Read GF's emails. Figured out the awful truth. What to do?

Greetings to the valuable members of the community. I'm passively reading the forum for a while now, but just had the need to register and submit my first post today.

I obviously have a problem and I don't know where to start.

I met my current GF on the internet almost 6 months ago. We clicked immediately and since our first date, we've been seeing each other and spending nights together almost everyday. It's been so profound and positive so far and I believe she's the one for me.

I'm 29, been through relationships, longest being 2 years, she's 32, same thing, longest being almost 4 years. At this stage of my life, I'm not looking for games or temporary girls to spend time with. I believe(d) she was the one for me to think serious and take it to the next level with her. Until past two months.

In general, I'm very curious to the level of being "nosy". One day, she wasn't home and I decided to go on the internet. I was going to login to my email but somehow her session was on (we both use Gmail) and her email was in front of me.

After almost an hour of hesitation, my nosiness unfortunately tricked me into reading her emails. I don't know if it's insecurity but I made a search with my name. She's into email a lot, and speaks to her best friends on email, so I found what has been spoken about me between her and her friends.

They were all good stuff. It was generally about how we got along, how nice I was to her etc.

Then in one of the emails she sent during our first month, another guy's name showed up. She was telling her best friend that she had been completely over the other guy.

I am not proud of reading her emails at all but at that point it just happened and I bumped into this guy's name.

So thinking that he was probably her ex, I made a search in her inbox for that name to find out about the awful truth.

They met almost 5 years ago, she liked the guy a lot but he wasn't interested. After 2 weeks, one night the guy randomly invited her to his place and openly told her that he was stressed and he needed relaxation. She said no. But somehow, after sometime, she couldn't resist his charm(!), they got together and had sex..

This guy clearly told her that he wasn't interested in her, but he would sleep with her...She got the best she could (and possibly to trick him into her) and became F-Buddies.

The had sex in and out, they stopped when one of them had a relationship, but they always kept in touch (emailing, chatting once a month or two months) and whenever they were both available, they met for sex. She loved him, he was into some other girl. They relocated but the distance didn't stop them from flying to each other's state or meeting in the middle and spend one night together.

There were 4-5 G-Chat logs, they basically had cyber sex. Wish you were here, I would do this to you, I'm thinking about doing you, I would take you like this, I'm so wet etc. etc. all kinds of dirty talk.

Looks like all of this continued until one month before we met. She flew to his state for work, emailed him telling that she was coming and if he was available. Guy answered yes, they scheduled, met and had sex one night. She even wrote to her best friend that the guy didn't even talk to her at all driving her back to the office.

Coming back from there heartbroken and pissed, she decides to stop all communications with him and signs up on a dating site, meets me and we start our relationship.

All of this is extracted from her emails.

Now there's me having done a terrible thing by reading her private emails, but on the other hand, I don't really feel bad since I learned about all of this.

Of course, I was curious if she spoke to him while we were together. She chatted with him, but it was too short and general like how's the weather.. the topic didn't get to there. There was a couple of chats from him saying "Hi" to which she didn't respond.

So, no foul yet. But she really lost a lot of points after reading all of that. Until then, she was basically "my future" but I just still can't put those words into her mouth.

In one of the emails (2 years after they had sex), she's super happy because she randomly sent him an email asking how he was doing, and the guy remembered her!. She was jumping with joy and telling her friend "Oh my god, he remembers me!". How terrible is that? Now there's me thinking "oh my god. I call this girl "girlfriend"".

So knowing all of this, I didn't change my behavior at all...One day we were talking about us and I told her "There's only two things that can end our relationship. 1, you cheat on me and I find about it, 2, you go look for an adventure and i find about it". Other than that, I wouldn't be the one ending it. We got into some talk and I, very clearly, told her that I wouldn't be comfortable if she spoke to her ex BFs or anybody she was involved with in the past. I said I wasn't doing it and expected her to do so. She said she has no problem with that and past is past.

A couple of days later, her email was open again and I saw that she blocked that guy on her Gmail chat (he was there until then). I was happy that the message got through and she really cares for me.

Then a week later, she was showing me something on her email and I saw that she unblocked that guy and he was online again in her chat list.

I couldn't sleep at all. Late night, I checked her email again to see if they spoke, they did not.

A few days later, he was blocked again.

And tonight, he's online, and I just did another search and saw that he said "hi" to her yesterday but she didn't respond.

All of this back and forth is driving me crazy. I made it very clear with her and I don't even look at other girls on the street, but looks like he's still somehow in her mind and she's blocking/unblocking him on her chat...maybe she's still expecting him to at least say "hi" and not answer for self-satisfaction. But, he is definitely in her mind and she's fiddling with him.

I've been great to her, I put her on top of everything, but I just can't stand the fact that this guy who used her like a cheap prostitute, is still in her mid and she's playing games or expecting something.

The worst part is, I want to yell and scream and spit out everything, but technically, I shouldn't be knowing any of this since it's all in her email.

I'm thinking about confessing that I read her email and learned everything about this guy. I did wrong and violated her privacy, I'm aware of that and I owe her a big apology, but no matter how terrible what I did is, I still can't digest all the things I read.

I would probably get at her for still being in touch with her and tell her that I saw her blocking / unblocking him and i know her mind is busy with him.

So at that point, It'll either be "this is over" or "call me when you are 100% over everything with him" or "I want to have control over your email, phone, everything" which is crazy.

I really care for her and I think she does too, but the things I read are very hard to get over.

I'm having difficulties sleeping, I want to yell out but I don't know how. So I'm sharing all of this with you guys.

Feel free to judge me and tell me I did wrong by reading her emails. I'm not proud of it, but it happened. I'm more concerned about what I have seen inside.

Thank you all

I don't see that you have seen anything that crosses your high-handed, controlling two-rule mandate? She has not cheated on you and she is not having an adventure? So she blocks and unblocks someone and YOU believe she is thinking of him (the software doesn't always work the way it is supposed to or is cumbersome with complicated arrangements and people can get inexplicably unblocked); you going to get the fantasy police to go into her head and try to make rules about what she can think about?

You cannot be happy if you have a problem and are trying to put it on her. You cannot control someone else! She gets to make her own decisions, think her own thoughts, whatever is best for her life and you are not letting her do that because you are cheating. You are reading her information and she does not know that. You are having an adventure (even if only in your own head and it's a darned uncomfortable one). Come clean with her, tell her what you have done, read, thought, and level the playing field and see if she thinks you are Mr. Nice Guy anymore and wants to be with you!

I agree with Perna...what your girlfriend did before she met you has nothing to do with you...we all make mistakes, and I would hate to be judged by someone for something that is in my past. Some women think they can handle the "f-buddies" category of relationship when most cannot. They convince themselves that this is good enough and that they guy will eventually fall in love and a real relationship is possible....I've been there, and I've done that. And I do not in any way think of myself as a cheap prostitute. Maybe, you should look at the fact that before she met you, she got herself out of the situation....she stood up for herself and decided that she wanted a real relationship....and, you were the guy that she found it with.

I don't know whether you should confess to her your spying or not...I made the confession to my boyfriend that I'd seen some stuff on his computer and he was pretty much okay with it, but he's a very mellow and forgiving kind of guy.

I'm not totally sure about couples who have rules about not seeing/communicating with exes....I have quite a few ex-boyfriends that I'm still friends with and see when they come to town...I've introduced them to my b.f. and we've even hung out a bit together...I feel as if removing the mystery makes everyone more comfortable...but, every relationship is different.

I'm confused about the 'aweful truth' in your title... What is it? That she has a past? I don't understand what her former lover has to do with your current relationship. Don't rock the boat, unless you're looking for an excuse to bail. She's done nothing wrong...

Thank you for constructive replies.

Well, I understand that everybody has a past and we all made / make mistakes. Although it bothers me to know about it, I can't judge her by her past.

Whenever I'm in a relationship, I'm 100% dedicated. I close all the doors to others, don't flirt, don't look for fun, don't even look at the girls on the street. That's just me and it has always been like that. I don't have contact with my exes, no matter how we broke up (good or bad). I guess I just expect everyone to be like me.


Very good point lido. But the catch is, this guy has been around for 5 years or so and during these 5 years, she was in 2 serious relationships (2 and 2 years). So this guy was in the picture as an f-buddy, she starts a relationship, they stop their action, 2 years later she breaks up, he gets back in the picture. Then HE starts a relationship, they stop, and right before we started, they were both single and they were involved sexually again. So, I don't think there's a situation like "she decided that she wanted a real relationship". He's just there, probably if and when we break up, eventually she'll contact him to see what's going on. or not. I don't know. Her pattern is like a "habit" now.


My other concern is, this thing wasn't really a relationship and he's not an ex. They never dated. Just slept. He was very clear to her and yet she decided to be his booty call for no matter what reason (romantic, sexual, I don't mind). I am OK with that as long as it's in her past. But it's not.

She's still fiddling with him, they have contact, and I just can't stand the fact the she hasn't learned a lesson after her past 2 relationships and didn't cut him off.

Now I am in the picture and I don't want her to be in touch with someone who treated her literally like a cheap prostitute in the past and desires her sexually and tries to hook up again at every opportunity.

And as I mentioned before, I told her that I was keeping all my options closed, not having contact with anybody from my past and I'd expect her to do so, she said no problem. That's what I asked as some respect to our relationship. But looks like she thinks that I don't know about this guy and still in touch with him.

People are different. I think it's unfair for you to dictate who she may be in contact with just bcoz you break off contact or you're insecure. Just bcoz you don't notice a beautiful woman when in a relationship doesn't mean everyone goes blind. And just to clarify, appreciating a pretty face is not the same as lusting after somebody else. You know, I had a bf who tried that stunt, at 1st I thought, 'it's ok, I can do this' but then I realised that cutting contact with my ex lover was of no benefit to me, it just fed his ego. We're friends to this day, and that was 8yrs ago! My point is, it's unfair for you to choose for her. AND she HASN'T even responded to him. So again, I don't understand why you're stressing bout him being on a contact list...
If this relationship is for keeps, then her ex lover is not even a factor, bcoz as YOU clearly stated, they only hooked up inbetween relationships, which means he's not a threat. No crime in them hooking up in the past, they're 2 consenting adults, they didn't cheat on their partners, wether it was healthy or not is not the issue. Please stop imposing your will on her, THAT is unhealthy. You will ultimately push her away.

Best of luck to you both. Hope it works out for you guys.

Hi - you have quite the dilemma here. As you said, reading her emails was the wrong thing to do and now you have the advantage of being privy to her past relationship. Regarding the above statement - some people can do the 'friends with benefits' thing and that doesn't mean your GF was taken advantage of - seems like their relationship was for sexual convenience.

You happen to have high moral guidelines but she may have her own but not necessarily wrong ones. You admit you're nosey, so now you're judging her based on her past and knowing how she interacted with this man. I'm wondering how can you avoid being overly suspicious given what you know? Has she told you about this guy? Are they normally friends without the sex, when she normally has a partner? Also do you feel guilty for snooping and isn't that an act of being untrustworthy on your part?? I'm not picking on you, but trying to help you see that snooping proves, you can hide info and feelings in the relationship.

Do you think you're going to continue being suspicious based on what you know? Trust is one of the main pillars of a relationship - she hasn't broke that trust but you have. I hope you'll be able to enjoy the present with this woman and not let your knowledge of the past, along with your mistrust ruin it.

Lynn,

Thank you for your awesome response. I can definitely see your point.

I never heard of him before. She never mentioned him or anyone that sounded like him as a "friend". All I could see was the email communication between them, half of which was cyber sex and the rest is superficial talk. They did chat from time to time like "how is life, where are you working etc" and half of them ended with things like "I'm dreaming of you, wish you were here right now" kind of talk and dirtier.

They chatted while we were together (about 2 months ago). Nothing dirty, looked completely friendly, and he was single at the time. I think he still is, hence constantly trying to chat.

Well, I'm not picking on anyone but surprisingly I appreciate the guy, he's the man.. I read one of the emails he sent her basically saying "I'm seeing someone and things are serious with her, I would appreciate if you don't get offended because I stop talking to you". He cut her off when things are serious.

So they don't talk/chat all the time, but she did speak to him while we were together. It was a friendly chat. What does this make them?

I feel very guilty for violating her privacy, but on the other hand it's not like I dug into her inbox and found nothing but innocent emails and said "Oh what have I done".

I do trust her and I don't think she will ever cheat on me. This is the most important thing. But I can't really say that I'm 100% confident since my mind is constantly playing games with me and asking me "if she's happy with me, what is she trying to do by constantly blocking / unblocking him every 2 days on his contact list?"

The guy tells her to stop communicating because he's serious with someone and cuts her off, but my GF is struggling whether she should talk to him or not. Or that's how I see it?

Worrying that you're going to lose someone is often the fastest way to ensure that happens.

Why? Because your girlfriend will most likely, at some point, pick up on your insecurity, however subtle it may be. There is nothing more likely to end a relationship than feeling pressured by an insecure partner. Good healthy relationships exist when couples are completely confident and at ease with eachother and don't place demands on them. You say you trust her, yet you are clearly worried enough to post here.

Her past is her past, as others have said. She is with you now. It would be sad if both your reading of her emails and your susequent worries over her past drives her away.

Me and my ex didn't have the best of relationships (he was very possessive) but one thing I did appreciate was when he told me he found a friend of ours attractive. He would NEVER have acted upon it and assured me so, but I found his honesty very refreshing. Allowing someone space to be who they are is very lovable. Obviously there are boundaries - but finding people attractive is a fact of life, in relationship or else.

I feel that you perhaps need to look at what drove you to read your girlfriend's emails and consider what is in the past and what is now. The more suspicious you become the more a wedge is being driven between you.

Thank you for considering my post and not getting offended. I always say it as I see it, but try to deliver it gently lol. Since this guy was honest with her and severed the sexual side because he was involved, then I don't think you need to worry. I wonder if he's interested in just being friends only, since they're each involved with other people. The fact he cut off the sexual side due to his involvement shows he has morals. Its seems they manage to turn that part on and off depending on their availability, but neither of them wants a long term relationship. I think its safe to assume, if you're both making each other happy everything should be fine.

I'm sorry you found what you did, that would eat me up inside.

Her past aside, if you guys have been together 6 months, maybe it's time to talk about your sexual past, at least for your own safety. With the two of them sleeping together in between relationships, that could potentially be a lot of stds and such floating around between all of you. Ick. And maybe there isn't, but you NEVER know, especially when this has been going on a few years.

I also agree that i don't think he took advantage of her or treated her like a prostitute. She made a conscious choice to continue having this thing with him over time. She made a choice to travel to see him, and no one forced her to have cyber sex with him. In my opinion, the chances that she doesn't have feelings for him are pretty slim— like someone else mentioned, many women who think they can handle f-buddies in reality can't, and I've never known a woman to travel to another state JUST for sex. I think that's crap. I have a hard time believing she doesn't harbor any feeling for him at all. The reason i would be cautious of that is because if there is something, on her end for the f-buddy, 6 months ago isn't all that long ago and things are still very fresh.

If you have a conversation about your sexual past, and she fails to mention this guy, I would be very concerned, because then she's legitimately hiding something, for some reason unknown to us. And if she's not ashamed about it for any reason and there's nothing to hide, I see no reason why she wouldn't tell you. If she doesn't mention it, you may shoot yourself in the foot in doing it, but maybe then is the time to tell her the truth, that you know about her f-buddy and (calmly) ask her why she didn't tell you about it... Maybe two wrongs will cancel each other out and make a right, and you'll both feel stupid for lying and snooping, and it will put you both in a new place to be honest with each other to start fresh. Or maybe she'll be pissed and you will break up :\

I'm not sure what other way you can extract the truth out of her without continuing to snoop, other than this. It is a bit of game playing, but on the other hand, I would feel really grossed out knowing the person I'm with could possibly be passing something around to me and didn't care to tell me there was a potential risk to me. As my friend Dr. Phil says, people with nothing to hide- hide nothing. But this shouldn't be tit-for-tat. Just because you found out about this, doesn't give you the right to snoop. But I still think you deserve to have some answers because of the sexually-related risks.

Maybe you can sit down and say that you did something you shouldn't have, and you feel guilty about it, and ask her if there's anything she'd like to tell you about ________ (enter f-buddy chat name here). Maybe she'll just come forward about it all and will tell you the truth, and not even flinch and just say it never came up in convo. Maybe she'll say she has feelings for him. We can't predict anything, but you have to take that risk now that YOU have done something wrong,

Regardless, I think you need to come up with a plan of some sort. You can have all of this jumbling around in your head — it'll make you crazy!

Good luck!

I'm not sure what happened to my post, but I hope it shows up here soon :\

Curiosity killed the cat!

You have some good sound advice here to ponder. Your relationship to your GF is completely seperate from the relationship she had with this other guy. Your thinking that this other guy was using her like a prostitute isn't really fair because she did this willingly. She is only 30 and this guy was something different to her, something to learn about, think about in her mind. It wasn't a deep soulful relationship, it was just based mostly on physical and in that alone the sex is different, somewhat selfish in ways. Sometimes women are curious about this aspect of men, because to most women, sex is an act of love. I think that is just the way we are designed because our brains ARE a bit different. And she even gave a hint to that when she mentioned that one time when he didn't even talk to her afterwards and drover her home or to a plane etc. Men can have no problem doing and detaching, but women tend to need more than just that. Often they don't see how men can be so detached like that, it makes them curious. Your GF has learned something from that and may still wonder about how he can still be so detached perhaps not even jealous she is in a relationship as well because usually women do get jealous. Men can love a woman and often think nothing of cheating because they can think of the cheating as just a fix, no big deal and still love their wife. Ofcourse not all men are like this but a lot are. If anything she has learned that sex and love to men is different.

What I can say about that snooping is that because you LOVE her and there IS more than just the sex, you are troubled by her thoughts. If she was just satisfying your sexual needs it wouldn't be that important to you. Because you view him as just using her, that is interesting too because being a man that is how you would view it, because men CAN have sex just for sex without any love, the woman can mean nothing. So in that alone, you will not really know/understand what she is thinking because women and men are different.

She is looking at you with love, and is in a relationship and has told friends you are good to her. That should be enough for you to know. Drop this dilemma and stop tossing it around in your head. You are having a relationship and that is what you have to focus on and build on.

Open Eyes

Thank you very much for all the replies. Thank you!

I'm letting all the advice simmer and will probably decide how to approach - or not approach at all soon.

Most of you focused on her past bothering me. It did. But not as much as the reality that she's in touch with him.

I mean. 6 months... It's not a very long time, and for somehow if she still has feelings for someone else and she's hiding it from me, I should reconsider this relationship.

I would understand and give time to someone who just broke up and trying to get over a long-term ex.

But I just can't accept if I'm her "man" on the paper but she's secretly still thinking about a random guy who just slept with her in and out for 5 years - not even wined and dined once.

Sorry for being old-fashioned.

Why isn't it "she used him as her cheap gigolo"? And I would not base my relationship on a bug in chat blocking software. Find someone else, and don't sleep with her until your wedding night.

I have to be honest.. I stopped reading after a couple posts. But what caught my eye was that you said that she didn't stop -- that she kept going back to him. But guess what, she did stop. She made the statement that she was in fact stopping the f-buddy routine. And then she found you. So you cannot go and say that she hasn't stopped or broken this "habit" because she has, as far as you are concerned.

Next point. If and when you break up? Seriously? If that's already in your mind, set the poor girl free to find someone to really love and care about her and forgive her imperfections, cause everyone has them, even you.

Sorry, i had to say those things, they were distracting me. Now i"m going to go finish reading it. I'm sorry if someone already pointed these out or if I missed some major development because I rushed to the end.. I'm going back now to read it all, I promise.

I don't see it as being old-fashioned, wanting to control what another may/may not be thinking. If you cannot get around her thinking of others beside you, enjoying Brad Pitt's body :-) or whatever, then I would break it off with her and try to find someone without a past of any sort. But don't "remember" her when you are with your next girlfriend? Good luck!

I came clean. Asked about everything. I'll list things as bullets since it would be so much to write.

Before I told her that I'd been reading her emails, I asked abt her ex BFs.

While counting them, she mentioned his name as a "8 month, not serious relationship".

They never dated. It was sex for him from day 1, it was feelings for her from day 1.

She did not mention they were f-buddies and she slept with him in an out for 5 years, last being summer 2011, right before meeting me.

Still not a word about emails, I asked if she's in touch with any of them. She said no. I asked again, no contact again? She said no.

I asked her to tell me abt Mr. X

She said what do you want to know?

I said, whatever I should know.

No, ask questions.

If there's something I should know about him for the sake of our relationship, I would like you to tell me.

No I wont.

Here I confessed reading her emails. I apologized profoundly and said I wasn't proud of it, I regretted it so much but it happened and I couldn't un-see what I read. I said I violated her privacy but I hadn't been comfortable with that, so I wanted to come clean.

She didn't look so mad. She asked what I read.

I said everything from emails to chat logs.

She said she's completely over him.

I asked why she's been blocking / unblocking him for the past week.

She said she was not doing anything.

I said I wasn't a fool.

She said she didn't know why she was doing it.

Do you still have feelings for him?

No.

I can't judge you for your past. You did whatever you thought was right. We all make mistakes, or thing that we aren't proud of. I saw those emails 2 months ago but I've still been with you, instead of judging you by your past. I have no problems with your past, but when you extend someone from your past into our relationship, I have to weigh in and say what's going on.

After all talk, she doesn't have an answer why she's still keeping him in her contact list. She just says that they don't talk and she has no feelings for him.

She has no answer to why she's been blocking - unblocking him for the past week, and she can't give me a reason to do that.

She said we're most likely through.

I asked her to tell me a reason as to why we end this relationship. Is it because I read her email, or is it because she has feelings for him and now I know about it.

She doesn't know why. She's upset because I read her email and she says "how can I trust you now".

My answer is; well, I came clean, I didn't have to. That's the only thing I've done wrong past 6 months. You can change your password, put password to your computers, ask me not to use them, I won't touch them. That's the remedy for your email security. I'm not telling you that you should do this, but this can be done. What about me? How can you assure me that you're not over this guy? You lied to me about him, and you can't give me a straight answer about why you're still fiddling with him.

She doesn't have an answer for me.

I left her place at night and spent the night at my place.

She removed me from her FB and other social media stuff.

This morning she emailed me to go and pick up my stuff.

I went there, took her coffee and told her that I wasn't mad, I was just disappointed.

We spoke more. Told her that the only single problem is her keeping him on her chat list.

Asked her if he's still in her list. She said yes. I asked if she has deleted me since he took me off her FB. She said she did.

So I'm off her chat list, he's still there.

I said "this thing is costing you a relationship that you considered serious". And yet I'm still the one got removed.

She has no explanation. She says she was pissed.

I told her that she's on the wrong way. This is costing her a relationship and I hope it won't cost more.

I also said "It's not normal for someone who talks about future, kids, where to live, what kind of house to buy etc, but at the same time have a situation like this going on".

I'm not sure if she understood.

I took my stuff and left her place.

Although she says she doesn't have anything for him, she has no explanation for what she's been doing.

I told her "he was man enough to tell you that he's involved with someone and he doesn't want you to contact him". You did not do the same. You had the chance to. On top of that, I asked you to cut anyone off. You did not.

She defended him by saying "yeah but then he wrote me".

I said "Well, we all know why he wrote you. he was out of the relationship, he needed relaxation".

At some point, she also said "he always got the best of me, I liked him a lot, I wanted to tell him that I was in a relationship and I was happy".

But she had chances to say it. She did not.

I asked her "as a woman, how can somebody go and sleep with a man who clearly tells her that he's not into her but he would do her"... For 5 years in and out.

She said, just like how men pick up girls at a bar.

Well, men pick up girls at a bar based on sexuality. Man knows what will happen that night, woman know what will happen that night. They sleep, in the morning they don't know each other. If they're lucky, they meet a couple of times more and that's it. In some cases, it may turn into a relationship, but if it doesn't they usually go separate ways.

In her case, the guy wasn't into her at all. He wanted sex. She liked him and slept with him.

I asked how she can go back and have feelings for him, after she put 2 serious relationships in between. Since her emails clearly stated that she still has feelings for him. I mean, cmon. You have feelings, fine. But you put a 2-year relationship in between...Obviously you have feelings for that guy too, otherwise you wouldn't spend 2 years with him. After that, how can you go back and have feelings for this guy again? I'm not getting this part. The only explanation is "he was always there and he'll always be".

So this is my weekend.

I'm disappointed rather than sad.

Everything's fresh now and I don't really know if this is the best for us. Time will tell.

Thank you for all the responses.

Kudos for coming clean! If you kept that bottled up inside it was going to be the doom of the relationship anyway, one way or another, and would've eventually grown into some nasty emotional cancer for you. I think it's always best to air these things and let the chips fall where they may - others may disagree.

I am so sorry that a seemingly happy, positive relationship has ended on such a note - but based on her responses after the truth came out, I suspect that "the other guy" would have eventually become an issue in your relationship even if you hadn't even read those emails.

Ultimately, there are some good things to come out of this:
1. You have learned a valuable lesson about reading your significant other's private email - unless you have prior reason to suspect infidelity or dishonesty and are just looking for ammo, then it is always best to let private things be private, and if you need to peer inside that world it should be with her consent and preferably after great soul-searching as to "why" you feel the need to go there.
2. You have forced her to face something that does not (to me anyway) seem like a healthy facet of her life, nor something she seems particularly willing to explore in terms of the "whys" and the potential repercussions. Everybody has skeletons in their closet of one size and shape or another, and generally they are harmless. But when you have a skeleton in their and you don't know why, and you can't explain why you continue to keep it in there, I think that there are deeper, related issues that need to be explored and addressed or that skeleton has the potential to become an infectious agent, something that will get bigger, uglier and more damaging over time. It is good that she is being forced to evaluate that relationship and what it means to her - right now she's pissed about the invasion of privacy, probably embarrassed and clearly confused. You are the one who is getting the brunt of that, not only because you instigated it, but because you are an easy target for other things going on in her head that she is unable to process.

My hope is that she can evaluate both relationships, figure out what exactly the other guy means to her and why, come clean to you with all of that, and the resulting release of all of that tension and confusion will make it possible for both of you to evaluate *your* relationship on its merits, with both of your serious transgressions out in the open and decide if you have a future with everything actually out on the table this time.

Good luck man, I had knots in my stomach reading your initial post. It sucks to screw up what seems like a relationship with "the one" by being nosey, but let's face it - there were clearly issues on both sides (her not being totally honest with you or even herself about this other guy, and for you...i think there are trust and control issues...not to some abusive level, but the seeds are definitely there) that if not addressed would have eventually raised their ugly heads in one way or another. Better to go through the pain of exposing these things at 6-months in rather than having them slowly erode things after you're married and have kids, right? And at this point, if there really WAS something there, you have the opportunity to salvage it if you can both put this incident and all it represents in its' place.

This seems like such a shame as she basically came clean about most of the stuff that you'd found (just not that he was still on her chat list or why she was blocking/unblocking him). I just don't know that "all honesty, all the time" is always the way to go. I love my boyfriend, and I don't want to be with anyone else. But, do I ever have sexual fantasies that involve anyone other than him? Yep, sure do. Would this hurt him if he knew this. Yep, I'm sure it would. Does this stop me from ever thinking about anyone else? Nope, because I don't really think it's wrong and it doesn't change how I feel about him. I'd never cheat on him, and I only want to be with him. But, why would I go out of my way to "share" this information with him? I also don't tell him that I pick my nose and sometimes want to punch people on the street when they yell at their children. Do I think my boyfriend ever fantasizes about other women? Yep. Would this hurt me if he ever told me about it? Yep. Am okay that he doesn't share this with me then? Double yep.

^^^^ Great post.

I have a lot of trouble with all of this... I feel like you don't feel like what you did was that bad compared to her relationship with this guy, so that you feel justified in your snooping. I also get the feeling that you have a "I'm right, you're wrong" attitude about the whole thing. What's more, you're coming clean was really just a mind game and not a very fair one. You put her in a lose lose situation. You knew before you even went into that conversation that you were going to break up. It didn't matter whether or not she told the whole truth or only things she felt comfortable sharing. I think she felt compelled to break up with you simply to take back the control over her life that she lost when you went on your digging expedition. Personally, I think you're the one that threw this relationship away because of your insecurities and your desire to have control over her body and mind and your inability to accept her past which, by the way, made her into who you fell in love with.

I'm not trying to paint this woman as a saint. She did have an unhealthy relationship with this guy, and could probably use a little therapy to help her figure out what was causing her to accept that behavior from him. But you seem to be looking down and judging her, and not giving her a chance to prove that she deserves and wants better than that. You really didn't try to have a honest, calm, non-confrontational conversation with her; you attacked her about something from her past. Of course there are things she could have done differently, but those were her choices to make, not yours to force upon her.

I'm sorry if I"m coming off harsh. I just have a lot of trouble with the way you treated her and the situation. I'm sorry. I really hope that you are able to really take a look at your part in all of this, honestly and truly, and don't just brush this off as all on her.

I agree with Roman here. It seems like you knew that what you found out when you read the emails was going to determine the direction of the relationship. I also think that you blew the block/unblock thing out of proportion (sorry for harsh/possibly judgmental choice of words). We have all (myself included) been a little neurotic over social media or some other internet source, but the fact that you got so carried away over the "meaning" of his name on her gmail list was a little concerning. I guess this relationship wasn't meant to be if it couldn't make it through an issue of a man's name appearing on a chat list. The take away lesson from this, from everyone else reading this, is don't snoop on your partner's email/facebook/phone.

Maybe you should just count your blessings you're out. This woman might treat every man as Mr Right Now. Who knows if she will ever find her Mr Right? Is she even looking? The way she keeps saying, "It's what MEN do." She may not have the ability to commit. You are right, she is "wrong" in dumping a better bet, but it's not up to you to fix her or tell her how to be happy, and that might be the more important question here. Did you have a parent you had to cheer up or take care of somehow? Why is it so important that she accept YOUR view of what is right? This is care-taking behavior, not adult to adult. I FINALLY figured out that I was insulting my partners by telling them I could help them by loving them.

Your GF obviously has some sort of feelings for this guy to keep him around. It's better you found out now then a year or two down the road. I know it hurts bad but sadly it needed to come out. Take it from me I've been cheated on and my GF at the time got pregnant in the process but man am I ever glad I had a friend tail her for a few days and brought me the dreadful news/evidence that she was cheating. ( I had reasonable grounds to "spy") I'm not controlling or anything like that trust me I'm very trusting but it was a last resort for me in order to move forward. When I confronted her about the other guy she was more angry because she got caught and in fact broke up with me before I had a chance to dump her weird eh? If you cannot be open and honest with your partner then what's the point?