Trust, Snooping, and How to Mend

Hello, first time poster here. I've been putting this off for a while hoping to find answers within myself but it's been a month and nothing has changed so I'm hoping the lovely People of the Internet can be of some assistance.

I've been with my lady for 3+ years now. We've lived together since day 1 because she moved here and I was her landing spot (we've known each other for many years prior to relationship). I was cheated on a lot in my last relationship and, as a result, have developed crippling trust issues. Further complicating things is that my partner didn't exactly have a clean record in that regard before me. However, I've been head-over-heels about this girl since I met her 10~ years ago so it was worth the risk.

Now, she was out of town for work about 2 years ago and she had asked me to send her something from her laptop. I did, and then, for whatever paranoia-driven reason, decided to have a stroll around the HD. I knew it was wrong, but something had just driven me to have a look around. Her ex, who lives out of state, had continued to send her gifts for her birthday and other things despite her demanding that they try at least a full year of NC. Having known this, I suppose I wanted to know if I was getting myself into a situation in which she and her ex perhaps weren't completely over each other and I was a temporary landing spot while they took some time off. Nothing damning found, she finds out and I get in trouble with her but we mend it and move on.

Fast forward a year and change and we're engaged. She's going through some personal stuff and concurrently having a bit of a disconnect in our relationship. I'm trying to help but, as is usually the case, my methods of helping are not viewed as help at all. I get home from work one day and she's making dinner so I head to our office to catch up on the news as I do most days. I noticed her notepad open on her computer and an entry that is pages long mentioning my name. The next day, I reopen the memo and read through it. I guess I was hoping to get a sort of unfiltered look into what she was thinking and where our relationship was headed. Again, found out and got in bigger trouble. Lots of fallout and bad feelings abound for everyone.

Fast forward to a month and change ago. She was slipping deep into a very bad depression and, at the climax of it and with keys in hand, told me that she was going to kill herself by jumping off the bridge across town. I got her to, well...not do that. The next day, I was worried sick. I wasn't sure how serious she was about suicide. She doesn't get along with her family and they all live out of state. I thought about contacting her grandmother whom she gets along with most of the time to ask for help but I couldn't see that happening without her going bananas on me for involving her family. So, despite having told her that the last time would be the last time, I got into her computer. I figured if she was actually considering suicide that there would be some evidence of it: oddly sentimental conversations with people close to her, searches about related topics, etc. I found nothing of the sort and that made me feel better. However, I found out that she and her ex were e-mailing again. She was asking him for advice on her health issues (pre-existing condition, unrelated to suicide/depression), complaining about me and my inability to help her in the ways that she needs. He was building her up, researching things with her and sending her links to songs on YouTube. They had planned to meet while he was in town.

We keep a dry-erase calendar on our refrigerator to keep track of upcoming events and things and I noticed the next day that there was a three day block with just a squiggly line through them but nothing indicating what it meant. I asked her, knowing that it was probably when the ex was in town but just wanting to see if she would tell the truth. She said she didn't remember but probably something work-related. That sent off alarms and brought back all the old feelings from my past relationship that was chocked full of similar secrets...quite unhealthy. Over the next week and some, I kept an eye on it and went on about my days. She didn't mention a thing, he came to town, they met up and nothing was said. Eventually, it was found out that I had looked into her email again and she lost her mind at me. It's been a month and things are still trying to be mended. Her and the ex are still e-mailing back and forth, about what I can only guess...not taking another chance after having my third strike waived. He never got over her (obviously, as he was still sending gifts to her two years into our relationship despite being told about NC). She's told me quite a bit about him and I have to assume that he is taking the opportunity to console her while subtly trying to convince her to end our engagement. During a particularly heated argument, I told her that she was having an emotional affair. She got pissed, told me off and got back to tearing into me for my trust issues.

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TL;DR - I have trust/anxiety issues badly and my partner has done almost nothing to deserve to deal with them. I've been caught snooping through her stuff on a number of occasions but can't shake the impulse to continue. Her communicating with her ex who will stop at nothing to get back with her makes things way worse for me. I want to fix my compulsion to snoop and mend the broken trust in our relationship and find a healthy and constructive way to communicate that I don't think it's appropriate to discuss our relationship or her personal issues with her ex given his insistence on getting back with her.

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Thank you for reading if you've made it this far. My questions are:

1) How do I get over these feelings of paranoia that cause me to want to snoop through her email/phone? I don't have health insurance so seeing a psychologist isn't really in my wheelhouse. Will they ever go away?

2) How do I rebuild the trust lost through snooping? I love this woman more than I ever knew was possible and I can't bear the thought of us not working out. I want to mend things but I don't know how to, other than...don't snoop again. Is there anything I can do to prove that I'm trying? That I want to be better for her?

3) Not as important, but I just need to settle my mind. Would you consider privately corresponding with an ex about your current relationship, personal health issues, etc. as inappropriate? Emotional affair? Neither? I don't feel like I'm nuts on this one but my partner is certainly making me out to feel nuts about it and completely disregarding my feelings about it when I try to mention it. "It upsets me that you're asking [your ex] for help with things and not me." -> "Well it upsets me that you look through my stuff."

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Thanks for reading. I really need some help here. Ending this relationship isn't an option...it needs to mend but it's been over a month of reduced contact, zero intimacy and many long and often angry conversations. I don't know how to prove to her that I'm trying to make right.

Hi there,

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1) How do I get over these feelings of paranoia that cause me to want to snoop through her email/phone? I don't have health insurance so seeing a psychologist isn't really in my wheelhouse. Will they ever go away?

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First of all, the feelings of paranoia is a natural human behaviour basically a response due to lack of trust within the relationship. We are curious creatures and we naturally have a need to get answers, complete things so when you've come across her conversations with her ex, you want to know the whole story and therefore leading to the snooping. Understand that a relationship without trust probably won't exist for much longer. It's a combined effort to make a relationship work not just one side. So the answer to that question is that, if you don't sit down and tell her why you are snooping and if she cannot be honest with you, it won't go away.

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2) How do I rebuild the trust lost through snooping? I love this woman more than I ever knew was possible and I can't bear the thought of us not working out. I want to mend things but I don't know how to, other than...don't snoop again. Is there anything I can do to prove that I'm trying? That I want to be better for her?

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Rebuilding trust after losing it, is twice as hard but not impossible. If you can explain to her clearly what lead to the loss of trust, then maybe if she is serious and wanting to mend the relationship she will understand to help you in rebuilding it by being open about exactly what has been going on between her and her ex. Communicating the best possible way to mend any situation. By this i mean straight forward talking, not subtle signals, signs or doing things behind each other's backs. Because communication is about getting the message through and if you leave things to be dependent upon assumptions, the message will never be what you intended.

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Not as important, but I just need to settle my mind. Would you consider privately corresponding with an ex about your current relationship, personal health issues, etc. as inappropriate? Emotional affair? Neither? I don't feel like I'm nuts on this one but my partner is certainly making me out to feel nuts about it and completely disregarding my feelings about it when I try to mention it. "It upsets me that you're asking [your ex] for help with things and not me." -> "Well it upsets me that you look through my stuff."

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We as a community can only provide support as much as we know. Unfortunately without understanding who you are, your interactions or your personality, it is quite difficult to provide exact responses. Every situation can be broken down to find solutions to help mend them. E.g.:

Emotional affair - what you might consider an emotional affair could simply be the interactions between close friends, it differs from one person to another.
Because of your snooping, she has now got leverage to use against you and eventually things that you might raise with her that you're not happy with will be slammed with simply bringing up your snooping. You mentioned that when she found out, she was angry, you mended it and moved on, but know that from that moment onwards her trust towards you dropped.

Your trust issues have developed from previous relationships, however understand that each relationship is new and if you are going to let the past hold you back, you will never be able to have a healthy relationship.
You say that you have been cheated on and therefore you have lost trust in people, but at the same time, what you are doing creates distrust towards you as well.