I've changed from trusting to possessive girlfriend :( ...am I thinking right?

If he had things to hide on his phone and persisted that I can't see it, then surely he was doing/had something he didn't want me to know about.
Cheating: doing something you wouldn't do if your partner was there.

It was later revealed that he'd had messages from 2 different girls who 'fancied him', and he was worried about how I would react.


Do I have the reason to worry that other 'things' could be going on that I'm unaware of?
I became an personally-unatural possessive girlfriend, when before I was almost too trusting.


A year on, I brought it up again and he said something like 'well you should have been more possessive'. This made me feel very angry as I didn't used to be possessive until this actually happened (which was a good thing back then?!)

What should I do? He reassured me that he loves me and me only now, but I keep getting flashbacks to the first few months we were going out, and he wasn't as open about things due to 'bad past experiences with possessive girlfriends'.

You aren't being possessive but if the two of you were just hanging out in the beginning then those messages shouldn't even matter! Oh and guys say the stupidest things EVER, so try not to read into his little "you should have been more possessive" comment. Obviously he has no idea what he is talking about. Plus, you need to learn to bury the hatchet on some things. You don't need to revisit past problems constantly in your relationship, it will only continue to hurt things in the future.

We had been going out for like 8 months by the time I asked him if I could just look at his phone, and we had a 2 hour argument... I never got to see what was on his phone and the unknown bad feelings have been haunting me ever since, even though he's tried reassuring me. I'm still scared I was a fool to any games he was playing.

You said this happened a year ago. I would let it go. If you can't find a way to trust him because he has given you a reason not to, then the best solution is to break up. Good relationships are built on steady trust.

I'm not surprised he refused to, I certainly wouldn't let my GF snoop around on my phone, email accounts, etc. It doesn't mean I "surely" have anything to hide. I also don't let cops into my house without a warrant, doesn't mean I have 20 kilos of heroin stashed in the kitchen that I don't want them to find. It is more a matter of principle. If her trust in me is so poor that she needs to poke into my private conversations, then we shouldn't be together in the first place.

And your definition of cheating is *extremely* broad. I can name a dozen things I wouldn't do in front of my GF that no one would consider to be cheating.

Has he given you any reason, at the present time, not to trust him? You've gotta learn to let go of the past, otherwise everything will just continue to build and build until you explode.

Well, he always acted weird (guilty or awkwardly shifty) with his phone/email accounts/facebook etc around me. I had never ever given him reason to be as I had always been trusting and care-free right from the very start until I noticed this strange behaviour.

He told me it was due to untrusting past girlfriends who used to rummage through his personal places and it had turned into a habit of being over-precautious/wary, e.i. moving his phone screen out of view when I'm just sitting beside him, keeping his phone on silent and hidden away whenever I am around or even quickly flicking past photos of 'girls from before' if they suddenly pop up among other photos, and I feel like saying who was that? but I feel really awkward to ask, so I don't and it just gets pushed to the back of my mind.

SO he had these messages from girls who fancied him and he chose to keep them? That speaks to bad intent, to me. Shifty behavior. Of course you don't trust him. He isn't acting trustworthy.

judging by that response, I feel that he may still be out there looking for potential girlfriends :(
Or maybe he was just good friends with these girls? I get the feeling he was replying back to them which is why he didn't want to show me.