My girlfriend and I have been dating for almost a year and a half, and it’s been great thus far. However, curiosity got the best of me last night when her phone was open and she was asleep. Here’s some context first:
Although we’ve been mostly great, I can say that throughout the relationship, I’ve messed up a lot compared to her. What I mean is, in the 1.5 years we’ve been dating, I don’t think I’ve gotten mad / upset at her more than three times. And this is because there truly hasn’t been anything she’s done to make me upset. I’ve dated people prior to her, and she has as well, although she has more experience than me in terms of hookups, etc. While we’ve been dating, she’s gotten upset at me for many more reasons than I have.
Now, this may not seem like important information to include, but bear with me. An example of something she’s gotten upset with me about: I liked some instagram posts of girls when we first started dating. When this happened, I begged for her forgiveness and spent a day or two promising her this would never happen again — I stuck with that promise. Since then, nothing like this has ever happened again.
Now jumping back to what I found on her phone (it was wrong of me to go through her phone, and I fully know I will never do this again regardless of what happens): When we were in the 3rd or fourth month of dating, we were long distance for a month or so. During this month, she texted a few of her friends multiple times about two previous hookup’s / talking stages she had, where she said how hot they were. Moreover, I had asked her to unfollow them roughly around this time, and she told her friends I forced her to unfollow them, but that she still kept a few photos from their instagrams to look at. She brought these guys up more than once to her friends during this time. On top of that, she texted a friend saying she regrets not having sex with one of her talking stages.
My biggest issue is that I feel like she’s very hypocritical. For the extent to which she got upset at me for liking a girl’s photo (I didn’t know this girl btw, and it was a very normal photo), I feel like she was doing worse things. In fact, she even texted her friend and said “It’s pretty funny that I’m mad at him about XYZ but I actually did something worse”. She acknowledged this and simply laughed it off.
She even said: “While he only liked a girls photo, I actually searched up my hookup’s on instagram and stalked them to look at their posts”.
Moreover, I absolutely don’t know what to do now. We’ve grown incredibly close over this year and a half, and I can confidently say she’s made me happier than any other person I’ve been with. But I just don’t know if I can forget what she said a year ago. During this time we were long distance, she was the only thing on my mind everyday — I didn’t talk about, or even think about any other girl. It hurts to know she wasn’t doing the same.
Thus, my other issue is: is this worth throwing away a great relationship for? I haven’t brought this up with her yet. She stopped doing anything like this after this incident (to my knowledge / what I found), and she has been very loyal since then. But a small part of me wonders if she kept those photos of them, if she still looks at them or thinks of them. We’re living together currently, but in a few days, we’re going to be long distance for a week. I don’t know what to do and I feel like my trust in the relationship has taken a hit. Should I let something that happened a year ago go?
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Trust once cracked never feels the same and here you have uncovered hypocrisy wrapped in a smile. Confront her calmly but firmly because if she cannot own her past without deflecting you are not in a safe relationship no matter how good the rest feels.
What do you want from this woman? I don’t know why men expect lady zebras to change their stripes. She’s out here and will be out here as long as the attention is there.
As for her hypocrisy, women believe their emotions are reality. So she hates you liking other girls but feels good about her liking other guys. So there’s no hypocrisy there. She’s true to her emotions and that’s all that matters. The deeper a woman is into this way of thinking and doesn’t have an inkling that her view of reality might be wrong, the more likely it is she’ll be bent over for other men when you aren’t around.
Just the fact that she has more sexual experience than you is going to lower the respect she has for you. You’ve also exposed yourself to her as a pushover that eats disrespect for breakfast. I would just cut my losses because this will only escalate from here.
Lol none of this is cheating. You’re both kids and will hardly remember each other in a few years.
It’s valid that you’re upset about this but in all honesty the best thing you can do is talk to her about it. Explain you feel bad for snooping but you did find something that hurts you. If she totally disregards your feelings and only focuses on being upset you went through her phone then that’s enough to walk away; without trust and basic respect there is no foundation for the relationship to sit on. It’s hard to repair trust but it can be done if one party is truly remorseful and has changed and the other party is willing to forgive.
Yeah, what she did was shady. It’s not full on cheating, but talking about past hookups, regretting not sleeping with someone, and saving pics is considered cheating (at least for me) and the worse part is she judged you for way less. But it was over a year ago, early in the relationship. If she’s been solid since then, you’ve got two options to either talk to her and see how she responds or let it go, if u believe she’s grown. It’s ur call, but don’t stay quiet just to keep the peace bro
My take: She’s just not that into you; she’s keeping you until she finds someone better. It’s diabolical, I know. That’s what they do.
i wouldnt even bring it up, just keep checking her phone. if you dont see anything recent in the next month, then drop it and never say anything. maybe it was new relationship jitters idk. this really isnt that bad tbh
Man, this is messy and I totally get why you’re spiraling – the hypocrisy thing would piss anyone off since she crucified you for liking random photos while she was literally keeping pics of her exes and talking about regretting not sleeping with them. But here’s the reality check: you violated her privacy big time by going through her phone and now you’re stuck with year-old information you got in a shitty way.
If this relationship has genuinely been great for over a year since then, throwing it away over old texts might be something you regret forever, but if you’re gonna be paranoid and resentful every time you go long distance, that’s not fair to either of you. Maybe consider talking to her about it – yeah it’ll be awkward as hell admitting you snooped, but living with this secret is clearly eating you alive and she seems like she moved past whatever she was working through back then.
I dont know if id quite call it cheating, but is such a serious act of disrespect that that would be the end of the relationship for me. Theres 4 billion other women out there bro, most of whom would treat you better than that
I think her getting mad at you for liking a girls insta photo was also projection on her part cos she was doing the same thing and worst. I also think that since this happened a while back and she hasn’t done anything since, I personally would forgive her. That was very unfaithful of her but she seemed to be very used to meaningless hookups in the past, hence her behaviour. I think now that she has a better understanding of relationships, she should be forgiven (in my opinion). As for the fear of her getting mad or anything like that cos u went through her phone, don’t be! Anyone who loves their partner will be more focused on providing reassurance than anything else. If she gets mad cos she’s caught, that’s fucked. I would be honest and say what u did, and ask for an explanation and reassurance that it won’t happen again. This way ur initiating a healthy, honest and communicative relationship. Humans are flawed, but it’s your decision on what flaw you’re okay with forgiving. This is just my opinion, but good luck!
Not necessarily worth throwing the relationship away over, but needs to be addressed.
First of all, if you go looking for a problem, chances are, you’ll find one. Not good to go snooping through her phone, but also not good what you found. Neither excuse the other. Both are problems, both need to be addressed. You both broke trust and there’s bound to be a level of feeling disrespected on both ends. This happened in the 3rd or 4th month of dating and the total length of the relationship has been 1.5 years. That doesn’t excuse it, but it was definitely towards the beginning and might be relevant in terms of how she was behaving. But knowing that it happened creates some doubt and broke trust.
If the relationship has been good overall, I don’t necessarily think that it needs to end over this. At the same time, I don’t know everything about the relationship. It wasn’t soft cheating, but it was disrespectful. If you don’t address it, you probably won’t let go of it. And I don’t think that letting go of it would help. Sometimes you have to have tough conversations in relationships, but you have to decide if the relationship is worth it. She’s gonna get mad that you went through her phone, which is fair. But keep in mind that going through her phone and finding the convos that you did are two separate problems that you both need to take accountability for. One does not excuse the other. So don’t get caught up in keeping score.
Healthy people bring up issues not because they want problems or want to start a fight, but because they care about the connection and want to resolve the issue so the connection can be repaired or strengthened and move forward. Gotta view it as you + her vs. the problem, not you vs. her. You two are pretty young though, so I’d expect a bit of immaturity or struggling to navigate some of the relationship skills like conflict resolution. Hope this helps!
I would not bring it up right now. Be something you could use later. Always make sure you Take photos with you phone of what you saw. then send it to an email special email count you don’t have on your phone and kind of a private one. you will remember name and password.
If you ever get in a discussion or spat. You could bring up the IG post photo you like and say to her. Tell me have you done anything at the time too or something worse ? Leave it open ,,, Let it hang,,,, If she says NO. say are you sure ?? I don’t think you are that incent Tell me. I know that was ridiculous as you got the crazy over what I did witch was nothing. Are you sure you are Incent ? Ok if you say so. But something tells me I have a feeling. But never tell what you know.
Welcome to dating!
First mistake lot of young men do is like king instagram girls or liking posts of girls whom they don’t even know.
That is no no.
Or even liking exs posts. Like what she did.
We have to learn to have clean break. Break that includes clear closure. Time off from dating to flush out residual feelings.
Ask her what is healthy relationship
Can you tell us what are top three things of heathy relationship?
She called you out for liking a pic while secretly keeping thirst material from old hookups? Yeah… that’s hypocrisy in 4K.
Didn’t read the post, just came to ask WTF is “soft cheating”? This isn’t a thing – if they are cheating, they are cheating. There aren’t different levels of cheating, where some are more acceptable than others.
If she cheated, run for the hills and and find your peace somewhere else.
Leave fuck that don’t ignore the signs
Basically 80% of 20 year olds “soft cheat”. Most just don’t let the secret get out.
You ask if this is throwing away a great relationship, but you had to grovel over liking a social media post? My friend, you don’t know what a great relationship IS. You’re young, ditch this woman and find someone better.