BF on Dating Site

[Grrlish]

My boyfriend and I have been dating for just shy of a year and a half. We've been living together for about 7 months.

 

We hit an extremely rough spot in our relationship at the end of June. He asked me to move out. For most of the month of July, I was looking for a place to move to, and we were barely speaking, although still living under the same roof.

 

Two weeks ago, I had two rental leases in my hands. We talked in a meaningful way off and on for about 3 days. He told me that he did not want me to move out.

 

During our reconcilation talks a couple a of weeks ago, he asked me about a website that I'd been to on my computer. He mentioned that it showed up in the drop menu on my browser, which means that he was looking at my computer without my knowledge. I felt slightly invaded but I don't have anything to hide so I didn't say anything. The site he was asking about his a relationship discussion forum that I've been a member of for about four years. I do not discuss our relationship there. I log in occasionally to say hey to some online friends and to jump into a few conversations.

 

Things have been going really well since we decided to stay together. But he was rather pinchy and short with me yesterday - unfortunately, making me feel as if something was 'wrong'. This morning, against my standards, I looked at the history on his computer.

 

The history on his computer shows that two to three weeks ago, he was logged into a dating site, checking his matches. I almost threw up when I saw this URL in the history of his computer. Of course, my knee-jerk reaction was to call him and tell him what I found and tell him that I'm moving out. I didn't call him. Instead, I'm trying to get my head together.

 

He did not sign-up on that site at that time; you can tell from the different steps shown in the history. He probably has an old account from before we 'got serious'. It looks as if he logged in and just looked at his matches. It also looks like he hasn't gone there in the last couple of weeks, nor did he log into that site the week prior to when he did log in.

 

So...***deeeep breath***...do I just ride it out?

 

If I say something, I will have to reveal that I snooped in his computer, thus damaging the repair that we've been doing. If I don't say anything, then I live with the guilt of snooping and the pain of seeing something he did while we were in the midst of what we thought was parting ways.

 

I, too, have a few old personals accounts online but I do not log-in to look at matches. The one he logged into does not allow searches; it matches you based on your info.

 

I do trust my boyfriend, but...obviously not 100 percent...or I would not have looked at the history on his computer. I do not believe that he would go on a date with another woman or sleep with another woman. He is generally an ethical and moral man. However, some of his actions that led us to almost break up did put a small, and hopefully temporary, dent in my trust for him. He wasn't cheating on me but he was doing things that I feel weaken a relationship's foundation and prevent a relationship's foundation from getting stronger.

 

I know that by choosing to stay in the relationship that I have chosen to not hold his previous actions against him. I also realize now that my trust has been dinged and that I will eventually have to choose to trust him all the way, or leave him. For now, I am doing well at moving forward.

 

Also, yes, the snooping is beneath me, I know, and it is against my nature. It is something that I cannot continue to do.

 

But for now, my question is to you:

 

Is what he did meaningful in the big picture?

[Grrlish]

Luvmy2ns:

 

Heh, well, actually, I'm wondering if he has something like that on his computer and will be able to see that I was on there. And now that I think about it, how do I know that he didn't put something like that on MY computer?

 

How can one tell if there is such a program on one's computer?

 

Also, I always wonder...what if a program like that gets a glitch or something, and an error message pops up or something?

 

 

Ick, this all sounds SO bad. Please, members, don't let this part distract you. I really would like to know if you think that I should let what he did pass, or if I need to act on it right now.

 

I'm thinking that I should let it pass, in light of the circumstances at the time. I can increase my guilt by checking the history on his computer a few more times, and if he stays away from that site, I will live with my own guilt and not say anything to him. If he goes back to that site, I will just have to move out.

[Grrlish]

Luvmy2ns:

 

Don't get me wrong. I appreciate the sidebar topic. Since he mentioned that he was looking on my computer, I have wondered if he's put something like that on here.

 

I do really hesitate to put something like that on his computer. I don't want to get caught, but most of all, I don't want to get to that point. I guess I feel already that what I've done is 'wrong', and if I get to that point it means that my trust for him would be to the point of being really, really weak.

[lovestruck818]

My boyfriend and I have been dating for just shy of a year and a half. We've been living together for about 7 months.

 

We hit an extremely rough spot in our relationship at the end of June. He asked me to move out. For most of the month of July, I was looking for a place to move to, and we were barely speaking, although still living under the same roof.

 

Two weeks ago, I had two rental leases in my hands. We talked in a meaningful way off and on for about 3 days. He told me that he did not want me to move out.

 

During our reconcilation talks a couple a of weeks ago, he asked me about a website that I'd been to on my computer. He mentioned that it showed up in the drop menu on my browser, which means that he was looking at my computer without my knowledge. I felt slightly invaded but I don't have anything to hide so I didn't say anything. The site he was asking about his a relationship discussion forum that I've been a member of for about four years. I do not discuss our relationship there. I log in occasionally to say hey to some online friends and to jump into a few conversations.

 

Things have been going really well since we decided to stay together. But he was rather pinchy and short with me yesterday - unfortunately, making me feel as if something was 'wrong'. This morning, against my standards, I looked at the history on his computer.

 

The history on his computer shows that two to three weeks ago, he was logged into a dating site, checking his matches. I almost threw up when I saw this URL in the history of his computer. Of course, my knee-jerk reaction was to call him and tell him what I found and tell him that I'm moving out. I didn't call him. Instead, I'm trying to get my head together.

 

He did not sign-up on that site at that time; you can tell from the different steps shown in the history. He probably has an old account from before we 'got serious'. It looks as if he logged in and just looked at his matches. It also looks like he hasn't gone there in the last couple of weeks, nor did he log into that site the week prior to when he did log in.

 

So...***deeeep breath***...do I just ride it out?

 

If I say something, I will have to reveal that I snooped in his computer, thus damaging the repair that we've been doing. If I don't say anything, then I live with the guilt of snooping and the pain of seeing something he did while we were in the midst of what we thought was parting ways.

 

I, too, have a few old personals accounts online but I do not log-in to look at matches. The one he logged into does not allow searches; it matches you based on your info.

 

I do trust my boyfriend, but...obviously not 100 percent...or I would not have looked at the history on his computer. I do not believe that he would go on a date with another woman or sleep with another woman. He is generally an ethical and moral man. However, some of his actions that led us to almost break up did put a small, and hopefully temporary, dent in my trust for him. He wasn't cheating on me but he was doing things that I feel weaken a relationship's foundation and prevent a relationship's foundation from getting stronger.

 

I know that by choosing to stay in the relationship that I have chosen to not hold his previous actions against him. I also realize now that my trust has been dinged and that I will eventually have to choose to trust him all the way, or leave him. For now, I am doing well at moving forward.

 

Also, yes, the snooping is beneath me, I know, and it is against my nature. It is something that I cannot continue to do.

 

But for now, my question is to you:

 

Is what he did meaningful in the big picture?

 

tell him your friend saw him on the site and pointed it out to you...that happened with me a few months back. Told boyf, he deleted profile, done.

 

Good luck.

[D-Lish]

I suspect that what he did was a knee jerk reaction in response to the problems you guys were having at the time.

 

WHen my ex and I broke up after a year- my friend called me to say she saw his profile up on lava. He put it up within a couple hours of us breaking up. I was so devastated ... but I saw he had taken it down after 3 days. I think it was just an angry, rash response to the break up.

 

I would probably let it go for now.

He can't tell if you are checking his computer.

 

I had an ex that was always snooping... so I regularly removed all the cookies from my hard drive. He'd be over at my place and my msn would ping and he'd immediately go and open up the conversation to see who was trying to chat with me!

 

If you guys are trying to work things out and things seem to be going well, i'd let it ride for now.

[Crestfallen_KH]

I'm with D, I think it was a knee jerk reaction.

 

My experience (not saying all guys here) is that the men I've been with have had a harder time being alone after the breakup. My ex-husband was apparently unhappy in our marriage, but didn't leave until he found someone to leave with. My ex bf put up a profile and told me he was going to "start dating right away" when I made it clear we were broken up for good. Any breakup is damaging to anyone's self-esteem, and since it appeared that you guys were broken up for good, he was probably out there trying to feed his ego. I don't think he was seriously looking for his next gf, and the fact that he hasn't looked in the last couple of weeks and has been trying to work it out with you are all good signs.

 

I wouldn't say that you shouldn't remember this, but it seems as if you both have trust issues and I think you should each examine your own relationship patterns and histories to determine why this is so. But I wouldn't dump him for this.

[Grrlish]

I totally hear where you're coming from. Like if you started snooping it would feel like YOU damaged the R even if he never finds out. I so get that.

 

Yep. It's just that getting on a roll with snooping and not trusting is a slippery slope. And doing things that make us feel guilty can backfire. I feel that our guilt ends up coming out in other ways.

[Grrlish]

tell him your friend saw him on the site and pointed it out to you...that happened with me a few months back. Told boyf, he deleted profile, done.

 

Good luck.

 

I thought of doing this but the site is Eharmony (I hope it's okay to write that on here). It's pretty unlikely that one of my friends will have randomly been matched with him on there. On the flip-side, we live in a relatively small town. Getting matched up with someone here could find you meeting up with plenty of people you know! He's lived here most of his life, and we can't even go to the grocery store without running into people that we know.

 

So, chances are that IF he were actually still on there actively looking, he's looking out of the area.

[Grrlish]

D-lish and Crestfallen:

 

I am going to let it go for now. However, as Crestfallen mentions, I'm not going to forget.

 

I ashamedly admit, I've looked at the history on his computer randomly (and infrequently) since I moved in, and I've never found anything even remotely related to a personals site before.

 

I'm sure you can understand that I was shocked when I saw this and it's going to take a little work to let it go. I hope I can. Our rough patch was pretty rough.

 

Crest, it's hard to read what you wrote about us having trust issues but I can take it and I can face that we indeed are going through a test in regard to trust.

 

I am sad because until we went through our rough patch, I did trust him. So why did I randomly look in the history on his computer even before that? I guess I have some residual trust issues from a past relationship. Sounds weird, but everytime I looked and didn't find anything, it made me trust him more.

 

As for him, even though I let it slide, I was really surprised that he'd looked on my computer. I think the fact that an old friend, who was more a little more than a friend, moved back to the area woke the little green gremlin in him.

 

I'm troubled by this situation. When we decided to stay together, we agreed that even though we weren't sure how to keep the lines of communication from caving in again, he doesn't seem to be able to discuss sensitive topics like trust and such very easily.

[sandrawg]

I can relate to a lot of what you're saying, and I wonder what the original "rough patch" was, that made you have difficulty trusting your bf. You say it wasn't cheating...I am having trouble trusting mine, because an ex-gf was in the picture while we were together...she would not leave him alone. He swore to me that he told her to, and that he was ignoring her attempts to contact him.

 

Then we broke up for a while, over a different problem. During the break-up, he slept with her.

 

When we got back together, I told him she needed to be GONE, like NOW.

 

He told me he would get rid of her.

 

3 weeks later, I accidentally saw a text msg from her on his phone.

 

We fought...then finally he agreed to let her go. I wasn't trusting his word much at that point, so I checked his email when he left it open on MY computer. I am not a snooper, but if I suspect someone is lying cuz their stories don't jibe...I will then snoop to see what's up. I found out he had not been telling the truth about their previous contact-he had NOT been ignorig her IMs, but had been responding to them.

 

Now I'm having a very hard time trusting him, AND there's the added problem that he knows I read his email.

 

It is VERY rocky right now, to say the least.

 

I'm wondering if any of this sounds familiar to you.

[lovestruck818]

I thought of doing this but the site is Eharmony (I hope it's okay to write that on here). It's pretty unlikely that one of my friends will have randomly been matched with him on there. On the flip-side, we live in a relatively small town. Getting matched up with someone here could find you meeting up with plenty of people you know! He's lived here most of his life, and we can't even go to the grocery store without running into people that we know.

 

So, chances are that IF he were actually still on there actively looking, he's looking out of the area.

 

Honestly it's probably nothing. When I told my boyf about it, he was just checking it b/c someone had "winked" at him and then he deleted it right after that, so I knew it had no sentimental value to him and he was just checking. Now it shouldn't have mattered to him b/c he's with me, but whatever, I suppose he was just curious as to who winked b/c before that he hadn't been logged on prior. (The site he was on tells you the last time the person logged in).

[Grrlish]

I can relate to a lot of what you're saying, and I wonder what the original "rough patch" was, that made you have difficulty trusting your bf. You say it wasn't cheating...I am having trouble trusting mine, because an ex-gf was in the picture while we were together...she would not leave him alone. He swore to me that he told her to, and that he was ignoring her attempts to contact him.

 

Then we broke up for a while, over a different problem. During the break-up, he slept with her.

 

When we got back together, I told him she needed to be GONE, like NOW.

 

He told me he would get rid of her.

 

3 weeks later, I accidentally saw a text msg from her on his phone.

 

We fought...then finally he agreed to let her go. I wasn't trusting his word much at that point, so I checked his email when he left it open on MY computer. I am not a snooper, but if I suspect someone is lying cuz their stories don't jibe...I will then snoop to see what's up. I found out he had not been telling the truth about their previous contact-he had NOT been ignorig her IMs, but had been responding to them.

 

Now I'm having a very hard time trusting him, AND there's the added problem that he knows I read his email.

 

It is VERY rocky right now, to say the least.

 

I'm wondering if any of this sounds familiar to you.

 

Sounds so similar, that as I read your post, I'm wondering if you're my boyfriend! I wish I were joking but I'm not. So I'll just say that if you are, and you slept with your ex while I was looking to move, it's time for you to tell me and let me go.

 

That said, assuming that you're not my boyfriend:

 

It was similar but not so harsh. He was maintaining semi-regular communications with his ex (phone and text) after he told me that he wasn't. The thing is that we are both openly friends with some of our exes so the fact that he was hiding this was troubling. Long story a little shorter, after talking to him AND talking to her, I feel that, while things were not completely on the up and up, there were no dates, no physical contact, not even any in-person 'meetings' other than him doing brief business at the place that she works.

 

We were having other problems getting along for a few months. I, personally, think that some of it stemmed from him doing something (communicating with his ex in a secretive manner) that he knew was 'wrong'. It's sort of like someone who cheats on his SO and then due to his guilt, takes it out on her. We would get into ridiculously elevated arguments over nothing. Very foreign relationship conditions for to me.

 

Fast forward: Things are going really well at home. No stupid out-of-proportion arguments. Lots of open expression of love and affection. Things are better than they've been in a while.

 

As I said above, I trust my boyfriend, overall. There is some repair that needs to happen but it's only going to happen over time as things go forward without further related incidents.

 

I evaluated everything that went on and I choose to trust him.

 

I don't have the mental or emotional space in my head or my life to go forward with someone that I don't trust. It takes too much energy and creates too much of a distraction from the rest of life to be worrying and wondering if he's texting with his ex on occasion, or with anyone else for that matter. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if he does still exchange the occasional text with his ex. I can't monitor his actions 24/7. I won't be a tyrant.

 

As far as I know, he did not go on a date with or sleep with anyone while we were on the verge of parting ways. If I learn differently down the road, well, then so be it. But I'm not going to spend much time wondering about it. We can wonder and worry ourselves to death.

 

If I were in your shoes, I'd have a hard time with things, too. Your boyfriend slept with someone that he was hiding his communications with from you. If my boyfriend slept with his ex, given our own circumstances I would not be able to reconcile with him.

 

Your situation is much more harsh than mine in regard to your boyfriend's actions with another woman.

 

I do believe, though, that when someone has done something to dent (or inflict greater damage) our trust for them, and we choose to go forward with them, we forfeit the 'right' to beat them over their head with the past. Yes, I occasionally want to throw a verbal barb at my boyfriend about his past actions but I don't. I am very careful not to make little comments and such. Why? Because I truly want us to learn from and heal from something that, in the big picture of things, is probably not all that significant.

 

If you can't choose to trust him, then you may have to let him go for your own piece of mind.

[Grrlish]

Honestly it's probably nothing. When I told my boyf about it, he was just checking it b/c someone had "winked" at him and then he deleted it right after that, so I knew it had no sentimental value to him and he was just checking. Now it shouldn't have mattered to him b/c he's with me, but whatever, I suppose he was just curious as to who winked b/c before that he hadn't been logged on prior. (The site he was on tells you the last time the person logged in).

 

I agree; it was probably nothing and I've let it go.

 

I did end up saying something, though.

 

I did not mention above that our caller ID showed that Eharmony called our house last week. I called the number on the caller ID and got a message that said something to the effect that they were contacting him in response to his recent experience on the site, and if he would like them to call again that he should press X.

 

We were sitting on the couch, watching television a couple of nights ago, and an ad for Eharmony came on. I casually said "Eharmony called here for you the other day".

 

"What did they want?"

 

"They wanted to talk to you about your recent experience on their site."

 

He started to say something about them calling and sending things in the mail randomly because, yes, he's had an account for a long time.

 

I really wanted to hold the conversation to a minimum, not get into the details and certainly not get into an argument.

 

I said that if we're in a relationship that he shouldn't be playing around on dating sites. Again, he started to imply that it was a random call.

 

I said, look, it wasn't a random call, you were clearly on the site recently. I'm going to assume that you did something stupid (meaning, logged in to look around) while I was looking for a place to move. I don't want to get into a big discussion about it but I think that if we're going to go forward with our relationship that we (note: we) should be on the same page about not playing around on dating sites.

 

He started to say something, and then stopped and said: You're right. I can agree with that.

 

There were a few more words said by each of us, and that was it.

 

I saw no need to hammer on it but I guess I couldn't stop myself from saying something.

[Grrlish]

It turned out that he was scr*wing around on me the entire time we were together.

 

I was just simply so in love that I let him pull the wool over my eyes...over and over and over.

[lora22]

I'm sorry, what a dbag. How did you find out?

I just broke up with my guy for lying, and it's driving me crazy wondering if he was banging his ex while we were together