Hi, I'm (30M) in need of some female perspective on a problem I have with my gf (30F) and thought here might be a good place.
Last night during a conversation it came out that I had recently contacted my most recent two exes (one I broke off 4 years ago the other 2 years ago). The initial purpose was to tell them that my Dad had passed away but there was some additional messaging along the lines of a general catch up. During the messaging with Ex1 there was a mention of meeting up. On the face of it I realise that sounds bad but we were saying how odd it was we hadn;t bumped into one another and her mum had passed away about 2 years ago so as morbid as it sounds it's nice to speak to people who have been through similar. With Ex2 she called me after the first text and the call ended being about 45 mins long.
My gf has taken a huge issue with the fact I even messaged them in the first place, but also the extra messages, talk of meeting up, a phone call and the fact I didn't tell her right away. This started 4 weeks ago and it only came out last night, I wasn't hiding it but I've just had a lot going on - I could have deleted messages, lied about it, I even showed her the messages so she could read them which then escalated into here going through my whole phone. She feels hurt that I went to them for comfort when I had her and she was doing everything she possibly could for me and she wants a reason why I've done it as she thinks there is more to it, and shes losing her cool, in tears telling me this.
Now I'm not trying to say I haven't done anything wrong. I should have told her right away. I've apologised many times and tried to explain why I messaged them, why at the time and under the circumstances I didn't think I was doing anything wrong. I was speaking with a lot of people, I took a lot of comfort in people messaging to say nice things about my dad and they were no exception. I think I also took some comfort from knowing they were doing ok, I don;t want to be with them but they were a part of my life at one point so I thin it's nice to know they're doing alright.
Now shes ignoring me, she wants me to do some deep self reflection and come up with why I needed to tell them and speak to them so then she can decide if the reason is something she can handle so we can move on. I should add her ex was caught exchanging flirty messages with a girl who lived in the US, I think he lied about it and it caused a lot of sh*t and according to her they never got the trust back. I don't condone that sort of behaviour but I always thought it was a bit harsh. But she keeps referencing this and I can only assume she is implying the trust is gone from our relationship.
I honestly think I would be ok with the reverse of this situation. I think shes taking it to extremes; stonewalling, questioning the trust, throwing all the nice things shes done for me since my dad passed back in my face, and saying she feels deceived, disrespected, worthless etc I'm also getting the feeling she really wants me to grovel and I just don't think it's proportional.
Any thoughts? I really want to move past this but I don't want to have beg her. It's not like I keep in regular contact with these people and thankfully my dad is only going to pass away once.