Hi everyone, I'm a long time lurker, but very rarely post.
I'm after some advice... here's the story (I'll try not to leave out any details that might be relevant):
I broke up with my ex boyfriend in April last year, after 2 years of trying to make a long distance relationship (London - Lake District) work, I realised that actually he just wasn't into me that much and i spent a lot of the time feeling let down and rejected.
Not long after, I met my current boyfriend. Things moved pretty quickly, he made me so happy, seemed to make so much more effort than my ex, and we spent our time having loads of fun together. A couple of months in, he went on a lads holiday to Croatia, at the same time that I was going to a festival. It was at this point that we had 'the chat' and said that we definitely wouldn't get with anyone else while we were away, because that we wanted to become 'official'. All good, or so I thought.
After he got back it was my birthday and he'd planned an amazing day full of surprises and generally made me feel really loved and special. I should say that although this was lovely, it definitely wasn't out of character because he's always doing really nice, thoughtful things for me.
Fast forward to now. His dad died after a short illness on Friday last week, this comes after his mum dying 2 years ago, leaving him and his brother (both in their mid twenties) without any family - no extended family whatsoever. Obviously this has been a really bloody difficult time.
I went round last night to cook them both dinner and just hang out watching tv etc. He told me that his ex had sent him a message asking if he could try and describe what it was like to be in a relationship with someone with depression (she suffers quite badly, and I think it's one of the main reasons they broke up) because she's trying to understand what she can to to try and make a relationship work (not with him, just in general) he said he'd replied with a nice but hopefully helpful answer and that she'd replied to say thanks.
Now this is the bit I feel guilty about. When I got home I remembered that he was still logged onto facebook on my laptop, so decided to read the messages. I'm not exactly sure why decided to do this, I suppose I wanted to see if he'd told me everything about the conversation. And also probably because I'm just really nosy.
I discovered that he'd deleted the messages, which instantly made me on high alert. I should point out that up until now I've never had any reason not to trust him, but am fairly insecure so do often worry about other girls, even though I'm pretty sure that I don't actually need to. I clicked on the 'other messages' bit which is where messages from people you aren't friends with go. There was an unread message from a girl, which was sent while he was on holiday last year. She said that she was really happy that she'd remembered his full name and had looked him up on Facebook as soon as he'd got home. Then another message the next day asking whether he'd got home ok. And then a final message saying that she can't believe that he'd blocked her from adding him as a friend. I felt sick, my instant reaction was that something must have happened for her to have sent messages like that (and for him to have blocked her friendship request).
I then spent the next couple of hours texting him about it. He told me that he walked her home after a party because she was really drunk. They'd got talking and kissed. He swears that nothing more happened and I believe him.
What do I do now? My head is completely spinning. It's making me doubt everything.
He was really apologetic said that he knows he should have told me at the time, but that honestly it meant nothing and that he knew that I'd probably just break up with him straight away if he'd told me (he's right). He said he knows there's nothing he can say that will make it any better, but that he knows that her being drunk wasn't an excuse and that he really hopes we can get past this because I mean so much to him. He also said that he is going to make a real effort with me because whilst things have still been great with us, I think we're both guilty of not making the same effort as we used to, and he knows that that upsets me.
Please help me work out what to do next..
I just don't know if I can trust him. He promises that he's not been with anyone else while we've been together and I believe him. But how can he have done that to me? Surely if you were in love with your girlfriend you wouldn't want to kiss anyone else, no matter how drunk you are?
(Really sorry this is so long, if you got to the end, well done! I just wanted to try and give the full picture)