Looked on my partners phone... am I justified in being upset?

[RosieAnne123]

Firstly, I am not proud of myself at all for looking on my partners phone. I know it is a horrible thing to do and a complete breach of trust and privacy.

There has been a longstanding issue throughout mine and my partners relationship. My partner is friends with their ex "friend with benefits", naturally this has made me feel a bit weird and insecure at times as they stopped seeing eachother literally a month before we started dating, so I always felt their "relationship" was very fresh, and I felt worried. This is my problem and I know that.

I struggle with insecurity and paranoia because of a previous boyfriend cheating on me, and this is something I am in therapy for because it really really affected me.

My partner knows how important trust and honesty is to me. Because of my insecurities my partner has told "white lies" before about things pr tried to hide things because of not wanting to deal with my anxious reaction.

Whether this is right or wrong, I feel uncomfortable about my partner meeting up with his ex 1-1 right now. I want to get to a place I'm okay with it, but right now I am not. I am more than happy for my partner to see her in group settings.

I looked on my partners phone because I saw that she had text him. I know I shouldnt have but I did. The text was asking to meet up next weekend. I scrolled up in the conversation and I saw that they had met up just the 2 of them a few weeks ago. My partner said he was seeing her but as a group of friends. Never said just the 2 of them. I feel betrayed and lied to.

Ok. Enough.

If you were my daughter, I’d tell you that you were better than this.

1. He is (successfully) trying to bully you into never questioning him again. This gives him the ability to do whatever he likes without worry of you going nuts.

1. You are so infatuated with him that you are allowing him to do this. To be with him you will put up with behaviour you shouldn’t have to put up with.

1. You are likely going to stay with this man until you find out that he has in fact cheated on you. Because he’s not a faithful guy...he’s a liar and completely inconsiderate of your feelings. That’s what you do know about him.

I’m a millionaire ...see, saying it does not make it so.

1. Ask yourself, why? Why would he put himself in a position, where he is alone with a girl that he wasn’t dating, but would always end up having sex with? My guess is that this is not a happy relationship for him either and he is lining ‘sex on tap’ up again, before he leaves you.

So if you were my daughter I’d tell you to leave and find a man who actually loved you and wanted to be with just you.

If it was me in your position, there’s no way I’d have apologised to him! I’d have called him a lying, gaslighting, prick and told him to go back to his fuck buddy.

There are better men out there I promise you. Don’t leave it too late to go and get one.

Also I personally don’t get this ‘private phone space’ thing? Perhaps it’s my age, but DH uses my phone and I use his. I don’t deliberately go looking through his messages or photos etc, but if I want to/ have too, perhaps to forward a message from our son onto me, I can and do.
I can’t imagine us both having passwords and keeping the phones private, we are in a relationship together, what is there to keep private from each other?

He sounds horrible. I don’t think you’re overreacting to him lying about meeting up with this woman in a group when he knows you’re not comfortable with them meeting on their own. His responses to you after broaching the subject with him are truly awful and quite abusive. He’s bullying and gaslighting you. He doesn’t want to take responsibility for his actions, so he’s making out they’re your fault.

They’re not your fault, he’s responsible for his actions.

There’s no solving this, this is who he is. Just dump him - you’ll be happier without him continuing to mess with your head.

He just said to me that he is going out at 2, so he would appreciate if I talk to him about it before he goes. So now he is making me look like I'm being obstructive to talking, but our last conversation was him swearing at me, why would I want to talk to him when he is in this state of mind?

He told you that he hid it because 'things haven't been good with us'. In what way before all this were things not good? Also, have things been less good for a similar amount of time as he's been having 1-1 meets? He may well be using her as a fallback when things go a bit wrong in his relationships, she could be his plan B girl?

but if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck

Agreed.

@RosieAnne123

Not really a big thing about the cake, but I'm constantly questioning whether my feelings and reactions are justified or proportionate and I feel like I can't trust myself

It sounds like you are both feeling hurt by this situation, to be honest.

I really don't think this is your fault. This is actually quite a common scenario to read about on here. Boundaries in same sex friendships is a bit of a sore spot for a lot of couples.

I don't think either of you is going to apologise to the other. So you might need to try and both move on and agree to disagree.

@DBML

Ok. Enough.

If you were my daughter, I’d tell you that you were better than this.

1. He is (successfully) trying to bully you into never questioning him again. This gives him the ability to do whatever he likes without worry of you going nuts.

1. You are so infatuated with him that you are allowing him to do this. To be with him you will put up with behaviour you shouldn’t have to put up with.

1. You are likely going to stay with this man until you find out that he has in fact cheated on you. Because he’s not a faithful guy...he’s a liar and completely inconsiderate of your feelings. That’s what you do know about him.

I’m a millionaire ...see, saying it does not make it so.

1. Ask yourself, why? Why would he put himself in a position, where he is alone with a girl that he wasn’t dating, but would always end up having sex with? My guess is that this is not a happy relationship for him either and he is lining ‘sex on tap’ up again, before he leaves you.

So if you were my daughter I’d tell you to leave and find a man who actually loved you and wanted to be with just you.

If it was me in your position, there’s no way I’d have apologised to him! I’d have called him a lying, gaslighting, prick and told him to go back to his fuck buddy.

There are better men out there I promise you. Don’t leave it too late to go and get one.

Can you please just keep rereading this message until it goes in, best advice I've seen on this thread.

OP - he is vile.

He lied to you and has managed to convince you it is your fault. Take a look at gaslighting.

Also, go for a walk before he does and just get out and clear your head. Go out for a long time.

Is this the life you want for yourself? Better to find out now.

I dated a cheating twunt and it made me deeply insecure. I then dated a really nice guy and I told him about this and because he loves me he spent time making sure I felt secure. He evn spent time with his ex GF and I was ok about it as he went o extra lenghts to make sure I was ok and fel secure in his love for me. That's what someone who cares about you does - not turning their lies on to ou and shifting the blame.

Get out now - you have dodged a bullet.

Jesus Christ OP this screams cheat laying the groundwork to never be called out again.

I would look at someone's phone if my intuition spoke... Someone's 'privacy' VS. me being mugged off for the rest of my life?? No contest - only difference being I would have binned him off there and then.

Stop punishing yourself and raise your bar already!!!

This relationship doesn't have legs, OP. You have trust issues which means that no man that you get together with is ever going to start on a clean slate. You are going to hold those issues against every man who comes into your life and those issues are going to wreck every relationship that you're in. You need to leave this man and work on yourself and not get into a relationship until you can see each new relationship as something brand new and not tarnished by previous partners' behaviour. I am not blaming you at all- I think you deserve better than this prick- but your issues regarding trust aren't conducive to a happy relationship, and you need to work through these issues yourself rather than expecting future partners to change their behaviour in order to reassure you.

With regards to him...well he's an absolute twat and you deserve better than this. He may be cheating, he may not be. The fact remains that this woman is important enough in his life that he's prepared to upset his partner to meet her privately. He isn't going to stop seeing her 1:1, and he's prepared to upset you along the way if needs be. He's also lied to you and broken any trust that you could ever have in him. He's turned the situation around so that you now think you are solely to blame. He's told you your apology isn't good enough and you need to try harder which shows he's manipulative. He's not prepared to see the situation through your eyes at all which shows that he doesn't care at all about how you feel, and he's prepared to ignore your hurt feelings as long as he gets his way. He is showing himself to be a very unpleasant person. You will never regain trust in him because it wasn't there in the first place, and his behaviour means that the trust will never develop going forward.

Cut your losses now, move on and spend some time on your own working on yourself and your own issues. You deserve better than this.

I suspect many of these saying it’s all fine and dandy haven’t actually been put into this position or have a lot of casual relationships themselves — if you have long term commitments, financial commitments, and are most certainly truthful and monogamous yourself then finding out someone else doesn’t quite think the same and tells lies about it is often devastating.

I agree with a previous poster, plan something next Saturday for you both as a ‘surprise’ call his bluff as it could be lunch which you could cancel or a day out somewhere for a walk etc. If he’s on edge or really not wanting to go, I’d tell him I was done with it x

Why did he say 'this is your fault I have done this'? Done what exactly? How is it your fault he had to go for a walk with her? Or did something else happen that he wants to blame you for?

Dump him op. He's being a twat and you deserve better.

I’d be ‘jealous and paranoid’ too if my partner was sneaking around and meeting up with an old FWB behind my back. I would never meet up one on one with a man I had previously been having sex with, let alone if we had only been ‘group friends’.
His angry and entitled reaction is not reassuring.

I would never meet up one on one with a man I had previously been having sex with

Really? Never?
How about this scenario, which is from my life. I have a male friend, with whom I’ve been friends for almost 25 years. We’ve had sex twice in those 25 years, two nights that were a few years apart. He’s now married with children. I know his wife, and she’s now one of my friends. I meet him on his own sometimes, sometimes I meet him with her and sometimes it’s in a big group. What’s wrong with that?

Also I personally don’t get this ‘private phone space’ thing? Perhaps it’s my age, but DH uses my phone and I use his. I don’t deliberately go looking through his messages or photos etc, but if I want to/ have too, perhaps to forward a message from our son onto me, I can and do.
I can’t imagine us both having passwords and keeping the phones private, we are in a relationship together, what is there to keep private from each other?

Because not everyone wants/needs to share every thing with their partner. They are still independent beings.

And also because people use their phones to communicate with their family and friends, and those people deserve privacy.

And, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, if we had a woman posting that her husband wanted to know the passcode to her phone because she didn’t/shouldn’t need to keep anything private from him, imagine the responses here. Yet when a woman is making the demands, it’s ok, she deserves to know. Add in a man who not only wanted access to her phone, but one who wanted to dictate when/how/if she could see her friends, and wanted regular text updates while she was with said friend because he was ‘insecure’ and the MN bingo card of ‘red flag’, ‘communist parade’, ‘ducks in a row’ would be filled pretty quickly. But somehow, women get a pass on this behaviour here.

My ex had asked to meet me and have coffee weekends etc. I said no as it wasn’t fair on a girl he was ‘dating’ who he’s hidden from the world. I just said to him I’d hate that to have been me who it happened to x

You need to say to him:

• I discussed with you a boundary which was you not meeting X 1:1. You agreed to this.
• You then chose to lie and do it behind my back. Me looking at your phone was not right but doesn’t cancel out the fact that you were deceitful. You knowingly went against the thing you agreed to.
• You had the option to talk to me about it but chose not to communicate it and to behind my back instead.

If in your previous convos about it you didn’t blow up or shout, make demands etc and instead discussed it calmly then say that he has no reason to accuse you of making a huge deal because you didn’t before.

Tell him that because he’s betrayed your trust and is now refusing to take any responsibility and seems to think it’s ok to punish you for his actions; the relationship is over.

Then leave. This man is a fucking BOY, the giveaway is he’s leaping on something you’ve done that’s upset him to get out of what he has done. He still made those choices and did those actions, nothing you’ve done makes that suddenly not be true.

Eurgh, he's getting a real kick out of this, OP. He keeps wanting to talk about it as it strokes his ego, he likes you being apologetic and he enjoys being mad at you as it will grind you down.

Op this isn't your fault. He chose to lie to you because he had something to gain from the situation and he didn't want you knowing about it.

@LaGoulueRevenue

Eurgh, he's getting a real kick out of this, OP. He keeps wanting to talk about it as it strokes his ego, he likes you being apologetic and he enjoys being mad at you as it will grind you down.

I agree. And now he's strutted off out I expect, leaving you miserable.

Yep, the arrogance of it. 'I am going out but first I'd like to refresh your misery so it plays on your mind while I'm away from you'

OP,
Your last relationship was with a cheater.
You are in therapy for issues as a result.
You are with the guy a year and already living with him.

He sounds like a nasty piece of work and you shouldn't be in a relationship with these issues to resolve.

You moved in with him too quickly and now feel trapped.

Have you anywhere to go?
Have you family to support you.

Your relationship reads as toxic.

Get out of it and work on getting to a healthy place before you get involved with someone again.

He’s running rings around you OP. Irrespective of whether he lied about this girl because he thought you’d kick off or because he wants to shag her, this is not the right relationship for you.