Hi Joe,

To be honest, this chick seems like she’s the dreaded Too Much and Not Enough. Too much drama over small things, and for what?

And your guy friend? Is his friendship worth it? Are you going to introduce him to your next girlfriend only for him to piss her off as well? Dump him! He also is Too Much and Not Enough.

Best,

Inky

Dear Joe:

Your mistake was small and you apologized thoroughly, did an excellent job apologizing. On the other hand, she shouldn’t have checked your phone, spying on you.

You wrote: “I asked her why she went through my phone. I never gave her any reason to not trust me. She said she did it because I said I had nothing to hide”-

– she said she did it because you said you had nothing to hide, so she wanted to check and see if you were lying and had something to hide. She didn’t say that she shouldn’t have invaded your privacy, betraying your trust in her (!), she didn’t apologize for that, did she.

Her behavior means that if you were to resume a relationship with her, you would have to accept that your phone is not your private belonging and that all your communications with other people,  on your phone, are subject to her examination, evaluation and judgments anytime she can.

Not a good prospect, is it- to live like that- always under suspicion.

anita

Hi Joe,

I think your girlfriend has VERY unreasonable expectations. I think it’s reasonable to assume you wouldn’t even remember that short conversation with your friend and it should be understandable that you saying you hadn’t talked to him WASN’T an intentional lie and that you just didn’t remember that time he’d asked you to a party. Also, why is this even an issue with her when you hadn’t promised her you’d stop talking to him in the first place?

I also think she should not have been going through your phone as that’s crossing a privacy boundary, especially if she has no reason to suspect that you’re being unfaithful. She shouldn’t have to verify your faithfulness. How would she feel if you just randomly went through her phone?

I don’t think you’re the one that made a mistake here. If it were me, I would be mad at HER, as I would if I had a boyfriend that did something similar to me. It’s not acceptable behavior. I totally think she’s the one that needs to give the apology, too, and she should change that behavior if she, herself, wants to remain trustworthy (You cannot trust her around your phone at this point).

I do think it was good of you to distance yourself from the rude friend when he upset your girlfriend because it showed that you were on your girlfriend’s side and supportive of her feelings, but what was it that your friend did? Was she overreacting with that, too?

It sounds like she has some very serious trust and control issues that I would ask her to work on if SHE wants to continue a relationship with YOU. Otherwise, I’d go find yourself someone who shows you the trust you deserve, as long as you are being worthy of it, and who also doesn’t try to control you.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 6 months ago by Valora.

Yeah, your friend does owe her an apology and shouldn’t have done that to someone he first met, but if he’s like that with everyone, it’s also likely he didn’t mean it as an insult and it would be helpful for her if she just learned to let stuff like that roll off her shoulders instead of letting it affect her, but you did the right thing by supporting her and he does owe her an apology.  I don’t think she’s in the right for yelling at you or even getting upset with you.

And eyes wandering to a phone while someone is texting, if you even did do that (as she’s accused you but you didn’t say you actually were) is still a lot different than her picking up your phone when you were not around and actively searching the contents. That’s just not even close to the same thing.

So I still think she is the one being unreasonable here and it just seems like really controlling behavior on her part.

Well that explains her trust issues, but that is something she needs to work on for herself and to not take out on you. It’s very, very important that you are assertive with her if you do get back together so that she understands that you are not them and that treating you like you are not worthy of trust because they weren’t isn’t okay. You should not have to be punished for what other people have done to her, and her snooping and acting like you are untrustworthy is basically a punishment.  So be assertive with her on that… that’s something she needs to fix to have a healthy relationship with anyone, especially someone who IS trustworthy, or your relationship is bound to fail later on anyway if she keeps that up.

We can’t help how we feel, but just try not to feel too bad because you really didn’t do anything wrong and I don’t really know what you could’ve done differently. I’m sure, when she’d asked, if you’d remembered talking to him that one time during the 2-month separation from your friend, you would’ve said that, right? If so, that was an innocent mistake on your part and it’s important that SHE be more understanding, too. And it’s honestly a petty thing to get mad about anyway and she should NOT have been snooping through your phone.

Just give her time though… hopefully she’ll realize (or one of her friends will and will point it out to her) that she is in the wrong here… but again, it’s important that she fixes her trust issues if you guys are going to have a successful healthy relationship.