when I was young and dumb and very inexperienced. In the first two years, he was cheating on me with a Brazilian girl, with her stereotypical double D's and a great ass. Maybe or maybe not this info is important to my current situation. I forgave him/made up with him three times after finding out he was cheating on me. Each time I'd have to find out by checking his phone or the girl would text me to tell me she had great sex with my boyfriend. By then I had no choice but to leave him. After getting myself back on track with my life, getting a 4.0 GPA, a new job, i felt so good about myself. About a year ago, he came back into my life by telling me that his parents sent him to Barcelona to "heal" from the depression that I left him with. Despite knowing that it was a lie, I wanted to talk to him. He called me, cried to me often about missing me and seeing how horrible of a person he was and that he's changed. At the time, I truly felt like he'd changed and maybe we could start over fresh. And we did.
So here's the current situation:
In the past year, he's been wonderful to me. We've talked about my insecurities due to his cheating past and we were both willing to be patient and work mutual trust back into our relationship. We've gotten extremely close, closer than we were before, especially in the last couple of weeks. We've been practically living together in my house. There were a few times I felt anxious and insecure and have blamed it on myself. However, I really need advice when it comes to this.
I asked him for his passcode, and looked through his phone in front of him. He let me. I found a conversation on a separate messaging app of him and his ex whom he cheated on me with, that rude brazilian girl. As for the content, he messaged her first, he sent a few more messages when she wouldn't respond to him, he said he's picturing her with cheese all over her because she's in paris and she recently went cheese testing. he said he had a dream where she went traveling all over the world and never came back. she said "oh good dream" and he said "no, bad dream :(". He also calls her "Amandinha" which was an affectionate way of saying "Amanda" in Portuguese. He asked for a selfie from her. One where she is smiling.
(Not important: but is that flirting?)
Through checking his phone I also saw that he lied to me about going home after one night we were at a burlesque club. he actually spent the night at a girl's house and he claims he only slept on her couch.
After confronting him, he told me "it was just small talk" and that I am using what we promised to let go of to cloud my judgement. He keeps telling me he loves me, and he's been crying, holding me, begging me to stay and I just keep bringing up the fact that I asked him not to even text a "hi" back if that girl ever texts him. I made it clear that I didn't want them talking to each other, PERIOD. He just keeps telling me "it wasn't even like that" or "I wasn't flirting with her. Flirting with her is telling her she looks good, and if i was still thinking about her in that way, I would ask about her relationship status, but I didn't."
I'm so hurt about this. I feel like I could have wasted 5 years of my life on this pathological liar and I don't want to waste anymore time but truth is, I love him so much and hearing him say that he loves me feels so good. I just want someone to tell me if there's any way I could fix this relationship. I want to be with him so badly, but I can't deal with him lying over and over again after I give him chance after chance.
I can stay with him on the condition that I have access to all his social networks/phones/emails ect. but he could just delete messages immediately after sending/receiving them. And plus, that would be a very unhealthy relationship.
I guess I just need to hear someone else's point of view. Please guys, and thank you for even taking the time out to read this ridiculously long post. I really appreciate it.
It was/is my first relationship. I am 22, I've been with him for about 5 years now. It was a bad start. I met him at 17, when I was young and dumb and very inexperienced. In the first two years, he was cheating on me with a Brazilian girl, with her stereotypical double D's and a great ass. Maybe or maybe not this info is important to my current situation. I forgave him/made up with him three times after finding out he was cheating on me. Each time I'd have to find out by checking his phone or the girl would text me to tell me she had great sex with my boyfriend. By then I had no choice but to leave him. After getting myself back on track with my life, getting a 4.0 GPA, a new job, i felt so good about myself. About a year ago, he came back into my life by telling me that his parents sent him to Barcelona to "heal" from the depression that I left him with. Despite knowing that it was a lie, I wanted to talk to him. He called me, cried to me often about missing me and seeing how horrible of a person he was and that he's changed. At the time, I truly felt like he'd changed and maybe we could start over fresh. And we did.
So here's the current situation:
In the past year, he's been wonderful to me. We've talked about my insecurities due to his cheating past and we were both willing to be patient and work mutual trust back into our relationship. We've gotten extremely close, closer than we were before, especially in the last couple of weeks. We've been practically living together in my house. There were a few times I felt anxious and insecure and have blamed it on myself. However, I really need advice when it comes to this.
I asked him for his passcode, and looked through his phone in front of him. He let me. I found a conversation on a separate messaging app of him and his ex whom he cheated on me with, that rude brazilian girl. As for the content, he messaged her first, he sent a few more messages when she wouldn't respond to him, he said he's picturing her with cheese all over her because she's in paris and she recently went cheese testing. he said he had a dream where she went traveling all over the world and never came back. she said "oh good dream" and he said "no, bad dream :(". He also calls her "Amandinha" which was an affectionate way of saying "Amanda" in Portuguese. He asked for a selfie from her. One where she is smiling.
(Not important: but is that flirting?)
Through checking his phone I also saw that he lied to me about going home after one night we were at a burlesque club. he actually spent the night at a girl's house and he claims he only slept on her couch.
After confronting him, he told me "it was just small talk" and that I am using what we promised to let go of to cloud my judgement. He keeps telling me he loves me, and he's been crying, holding me, begging me to stay and I just keep bringing up the fact that I asked him not to even text a "hi" back if that girl ever texts him. I made it clear that I didn't want them talking to each other, PERIOD. He just keeps telling me "it wasn't even like that" or "I wasn't flirting with her. Flirting with her is telling her she looks good, and if i was still thinking about her in that way, I would ask about her relationship status, but I didn't."
I'm so hurt about this. I feel like I could have wasted 5 years of my life on this pathological liar and I don't want to waste anymore time but truth is, I love him so much and hearing him say that he loves me feels so good. I just want someone to tell me if there's any way I could fix this relationship. I want to be with him so badly, but I can't deal with him lying over and over again after I give him chance after chance.
I can stay with him on the condition that I have access to all his social networks/phones/emails ect. but he could just delete messages immediately after sending/receiving them. And plus, that would be a very unhealthy relationship.
I guess I just need to hear someone else's point of view. Please guys, and thank you for even taking the time out to read this ridiculously long post. I really appreciate it.
Do you really want to spend the rest of your relationship with him checking his phone? Every day wondering who he texted in secret. If you can't have honesty in your relationship, it's doomed to fail. I wish you the best.