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female
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anonymous
writes: I'm embarassed to admit this, but I think my fiance busted me snooping on his computer this morning, and I'm feeling very regretful and nervous. If he did catch me, he pretended like he didn't (and I pretended nothing happened), we had a nice morning together before I had to leave for work, but I can't stop thinking about it. Should I 'fess up or let it slide? He feels very strongly about his privacy (as he has every right to), but it always leaves part of me wondering "What's he hiding?"A little background: A few months ago I discovered that he'd been visiting his rock star ex-girlfriend's web site, and when I asked him about it he lied to me. (That was a total accident -- I was legitimately using his computer, not snooping.) But that got me nervous and insecure, as every one of my past major relationships has been with a man who has hidden something from me (love letters to a co-worker, a drug addiction, etc.) and because I know that this ex was his big "one that got away" that he was hung up on for years and even cheated on his last girlfriend with a few years ago. So I started checking his Internet history every so often -- I just couldn't seem to help myself. In the past four months, he's been back to her site six more times (that I know of), as well as looked up info and saved pictures of a couple other exes. As far as I know he hasn't contacted any of them, but he's obviously thinking about them quite a bit, and our sex life has dropped off dramatically, which makes me wonder if he's regretting being with me.I feel horrible that I've done this, and that I can't seem to trust him despite other areas of our relationship being okay. I've done something that I know would really hurt him, and I don't know if it would be better to come clean (and in so doing be able to ask him about all the exes) or just quietly try to resist temptation and quit doing this. Obviously he believes in "what your partner doesn't know won't hurt them" since he checks in on his exes without telling me, but I feel so guilty, especially since I think he might know. If I tell him, I know it will end with some very hurt feelings all the way around and him trusting me even less than I trust him. I'm embarassed by my behavior, and want to stop, but I also want a fiance who isn't stuck on his exes and who really wants to be with me. Please advise!
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male
reader, Yos  +, writes (9 November 2006):
 I think you two need to talk about this. Tell him some of the things you said here:
- First tell him the fact that your sex life has dropped off dramatically is making you worried that something isn't right.
- Then tell him in every serious previous relationship your boyfriend hid something important from you. That means you naturally have a fear that he is hiding somthing. You aren't saying that he is, only that you get worried that he is because its happened to you before.
- Tell him you were on the computer and you (by accident) noticed he'd visited his ex girlfriends web site. Since then you've been worried about her and its been upsetting you.
Don't accuse him of anything. Stick to describing your feelings and what is going on with you. If you start accusing him (ie 'you keep visiting your ex's site') then he'll get defensive and the conversation will go badly.
But just those three points in that order should be fine. Then just see what he says. Ask him what is going on with him, how he feels about your relationship, how the rest of his life is going, and so on. You need to break out of the pattern where the two of you are hiding your feelings from each other.
It's a natural thing in a relationship for couples to ebb and flow in their intimacy with each other. But the path out is to share your feelings with each other openly and honestly, whilst being careful to not hurt the other person.
A
reader, anonymous, writes (8 November 2006): Sounds like you may have a problem on your hand. Since he didn't act like he caught you this morning, let sleeping dogs lie. Every woman gets bitten by the curiosity bug sooner or later in a long term relationship, especially when something is amiss, or there have been issues under the surface that concern you.
But it's a double-edged sword, once you start snooping, you may uncover something you can't deal with and then you have to figure out how to "sit on it" or fess up and run the chance of wrecking HIS trust in you, or the whole relationship. It's a slippery-slope. My advise: sit on it for awhile. Keep tabs on what's going on with the "ex". But I wouldn't confront him, unless you can make yourself look "innocent" in how you stumbled onto the information in the first place. If you tell him you snooped, he'll never trust you again AND he'll learn to cover his tracks so you won't be able to uncover anything in the future. Never a good thing. If you have suspicions, it's best to follow-up on them. That little voice in the back of your head may be telling you something. Besides, he may eventually get bored and stop viewing her site, then you can relax and let things return to normal. Best of luck.
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