[sourpuss]

Ugh! I know how you feel. I'm totally against snooping, but I have to admit, I've done it too. And for no reason at all. It always makes me feel bad, even though I never find anything. I just know it's wrong I guess.
I think what you phrased before is adequate, but be prepared for it to blow up in your face. I think these kinds of situations are never good, because no matter what you find, they can always hold the snooping thing over your head. I hate that!
Hopefully he's not too defensive and can see your point of view, that would be the best case scenario. I do have to say that the whole xxxx thing at the end of an email is a bit over the top though, what's up with that? Do you think he just tells you that he doesn't talk to her to save your feelings or do you think there's something there?

[Mes T]

Sent him a pretty long email a couple of hours ago, making sure I didn't leave anything out... I think it's a pretty good piece of writing myself. Shall see if it's good enough...

sourpuss, I guess at this point I can only assume he did it to save my feelings, though christ, the truth always comes out... I had thought he knew that! If there's something more, I made sure in my email to not leave any room for more secrets, or sugarcoating anything... If there's something else I need to know NOW.

Yeah that's the thing about snooping, it can always be held over your head. Siiiigggghhh.

[rcoreyus]

I guess we have different views. Chatting with friends a few times with me sounds fine. The fact that it is an ex wouldn't matter (to me).

But chatting with an ex a few times a week? While saying it was months ago? I just don't think either of those things are appropriate. It's one thing to be on friendly, platonic, terms with an ex - it's another to talk a few times a week. That's just too close IMO, especially when the current partner is being kept in the dark about it. It would be another thing if they ALL became friends, awkward as it may be, at least he would be being open and honest about it, no secret friendships.

[rcoreyus]

I know I'm in the minority here, but for what its worth: I've posted before that my sex life at home is near non-existent and that I feel I am being rather misused. Due to my job / travel I have numerous opportunities to find sex outside of my relationship.

For whatever reasons my wife trusts me absolutely. She has had no objection to my taking a short vacation with a female friend (just the 2 of us) - this has happened several times. (I know most women would consider this completely unreasonable).

The point is that since she trusts me I won't betray that trust - despite the opportunities, despite desire, no matter what. If I discovered that she was checking up on me, that would indicate that she didn't trust me, and I would no longer feel honor bound by that trust.

[mr.mansview]

man's point of view here..if i'm your bf and i'm doing something inappropriate on line with an ex, i'm probably more upset that you found that out than i am that you snooped..i was hiding something and i was found out..if i'm hiding nothing then i'm angry that you snooped..but since he was lying to you then there was mistrust there..since you say you can't keep this to yourself, just prepare for the worst and decide if you can accept his explanation..good luck mes_T

[lime_lemur]

I think you should know that probably EVERYBODY has snooped at some point when they were worried. If we sense something wrong, and the boy won't give us answers, we're desperate to find them. My exboyfriend was really terrible. He'd lead me in some direction like vaguely implying that he was attracted to someone else but wouldn't say another word about it, no matter how much I politely tried to bring the topic up. He knew that I agonized more over not knowing than knowing, and that if he told me I'd calm down, but he refused to say a word and it escalated. I ended up going through his internet history and finding things that broke my heart. Snooping isn't great, but nor is keeping things from your girlfriend when she's worried that something's wrong.

[Mes T]

Okay. As expected it didn't go over well. I envy people who can keep secrets.

[PandaPaws]

I know I'm in the minority here, but for what its worth: I've posted before that my sex life at home is near non-existent and that I feel I am being rather misused. Due to my job / travel I have numerous opportunities to find sex outside of my relationship.

For whatever reasons my wife trusts me absolutely. She has had no objection to my taking a short vacation with a female friend (just the 2 of us) - this has happened several times. (I know most women would consider this completely unreasonable).

The point is that since she trusts me I won't betray that trust - despite the opportunities, despite desire, no matter what. If I discovered that she was checking up on me, that would indicate that she didn't trust me, and I would no longer feel honor bound by that trust.

Um yeah, completely unacceptable to me. I can't imagine a woman being happy in a relationship where her husband goes on vacation with another woman, but if that's what works for you guys, great.
I feel like you're missing the point that Mes_T's man was signing with kisses and blatently ignoring her existence in his emails. AND that he is flat out lying to her about it. This isn't just a normal, platonic, friendship with an ex - if it was, he would have been honest about it.

man's point of view here..if i'm your bf and i'm doing something inappropriate on line with an ex, i'm probably more upset that you found that out than i am that you snooped..i was hiding something and i was found out..if i'm hiding nothing then i'm angry that you snooped..but since he was lying to you then there was mistrust there..since you say you can't keep this to yourself, just prepare for the worst and decide if you can accept his explanation..good luck mes_T

Amen to that!

Okay. As expected it didn't go over well. I envy people who can keep secrets.

Sorry to hear . But would you really have been happy keeping it inside? You would have wondered, and thought the worst, driving yourself crazy. I hope he was able to see your point of view, and I also hope he came up with some miraculous, honest, and believable explanation for his behavior.

[stressed]

I am so sorry to hear that, almost everything you've posted about your relationship sounded so great that I was so surprised to see that it was you who posted it. I am very sorry.
Just a note though (please don't take it wrong), now you see that everyone can get such a feeling of wanting to snoop, it can happen to anyone at any point and there's usually something to be found (like, today, I went through my SO's phone for the first time -he always goes through mine, so I thought why not do the same for once after so many years- and found he's looked up porn. Not as bad as your situation, but I'm giving you an example). I'm just saying this because you've always been so against people who mentioned that they found something by snooping or didn't want their SO to have contact with an ex, and I just wanted to point that it's human to do so. I do believe that if nothing was wrong then you wouldn't get the feeling to look. Something you saw made you want to after all this time. And you were right to do what you did.

I agree with dr. mansview, he lied and he will be more upset about you finding out than snooping, even if he might show you otherwise. It's a good method of defense to claim you are upset about being snooped more than being caught lying. If he hadn't been lying you wouldn't have been snooping and he wouldn't have to deal with this. Of course the person who lies says whatever he can to move the problem to other issues, such as "don't you trust me anymore", "how could you do that", "aren't you happy with me anymore" etc. etc. but the truth is that he lied about having contact with an ex he claimed he had ended. I'm just surprised that people do that and expect not to be caught.

He probably did it so that he wouldn't hurt you and must have felt that it's just talk, he has no feelings for her and so on, but he was afraid of telling you so. This shows that he doesn't trust you enough to tell you about it, more than you don't trust him enough as to snoop. I think his problem is more serious than yours, as even when people get a feeling to snoop but find nothing then nothing bad happens. But when they find something they cannot be the ones to blame for what they found. They were not the ones lying, even more so when they admit their snooping.

I really do hope this is going to be solved, you seem to be such a lovely and positive person that I find it very sad he did this to you. It's not the end of the world, and he might have been doing it out of habit, but I hope he will understand how you feel and manage to end the contact with his ex all together for your sake. Do keep us updated.

[Mes T]

Sigh. We're going to talk again in detail tomorrow... you think he didn't tell me because he has trust issues of his own? That's something I hadn't considered...

I'm upset that he lied about the contact, but also he's lied (or so it seems now!!) about what the concept of an ex means to him. All this time I thought we were on the same page about it... and now looks like his views are completely opposite.

Thanks again for the support, seriously it helps.