I have been with my partner four months now and we are crazy about each other spending every moment we can together, it's been amazing.
However, around four years ago, long before we met, she found someone in a chat room whom she never met but became extremely close with and fell in love with. Firstly I find it ridiculous that you could love someone that you have never met, but that aside, she still speaks to this woman via text and e-mail, although she says she doesn't like her in a sexual way at all anymore.
I cannot believe this as from snooping through her phone and e-mails, I have found that in her previous relationship she admitted that she would cheat on her girlfriend if this person showed up. I have discussed this with her, and she says they're just as friends, but it makes me feel uncomfortable. I have shared all these concerns with her and she understands and reassures me constantly how much she loves me and doesn't want to be with anyone else.
Despite this, I still get extremely upset and think that if she really loved me she would not want to talk to this woman because she sees how much it upsets me. She has said she will stop talking to her if it will save our relationship. I was dead against at first, as I didn't believe stopping her talking to her would help and that she would just resent me for it.
However things reached crisis point last week and I was willing to break up with her as I feel so upset by it constantly so I have now asked her to stop talking to her but just resent myself for it.
Also she texted this other woman saying she couldn't talk to her anymore to save our relationship. I thought that was the end of it, but then she confessed that she texted her again two days later saying goodbye. That upset me, as she just seems to be dragging it out. Then she got angry with me for getting upset over this.
I just don't know what to do; I love her but can't see myself being with her for much longer.
Am I being unreasonable? I feel like she has been risking our relationship for what are just words on a screen really. Please help.
Jealous of Online Ex
Dear JOE
Yes, you are being unreasonable. A reasonable person does not snoop into another person's email, phone or text messages. You have broken her trust. She has done nothing but maintain a friendship with someone she has known for four years. You've only known her for four months.A reasonable person does not try to control her partner's friendships because of her own feelings. Your feelings of jealousy are your problems to deal with. Not hers.
A reasonable person does not diminish another person's connections and relationships based on her own prejudices about connecting online.
A reasonable person does not get passive/aggressive, saying she won't ask her partner to do something because she would resent it and then resent her for doing it anyway.
Your behavior is raising more red flags than anything she is doing. My advice to you is, you need to look inside yourself to see what insecurities YOU have that make you jealous and not able to trust her. This may sound harsh, but I really think you are looking at her as the problem, in fact, the problem could be you.
You say if she loved you, she would stop contact with this woman. Turn that around on yourself. If you really loved her, are you willing to take a look at yourself and change your behaviors to save the relationship.
You cannot control how someone else feels. She either loves you or she doesn't. Demanding that she stop talking to someone she used to have feelings for is not going to make her any more trust worthy. Snooping and trying to catch her in a lie is not going to make her tell the truth. Demanding that she stop talking to an old flame is not going to make her love you any more than she already does.
We all have pasts. Sometimes our girlfriends have relationships with people we don't like. Sometimes they have relationships with their exes. Sometimes we have feelings about those relationships. But if those feelings cause you to do things like demand she change her behavior or to invade her privacy, to snoop into her private things, follow her car, check up on her, then those feelings have gotten out of hand and you need to step back and check yourself.
