That event with the phone certainly would be unsettling. Assuming you say it in a nonjudgmental way, how would she deal with this very reasonable statement of your feelings?

Today is my last day with her, and I think I'm going to have to brave bringing this up. And saying something like, the way you grabbed that phone away from me made me feel bad and insecure and worried and suspicious, and I just don't know how to process those feelings.

I think what she'll say is, Oh, honey, I didn't grab the phone from you. But I'm sorry you feel the way you do.. I didn't mean for you to feel that way.

And that's all, throwing the ball back in my court. At which point, I'll probably say something like, Guess I'll have to find a way to deal with it. At which point, she will nod and change the subject.

Worse case scenario, I might be unable to resist going more on the offensive and asking her to show me what's on her phone to put my fears to rest, which she will refuse to do, which will lead to ... problems. Or I'll skip asking to see the phone and instead say, I know you have stuff on there that you don't want me to see, maybe even the dic pic, or other dic pics and how many secrets do you have, anyway? or something equally stupid and unhelpful.

How would abusive guy treat her if she did something he didn't like? He could be another reason that she learned to lie.

Nothing, if he was sober. Drunk, he'd call her a slut or worse. At one point, he threatened to smack her around. At another, he threatened to kill her, after which she spent $35k installing a fence around her property. And she still continued to see him for another year or so. But in terms of learning to lie, he wasn't the cause of that. She never lied to him about anything, that I know of. When he abused her, she bluntly called him on it every time (the day afterwards) in no uncertain terms.

When we first got together, she refused to go eat in the neighborhood where he lives. She said it was off limits. She said it was because she was scared of him, terrified. Which I believed for a while. But the way she's broken no contact with him a few times, and the words she's used to talk about him and write him, I don't think she's scared of being harmed by the guy. Instead, I think she's afraid that seeing him will trigger her feelings for him, that she'll once again, against her better judgment, find him a a force that can't be resisted.

I get the feeling that she only lies under certain circumstances under certain conditions and her ex didn't give her any reason to lie.


With regard to the boob shot and people changing, I'm not yet persuaded that boob/dic shots are things that she normally engages in. They might well be, but so far I've just heard about those isolated cases. My view would be that something that happens a small number of times has not yet risen to a habit or something that one is "into", even if she kept those two shots that we have been discussing.

Okay, I'll take this under consideration. The phone-grabbing incident has me concerned, however, that she's either doing that or similar or is back in touch with her ex.

How well and frequently do you stay in contact with her when you are apart?