'AITA for snooping and losing trust in my GF after what I found?' UPDATED
"AITA for snooping and losing trust in my GF after what I found?"
My GF (26F) and I (30M) have been together for 7 years. Up until about 6 months ago the relationship was great. Few argument, lots of love. But we had one issue that grew into a massive battle, which was my wishes to move to my home country for economic and happiness reasons. To do this we would have to be married. She wanted to stay to be closer to her family (which I understand).
After many discussions we almost reached a break up point, where she said she wasn't sure she wanted to be with me anymore because I was unhappy in our current country. She became very cold very quickly, and I became suspicious that it was not the country that was an issue but maybe someone else had entered her life.
I asked her point blank but she denied it. Things became so weird between us and so my suspicions grew. To be transparent, I did not believe her and began habitually snooping for the first time in our 7 year relationship (and I'm not proud of this, but at least once a day for approx 1 month).
As I say I am not proud of this but, we do not usually go on each others phones and like I have stated, this was the very first time in our entire 7 year relationship I have once gone digging. Sadly, I found some pretty gut wrenching things (at least in my opinion), detailed below:
1. A voice note to her best friend explaining how she felt like she was recently on a date with her boss and she felt guilty.
2. Multiple chats with ex partners, mostly benign but was unable to have a good read due to limited time.
3. Found she was habitually liking her exes pictures on insta (not ones of family or landscapes, there were straight up selfies etc).
After finding the voice note to her friend, I decided to confront her about it and said she should come home from work early (but I lied saying a friend of mine saw them - but it was actually found thru snooping).
On her way home, she deleted the voice note and offered me her phone AFTER the voice note was deleted (I declined access to her phone at this point, I don't know why).
She explained it was a drink with her boss (whom she knew I was suspicious of) as her train home from work was late. Not a date. Plausible but still weird it was described "like a date". I had previously expressed some concern about this boss as she took a very late night ride with him after a work evening once which I didn't feel comfortable with. He is of similar age to me.
Eventually I decided to come clean about snooping and told her I found that she was liking pics of exes and had messages between them. However, she refuted and explained there were no messages, it turns out she had deleted the messages entirely after she suspected I MAY want to go on her phone/snoop.
I told her that I knew they existed before but she had deleted them and she caved saying "I didn't want you to misinterpret them." I couldn't read all of those messages so my trust took a big hit here. On the topic of liking exes' pictures, she said there was nothing in it. But the one that I really was hurt by was a like on this exe's selfie (which was posted on my birthday).
In her defence, I did ask her to immediately remove him from social media - which she did (but did so begrudgingly I must admit).
Lastly - I asked to see her snapchat FYES section, she agreed. At first my heart was warmed, as this appeared to be where she stored my "intimate" images. However, as I scrolled down she had a selfie of her and her exBF in there, taken 1 year into my relationship with her.
This was during a Christmas party (he worked at the same company at the time). The selfie was quite close, it looked like they were having a great time. I immediately went on the offensive and she looked like a deer in the headlights explaining it was just a selfie and nothing happened that night.
I queried why would you hide it then? She said she "knew it would upset me", so I said if you knew it would upset me why take the picture in the first place? She had no answer. IMO she knew this pic was out of line, hence why she hid it.
Her friends and family believe me to be taking this way out of proportion and that actually she didn't break my trust, but I broke her trust by snooping. My GF and her friends/family believe me to be in the wrong and she has done absolutely nothing wrong, even the selfie with her ex.
I'm sharing this now because I don't know really if I'm in the wrong for thinking that these incidents were wrong... I've felt like my feelings were invalid and that perhaps some couples are actually ok with these types of actions. Our situation at the moment is good though and we do seem to be moving forward but she is still unable to believe that I have lost trust in her.
"So AITA for losing trust in her over these incidents and snooping?"
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Here's what people had to say to OP:
"It appears that you discovered she is not as reliable as her iPhone passcode."
You discovered that she was emotionally cheating on you there’s no way around it. She was cheating on you. NTA
thelayman92 OP
I agree now that the blindfolds are off. Thank you for reviewing and your comment.
The best revenge is a life well lived. Move on, live well. Enjoy the company of trusted friends. Emotional Affairs are still affairs.
It sounds like she's keeping her options open with other men, just in case. Or she likes attention from a lot of other men. Neither is a very good look. NTA Not that it matters since it seems that you two have come to a parting point.
6 months later OP came back with this "major and final" update:
Firstly thank you all for your comments, I took everything on board that was said and now feel ready to put an update here. A lot has happened in these last six months and it's a weird feeling to be typing this out but I'm in such a better place mentally and actually have found solace in the last 2 months.
Shortly after posting, my (now ex) GF asked for some time apart and indicated that I needed to see a psychologist for the trust issues that I had as a result of what I had found.
Although some of the comments indicated that I was NTA for what had been found, I actually agreed with her and came to a conclusion that she was loyal and that I needed to seek help, which is what I did. My ex GF and I agreed to be exclusive during a 2-3 week break and I went ahead and received professional help.
I met with my ex GF once a week to discuss things and they were exceptionally emotional conversations, as you might expect after a 7 year relationship. Each time we met she indicated she wanted to break up and kept saying she wanted to "focus on herself" etc.
But I kept bringing her back and agreeing to give me more time to get the help I needed. However on the 3rd week of the break I went to my Dad's house so that she may return to our home so that she could have space from her parents.
She had been staying at her parents house and they had been pressuring her to remain in the relationship, to try and give her peace from that I decided to get out of our home so she could be alone there.
On the first night at my Dad's house I randomly received multiple voice notes from a somewhat mutual friend (more friend of her's than mine). They were voicenotes of a conversation between my exGF and her friend, there was a lot of content here. But to make things concise and relevant, I will just include a few snippets:
"The thought of XXXX (me) sleeping with another girl at his dad's house doesn't bother me, but the thought of XXXX (her boss) getting off with someone makes me jealous."
"I get jealous when I see XXXX (her boss) laughing with any other girl in the office."
"I can break up with XXXX (me) for 6 months and sleep with XXXX (my boss) and then get back with XXXX (me)."
I would include more but it would risk the anonymous tag. Basically, you probably get the gist. There were also multiple dates that she had with her boss that were mentioned that took place during our "exclusive" break.
I returned back to our home the next day and ended the relationship, sadly I could not mention our mutually exclusive friends name as I was asked not to and to be fair she did me a HUGE favour and thought I deserved to know the truth so I did not share it. My ex GF came up with a story of me planting bugs / cameras in the house and plotted a smear campaign. Thankfully it didn't work.
Fundamentally here are the takeaways...
Although she never physically cheated, it was going in that direction and I had lost her loyalty (I will never know why).
My gut feeling was right all along, and I say to anyone in a similar situation your gut instinct is VERY powerful.
Snooping is wrong, on any level, but I do not regret it. Which I understand seems a little hypocritical but without snooping I would never have found out the truth... It's of course better to snoop when you are given a reason to (and I now feel like I did).
End the relationship the moment you have lost your trust in the other person (and there are no strings attached). It would have saved me a lot of time, money and emotional energy.
I'm happy to answer any questions from this update but don't think any other updates will come.
Conversation with OP after the update:
Always trust your gut. Her and boss were a little too friendly OP. Now you can move back to your country knowing you tried to save the relationship, but she was not willing to make it work.
thelayman92 OP
Thank you for your comment. The ironic thing is I am not moving home (at least not yet...) due to a promotion at work. Financially right now I'm best where I am.
Hit the gym mate. Get f&^%$%g shredded. You might not need closure but it's so good for the mind, you'll get more attractive partners, and if you're a petty bastard like me it will make it all the sweeter when you tell her to get f^%&*d later down the line.
Had a beautiful moment of catharsis with an ex after she made a fool out of me, I'd got into incredible shape (for me) and we crossed paths a few months after, she kept trying to get me to hook up and remember the good times but I was like NAH!
I have lost 25 lbs and been hitting the gym 6 days a week since. I am now in the best shape of my life so you have hit the nail on the head. I appreciate your comment and feedback.
That’s some peak gaslighting that you need therapy for having trust issues with her unfaithfulness. What a piece of work. This is not the behavior of somebody in a committed relationship that wants to be in one. Obviously NTA as I’m sure you’re aware now.
I am seeing a therapist and have been doing for the last 3 months. I will do the work I need to come out of it stronger and the pain is less and less as the days go by. Thank you for your kindness.