A
female
age
30-35,
*ahrajayne
writes:HI all, Im in a sticky situation with my boyfriend of 3 years, and really need some advice! last year for valentines we went away to Amsterdam on a city break for a couple of days and had such a good time we went again in december, my boyfriend has always wanted to go but never gathered enough money before he met me. The other day he told me his friends were planning a trip over there in june and that he wanted to go, and would I be ok with it... now I know the answer should of been yes of course, have a great time, but I am 100% not comfortable with it at all. About a year ago he asked me to go into his emails and get a code for something he was doing, and i discovered pages and pages of emails from sexual dating websites with offers and updates etc, so on further investigation it turns out he's been messaging women on these websites. I forgave him after some time to think, rightly or wrongly, but I did. I decided it wasn't worth throwing away our relationship for as he didn't physically cheat, and everybody has moments of doubt and curiosity , I know I have. So eventually I built up trust for him again. Then after we came back from amsterdam the second time I found other sites in his history and emails and other messages, this time from november. Again we were going through a rocky patch and I put it down to curiosity again as we had been fighting, so I eventually forgave him again, but naturally now I don't have a lot of trust in him at the moment, and it may take a while for him to earn that backso I'm wondering why he is deliberately putting temptation in his path by going to the sex capital of europe, without me, with 2 SINGLE friends, knowing I don't have a huge amount of trust in him at the moment and that I will be at home upset and worrying. A lot of people may write back to this and say the usual "if you don't trust him you shouldn't be with him" and "its his life and you can't stop him" but firstly, the trust is being built up again as I believe he would never physically cheat on me, and secondly, he has asked me if I would be ok with it, so am I unreasonable to ask him not to go? I am very insecure as it is, and it would devastate me if he did go, but I'm worried he will resent me, as he has already said If i say no then i am being too restricting. Please help!
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female
reader, queenadelaide +, writes (29 April 2013):
You can't build trust by keeping him on a leash.Give him rope enough to prove himself.If you stop him from going, he'll be resentful and you still won't know that you can trust him to behave appropriately when you're not watching. You both lose.In any case, you must really have a low opinion of him to think he'd pay for sex. Personally I'd be offended if my partner thought that of me.And I know this isn't exactly what you want to hear - but look into your motives for staying with someone you don't trust.He has shown you not once, but twice that you are not enough for him. He either 1. didn't think there was anything with messaging other women, 2. or he didn't care that he was caught the first time, 3. or he was not remorseful the first time for it to have happened AGAIN.Which makes me think that while you are emotionally invested in this relationship, he is quite comfortable to engage in sexual conversations with other people not from some compelling love for them but for a quick wank. To help you understand more clearly **in his mind, your relationship is not important enough for him to stop messaging other women.** Are you sure you are on the same page with this man?'I decided it wasn't worth throwing away our relationship for as he didn't physically cheat'Errm I don't know about you. But emotional relationships can potentially be worse than purely physical affairs. - he's effectively showing that the incomplete and meaningless cyber relationship is worth risking your actual emotional and sexual relationship for. You offer him the whole package on condition of exclusivity. Someone else offers him less that a quarter of the whole package and he takes knowing that he could lose the whole package if you found out. *Food for thought, maybe he doesn't want the whole package?* He's not ready for a committed relationship.- physical and emotional cheating - in principle it amounts to the same thing. Lack of respect for your relationship. In fact, I would even argue that emotional cheating is worse because it's not a one off accident that can be put down to poor judgement. It is a repeated and consistent violation of your agreement for a committed relationship. It's the difference between murder and manslaughter. One is calculated and intentional, the other is not.- finally, you intercepted the emails before any physical meetings had been arranged. But what makes you so sure that it wasn't going to happen. I'm not saying it was guaranteed to happen. I'm saying what makes you trust that it wasn't?A final note about your language and tone here. You sound like a person who works hard at the things you value to make them work. I commend you for that. You genuinely sound like you are doing everything in your power to make it work. You have forgiven him twice and you feel guilty for not trusting him completely. You sound like a nice person.From a stranger going off what you have said. You deserve better. I would hate for you to keep investing in a relationship with someone who is not equally invested in making it work.He did not stop cheating online the first time. He didn't stop the second time. You stopped him.I do wish you all the luck if you choose to work on things with him.But in the meantime, let him go to Amsterdam. You don't achieve anything by not letting him go on the trip.
A
female
reader, CindyCares  +, writes (29 April 2013):
 Amsterdam the sex capital of Europe ? maybe, but, as far as I know, it's the capital of sex-for-pay.
It's not that the Dutch girls are more attractive or aggressive or horny than their UK counterparts , it's that there, there are more, and more easily accessible, hookers, escorts and sex workers of any description.
So, if your boyfriend is into this type of stuff,...i.e. he would not cheat out of falling in love or being particularly tempted and tantalized by some particular girl, but he would do it, like those guy who climbed the K2 mountain " just because it's there"... then you do have a problem, wherever he lives . I mean, maybe where you live there is no red light district or no women displayed in windows, but, as you have seen, sexual offers are always just a mouse click away.
So, it's not his location or his whereabouts that you'd have to chnage, but his mindset and tastes. Spending a few days in Amsterdam may give him a few more opportunities to stray... but it's not that he could not stray, or he'd find it too difficult, even from home in UK. I guess you'll just have to decide if now he still WANTS to stray or if has totally reformed.
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A
female
reader, oldbag +, writes (29 April 2013):
 Hi
He will probably go if you want him to or not, he just asked because your his girlfriend and it's what some couples do. If I want to go someplace I just say 'Hey am off to ****** in a few weeks' and that's it.
The fact you don't trust him and are working on that makes this trip bad timing, but really you can look on it as a test.I would go away with your friends the same weekend so your not worrying what he's doing.
He sounds like he's curious about sex which is natural at his age, but do you think he would go to Amsterdam and actually pay for it? He can do that at home.
Keep building the trust if that's what you want, but you can't stop him going away as that says you have no faith,you CAN stop checking his emails though,he knows you don't want him on those sites so it's up to him to stop if he WANTS to be with YOU and re-build the relationship enough.
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A
female
reader, Dear Mandy +, writes (29 April 2013):
 HI
I really feel for you on this one, but if i'm honest right now I would go with asking him to either invite you too or stay behind. I Think we all know about amstedam ! it's not so much the not trusting it's the place he wants to go too with ( as you say) single friends......and yes if you don't trust him this will make matters 100 times worse.
OR
YOU COULD give him this holiday with friends your blessing and learn that regardless of weather his there with you or not if his going to cheat he will do it anywhere!!! so I suppose you either want to trust him or end things.
Mandy x
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (29 April 2013): Hmmmm this is a difficult situation. Personally, I think that if he is trying to build up trust with you then he should be willing to say no to the trip. It's not as if he hasn't been there before or anything. I was in a situation a few months ago where my boyfriend and I were trying to work on trust and he wanted to go on a holiday with a female friend but when I said I wasn't comfortable, he agreed not to go. I think if your boyfriend is really dedicated to earning your trust back and making your relationship work then he should be willing to give this one a miss.The fact that he is trying to make you feel guilty about voicing concerns about this trip worries me. By telling you you're being "restricting" if you aren't happy with this, he's basically emotionally blackmailing you into saying nothing. I don't think you're being unreasonable by asking him not to go. But perhaps instead of directly asking him not to go you could tell him some of the consequences if he does go. Like, for instance, when I was talking to my boyfriend I told him that if he went, I'd always have doubts that something had happened and that I wasn't sure we'd still be able to be together when he got back. I know the situation is a bit different but he should be respecting you more. Especially given your past experiences with him. I can't really offer much in the way of helpful advice, sorry, but you're not being unreasonable and you shouldn't let him bully you because he'll continue to do so. Good luck
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