My DP left his phone at home this morning. His phone is always glued to him. ALWAYS. If he goes to do something he automatically puts it in his pocket, if he gets a bath he's on the internet on it. He charges it next to bed at night. I go on my phone a lot but it's always hanging about. It's never been an issue though, until I saw it this morning while he was at work. So I looked on it out of curiosity rather than to allay suspicions.
There was a long conversation on there with an ex work colleague. I knew they were still in touch but was surprised to see how often they messaged one another as she left the area and his work over a year ago. It was benign chat about life in general, TV, films etc. I scrolled back and it went back to last year on the run up to when she was leaving and I was surprised by how emotional some of the messages were from my DP. For context, my DP had an episode of depression and anxiety three years ago and I know he confided in his work colleague. This was good as he is quite antisocial and doesn't try to make friends with people, keeping them at arms length and it meant he had someone additional to me to offload to. I also think it helped ease him back into work as it isn't as scary if you have an ally there.
So some examples were:
'I had a lump in my throat when I heard you were leaving'
'I was disappointed that I said something so embarrassing to you and you couldn't even tell me this'
'why are we talking about this when we have so little time left :( :( :( :(' (this was after talking about something daft)
'another time, another place'
The ex work colleague has responded to these comments very neutral and said things like 'I know I'm going to miss you all / the team'. My instant reaction to reading this from my DP was that he felt very strongly about her and if she had returned these feelings then something would have happened (before she made the decision to leave).
But I'm also trying to be measured. I don't want to bring this up if basically he finally made a connection with someone, a friend, who without he felt work would be difficult (he still has dips and has to work hard to avoid his depression returning).
But 'another time another place'??? Has he messed up and said something you would say in a romantic scenario when he meant more...sure we'll catch up one day.
Also I don't know what the embarrassing thing is. This was said 2 years after he was off work with depression, any updates on his wellbeing won't have been considered embarrassing at this point. So what the hell did he say? Open up about his feelings for her?
I guess this is why you shouldn't check someone's phone out as I have questions where there were none before, and probing them further is likely to harm our relationship regardless of whether something untoward happened.
Can I have some reasoned and balanced responses please.