A
female
age
41-50,
anonymous
writes:I have been with my boyfriend for over 2.5 years and we live together. There has been no change in his behaviour or mood towards me which would make me suspect anything is wrong. Just a few weeks ago, he was showing me an email from a family member via facebook and you can see the first line of all the emails that there is within the inbox. I noticed one from a woman and it read 'Oh (boyf's name) you say the sweetest things to me'. I did not say anything and he did not hide it and continued to show me the email from the family member. So, after some time ruminating about this email that I part saw and trying to justify it to no avail, my curiosity got the better of me and I logged into his account and read it.It turns out that this girl works at his old company and she had added him and contacted asking him if he had left. To summarise, it started off innocent enough and she started to get complimentary towards him with him returning the compliments. It increases in intensity and she finally asks if he has a girlfriend. He replies, "yes I do, however, if I was single I would ask you out". She then starts to sound completely crackers by emailing him "Oh I so wish you was single, I think I fell in love with you the first time I saw you at work. I so look forward to your emails and they get me through my horrible week...." He responds saying "I think you are beautiful and I will try and email when I can". Then all of a sudden he changes his password and I cannot read them anymore. He still comes home from work at normal time, he does not go out to see friends, he is not being secretive with his phone and there is no texting or random calls. I am still able to see his other email account and there is nothing untoward on there. This woman lives 60 miles away. I am checking the mileage on the car to see if he has driven to see her - he hasn't. If anything is to be noticed then it would be when he changed his password he was being extra nice to me. Probably due to the guilt I expect.I asked a couple of guy friends who tell me that, although not ideal he is just lapping up the extra attention this woman is giving him and that quite simply, some men like this and see no harm in it being that its online. Another friend told me to stop fretting as well. Obviously, bringing this up without some sort of indication of snooping on his account is going to be difficult and if he suspects me logging into his account will cause rows and problems. I am useless at arguing, I always end up crying. This is starting to bother me and I am trying to hide my emotions from him. I even thought of emailing the woman.Any advice would be appreciated.
View related questions:
at work, facebook, fell in love, has a girlfriend, text Reply to this Question
Share |
Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (21 June 2011): "The people who say to "talk it out" are assuming that he would tell the truth. Having been there, I will tell you that talking it out only helps if your partner is willing to tell you the truth. "
yep it's assuming and trusting your partner to tell you the truth because if he doesn't, then you really don't have any basis for a relationship anyway and best to know it now and not waste any more time with this guy.
playing games and sneaking around on each other...that's not a real relationship. If I feel that I have to be sneaking around checking up on my partner like a secret police, I don't want that kind of a relationship I would rather leave and find someone newer and better to start over. it doesn't feel good to be monitoring your partner, you'll always have anxiety even when you find nothing this time because you will never know about the next time. once you get into this habit it won't ever end.
and besides just because you don't find anything doesn't mean he's being 'good' and trustworthy rather it could mean he's being more sneaky and skilled at hiding things, like maybe he's created a new secret email account that you don't even know about. or maybe he's not driving anywhere but the other girl is driving to meet him. it can easily be a full time job monitoring your partner especially when you are also trying to hide the fact that you're doing it. this is an awful way to live. if he's not trustworthy I would want to know now and not waste any more time in this relationship.
A
female
reader, Sweet-thing +, writes (21 June 2011):
 I think you may need to confront him in order to get to the bottom of his little flirtateou email game but you must do so very carefully. Perhaps you could say that you happened to see it when he left it open one day but never said anything, but now it's bothering you quite a bit. Do not tell him all the other stuff you've been checking, like the mileage on his car, that will not serve you well. And you might arm yourself with some well written articles about how a harmless email can lead to other things until someone like your b/f, who obviously has trouble saying "No" to a woman, can get in over his head rather quickly in the hands of a pushy woman with a plan. He may enjoy the attention, but it is a form of on-line cheating and it does nothing to show respect to your relationship if he allows it to continue. He's only giving this woman more fuel to think she has a chance with him. There is rarely ever anything called "harmless flirting" unless both parties are happily married and not bored or secretly looking for more. Not only does he need to put a immediate stop to it, but you are going to have to trust him when he agrees to do so. And here's where it gets very sticky. You won't know for sure. But your mind will always wonder and you will be forced to continue checking the mileage on his car for awhile and watch for unaccounted hours in his schedule. You just can't tell him that you're watching these details. This sort of thing makes a man crazy, like they're on a short leash. So you will have to be discrete, but it's time to have a talk with him. Good luck!
...............................
A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (21 June 2011):
I just want to say that him changing his password may be a complete red herring here. I change all of my passwords regularly for security reasons. How did you know his password to begin with?
I would ask him about his relationship with this woman. The problem is, of course, if he lies. The people who say to "talk it out" are assuming that he would tell the truth. Having been there, I will tell you that talking it out only helps if your partner is willing to tell you the truth.
I would watch him like a hawk and if he starts to get pissy about it TOO BAD.
...............................
A
female
reader, angelDlite +, writes (20 June 2011):
 why has he changed his password? could be that he knows or at least suspects you of snooping already. this isn't going to go away now that you know. even if he is not mailing her anymore, the trust is unravelling. you may as well tell him what you have seen and what you went in and read. check his reaction. whether anything is going on between them or not his mails to her were very inappropriate, also not fair on her as he has led her on coz she is single and sounds very lonely and desperate
x
...............................
A
female
reader, chocoholicforever  +, writes (20 June 2011):
I don't think there's any way to know what's going on with this woman unless you ask him. Even then, he may lie, or he may not. If it's truly innocent he should have no problems telling you the truth and being open about it. If it's not innocent then this would be an opportunity to expose serious relationship problems that need to be exposed and thereby work through them and hopefully strengthen and improve your relationship.
Snooping on him will probably drive you crazy and may not produce accurate information anyway. If you're paranoid to begin with, you may see things that are not there. And if he knows you're snooping - and him suddenly changing passwords is an indicator he may suspect - it only drives the wedge further between you by breaking down trust both ways.
therefore, since you obviously have a huge problem with his e-mails to the other woman, you should bring it out into the open, and the sooner the better. If it's harmless then there's nothing to fear. If it's not harmless, then you should expose the problem so it can be dealt with directly one way or another.
However, realize that it was wrong of you to go into his e-mail. Finding the troubling evidence does not give you the right to have invaded his privacy in the first place. You should have instead asked him about it at the time, not go behind his back to dig into his personal accounts without his knowledge. Have there been previous times when you've done stuff like this (invaded his privacy)..? if so, then the relationship could be weakened already by betrayals of trust like this, leading him in turn to feel less loyalty toward your trust.
And no, don't e-mail the other woman. You don't own your boyfriend, and he's not a child and you're not his parent, so you don't have a right to take matters into your own hands and drive people out of his life whom he has made the decision to allow into his life, and who are not hurting him but because it's hurting you. If this is really not OK with you then he should be the one ending contact with the other woman, not you doing it for him. If he's allowing and encouraging e-mails like this to occur, that's actually saying something important about him and/or your relationship and you e-mailing the other woman on your own doesn't change that.
so if you expect him to come clean about what's going on with this other woman, then you need to come clean to him that you've been hacking into his e-mail.
...............................
A
reader, anonymous, writes (20 June 2011): If I seen this on my boyfriend's email, he would be gone. I would tell him ok, now you can ask her out because you are single. He is doing more than flirting. ok, seriously the woman said she fell in love with him the first time she saw him. that is way too far. your boyfriend's response of "if i was single I would as you out", is too far. If he wasn't entertaining the idea, then once she mentioned love, he would have shut it down or let it die out. he wouldn't have encouraged it. i would be concerned with this. Why would he get mad if he knew you logged onto his email account? having private email accounts in a serious relationship is usually a danger zone. if you can't do it in front of your partner, then that is a sign you shouldn't be doing it. which is worse? the fact that you checked out his account? or the fact that he is having an online relationship with a woman he knows. so I don't know if i would be so worried about him being upset at this point as he has crossed many more boundaries than you have. when someone suspects something they are gonna usually check it out. Why is he so private with his email accounts?
...............................
A
female
reader, Fate100percent +, writes (20 June 2011):
He is going to be annoyed if you say you logged into his account! Can you say he left it open one time and you read it by accident or something? I think you will just explode if you don't say something! He might re-think this emailing if he knows you are upset by it?The guys you spoke to, are they your guy friends or his, it's not clear?I think it is probably just a bit of innocent on-line flirting to be honest. Everyone likes to know they 'still got it'! The password thing is a bit dodgy though. Maybe your actions made him suspect you've logged into his account? Or maybe he has just had trouble with his account and randomly changes it? I have fb 'friends' that are married, who still flirt a bit on an email (though I just laugh it off) and it's not all the time they email me, only occassionally!) But in my case it is just banter. They/I would never act on anything of course.I did lol at the checking of the mileage!! Very clever!! It seems everything else is normal, coming home on time, not hiding his text, receiving dodgy calls etc though.Maybe you could just do something spontaneous for you both, book him time of work and book a weekend away somewhere as a surprise? (Just to spice things up, as you have been together a long time, and it can get monotonous). I do think it's just a bit of flirting though, and perhaps you could ask him how he would feel if it was the other way around...?(After you tell him he left his account open and you looked by accident of course...!!! ;-)
...............................
A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (20 June 2011): I agree with Drew21.Whatever relationship he has with this woman obviously isn't physical yet, but like any appetite whetting it only makes it stronger. Your boyfriend gave this woman hope when he told her he'd ask her out if he were single. He nurtured that hope when he responded favourably to her affection. She is actively pursuing your boyfriend and he isn't stopping her. Now he's protected his channel of communication with her from you.His male friends are protecting him. I can't imagine any of them being ok with their girlfriend acting this way with some other man.You cannot fester in silence pretending you don't know what you know. You'll have to say something to him.
...............................
A
male
reader, serenity80 +, writes (20 June 2011):
I think your guy mates are right, as long as it doesn't go any further than it has. He is probably doing it for the attention. You should bring it up with him because at the moment you are snooping, and over a long period of time, it will end up looking worse on you. You will slowly trust him less, become insecure and jealous, you could end up sabotaging the relationship over something that could have been sorted out over a good talk together.So why are you hiding your emotions from him, and emailing this other woman? He is your boyfriend for gods sake. You two are supposed to be close and able to talk about things together. Bring it up, don't argue, don't accuse him. Just talk to him. That's how relationships work.
...............................
A
male
reader, Drew21  +, writes (20 June 2011):
 Him changing the password would make me worry a bit.
Either he knew you were reading his emails, or he was worried you might.
Of course his guy friends are telling you not to worry.
They're doing their best to protect him.
Let's face it if he saw no harm in it, would he have really changed his password?
If it's eating at you i think you have to bring it up.
There are so many breaches of trust at this stage. Him flirting with another woman online behind your back, and you not trusting him enough and going in and checking up on him.
I think, no matter what happens, there's bound to be some hurt feelings or a fight at this stage, know what i mean?
The decision is now up to you. Do you want to hold it in, and keep on fretting and worrying, or do you want to get it out in the open and find out what's really going on?
Sure there may be some truth to what the one friend said, in that he is just lapping up the extra attention from another woman. But truly, he's in a relationship with YOU. If your attention isn't enough for him, then i think you need to re-examine whether this is a good relationship for the both of you.
...............................
A
reader, anonymous, writes (20 June 2011): Say it to him..Tell him that you seen it when he was showing you the email and tell him your head has been all over the place since, ask him to show you the email if its all innocent.If he shows you it ask him how he would feel if you were behaving like that with your of your male friends?If he doesn't show you, well.....Ask him what has he got to hide?I am the kinda girl that would first approach him and then contact her reminding her of the fact that he has a girlfriend and to back off..Im sorry but i do not agree with your friends i think it is totally unacceptable to be flirting in that manner when your in a relationship, i don't believe that it will stay innocent if shes telling him she's in love with him and hes lapping it up and telling her that if he was single he would ask her out, i mean come on that is way over stepping the mark.I think its easy for your friends to sit there and say that but i bet you if they were in your position they would not like it...!I hope you get to the bottom of this,, and your bf realizes that his ego boosting games might cost him his relationship. Best of luck :)
...............................
|
