I think you’re overreacting. Until you let her know this is bothering you and get her reaction, yo have nothing more here then that she is having conversations with a friend. It sounds to me like she’s lonely and working that out by talking to someone from home.
She may not even realize you’re feeling neglected. Or she may be cheating. There’s no way to know at this point.
Jesus, what a crock. She’s going out for private, three hour calls in the wee hours because she’s lonely? My fat ass. “Friend,” my ass.
Yeah, and if that is the case: it’s those lonely, needy girls that get fucked by their man friends who pretend to be nothing more than a helpful ear. Before long, they’re a helpful cock, too.
“Whenever there is any doubt, there is no doubt. That’s the first thing they teach you.” – “Sam”, Ronin
Stranger
Yes, but, as SP2263 succinctly explained, sometimes you just need that smoking gun.
Shoot first and ask questions later isn’t a good idea for cops or relationships.
A honest question to all the anti-snoopers, what is it that one typically tries to keep secret from a SO or spouse anyways?
I mean, my wife and I already share email/networking passwords - mostly out of convenience for those times the other calls and asks for something to be looked up. We also often leave our accounts open on the computer at home.
I just don’t really have any secrets from her, and I don’t really care if my wife reads my letters/messages/emails since I’ve already told her everything of interest anyways.
Ah, “If you don’t have anything to hide…”
You don’t though. If you think your SO could/would cheat on you your relationship is already over. If you can’t believe them when they say they have to work late that will cause more problems than the relationship is worth. I have broken up with men before because I just didn’t trust them. Whether or not they deserved to be trusted I will never know but even if they did nothing wrong I still was not in a frame of mind that allowed me to be able to be with them because for some reason I didn’t believe them when they told me things or trust them when they were out with their friends. It isn’t fair to me to be with a man I can’t trust and it isn’t fair to a man I’m with if I act like a psycho hose-beast every time he goes out with his friends. It didn’t matter if they did something wrong or not because I obviously wasn’t happy and we both deserved better than that. My snooping for information to prove that I was right would have just made me more of a psycho hose-beast.
My girlfriend and I sat down and talked last night right after I got home from work. I calmly and plainly explained to her why her recent behavior with this guy was bothering me, and she didn’t get defensive or deny anything. She admitted that, if situations were reversed, she would feel the same way. I told her that I believe her when she says that this guy is “just a friend” to her (and I do), but that I have no reason to believe he feels the same way about her–I know how beautiful, funny, and awesome she is, and if I were in the other guy’s place I know I’d want to be more than her friend.
This is what it comes down to: she’s lonely because she doesn’t know anyone out here yet, and she’s having trouble meeting people because she hasn’t had any luck finding a job so far. With my job paying the rent, buying the groceries, etc, she feels guilty for not being able to contribute (which I understand, even though I’ve told her many times that I don’t hold this against her in any way). Basically, she’s just not happy in California at the moment, and she feels like this other guy’s friendship is the only new thing in her life that she’s accomplished on her own.
We talked about some things she could do to get out of the house and meet people while she’s still looking for work–volunteering, etc–and she seemed receptive to the idea. She promised me she’d look into it today while I’m at work. I think she’ll feel a lot better if she can just get out there and do some things on her own.
So, all in all, it was a really good talk. We both got a lot of stuff off of our chests. She’s agreed to cut back her time talking to this guy, and I’m going to make more of an effort to spend time with her while I am at home. I’m hopeful that things will improve a lot once she can feel like she has more of a stake in our life in California.
Jeez, is there anything you DON’T know?
Good luck, Neo.
I don’t keep secrets from my husband either, but that doesn’t mean I’m not entitled to my own private life. I write fiction he never sees, talk to people in conversations he never hears, and have friends he’s never met.
My private mental space is essential to my well-being. Anyone who violated my sense of privacy would be on my shit list fast.
If I teach my kids nothing else, it’s going to be “Go with your guts, you don’t need a reason to leave someone.” A cheater may or may not leave evidence for the snoop to find. And even if a perfectly trustworthy person gives you “The Ick” there’s something wrong with you if you convince yourself to live in doubt.
I don’t have anything to hide from anyone. It’s the principle of the thing, for me. If a boyfriend is going behind my back, stealing my passwords, opening up my files and emails to find dirt, they are doing that because they think I’m a liar who can not be trusted to tell the truth.
I can’t imagine myself doing anything that would make someone that suspicious, so perhaps this is another reason why I’m not pro-snoop, I dunno. It just seems like if you’re at the point of hacking into someone’s computer, that ship has already sailed. The trust is gone.
I don’t try to “keep secret” from my girlfriend the details of what goes on with me every day at work. However, if there was something I wasn’t telling her, I’d feel a lot more comfortable about our relationship if she simply asked me what she wanted to know rather than going through my work email. The same applies to my personal life.
If we want to know something, we ask. If we don’t feel comfortable asking, then we have some sort of problem already. I’m not going to establish a partnership with someone I don’t trust, and I’m not going to maintain a partnership with someone if I lose that trust. The devil is NOT in the details, in this case.
That’s right, I agree with olivesmarch4th.
If one feels justified in snooping, there’s a problem. And if you think the problem justifies snoopy, then you are the problem.
In other words if there’s good reason to mistrust, the problem already exists… and certainly isn’t going to be solved by violating the other person’s space.
This is going to be a red flag going forward. She has shown poor judgement with this friendship while she is in a relationship with you. This type of behavior is just not compatible with being in a long-term relationship. At some point her conscience should have stepped in and put a stop to it. That didn’t happen. So you have to be aware that she is likely to form inappropriate emotional or physical bonds with people outside your relationship.
You need to take a hard look at your relationship to decide if the good points outweigh the bad. Is she so great that it’s worth always wondering who’s she’s emailing, talking on the phone, seeing at the gym, etc? It could be that your talk was the wakeup call she needed and she’ll never do it again. Regardless, she’s the type of person who will need to take steps to make sure she never crosses the line.
I just want to know if you discussed the late night three hour call, and if so, if you are satisfied with her answer on that.
But did you guys talk at all about the fact she feels the need to have these conversations out of earshot? To me, that’s the biggest problem - not that she’s spending time talking to another guy (we all need time with others) but that she specifically needs to keep those conversations secret.
I agree with filmore’s well written post #117.