A bit of a messy mess

[darkdann]

So, let me begin that Im new here and I only made this to help me improve my relationship or get another perspective. Now to my problem....


See, my gf have been together 9 months now. Back in march one of my exes decided to be stupid and make a foolish attempt to get back with me. My gf saw this and it sparked her to go through all my facebook messages, emails, notifications, etc because she believed that I had a girl on the side. That ended up with her finding out that for the first three months she and I were dating I still flirted with other girls ( only flirted, for I never had sex with anyone else during that time). Well, even though it had stopped months before that it caused her to lose all trust in me which to this day she has yet to recover any of.

We've been working on it. But see. I was forced to give her access to all my accounts because she insisted that it would help her regain trust on me. I also stopped hanging out with my friends because my work schedule made it so most of the time I could only see them at night and she found this vary inappropriate and an indirect sign that I may cheat. But all of this has somehow caused the opposite effect? She keeps thinking I want to be with other girls, she logged into my verizon account and got all my text messages to forward to her phone or tablet so she can see everything I talk about, she accused me of making a snapchat to show girls my privates even though she knows im not the type of guy that does that, and so forth....WITHIN the past week. She almost left me yesterday and she doesn't get how I feel uncomfortable having absolute no privacy in this relationship. Or that every little thing I do somehow goes back to me being a cheater.

So really...what can I reasonably do to make her trust me again? It's been almost six months since she found out I had been flirting with other girls before but I had already stopped way before she even found out. Is it reasonable that THAT caused this many problems? I really need advice. It hurts me when she keeps making claims like that and it bothers me having no privacy.

[Ginger2013]

Well, she doesn't trust you for good reason because even though you say there was no sex, you were cheating if you'd made a commitment to be with her and still flirted with other girls. Trust should be about NOT needing passwords or snooping. I think she already has some trust issues to deal with on her own. Sounds like she'll always accuse you of cheating, even if you say you're not doing it anymore. I'd say have a discussion with her about working on her level of trust, if she's not willing, then dump her because the way things are going, she'll be dumping you anyway. Sounds like she's close to it.

[darkdann]

See. I understand why she doesn't trust me. I understand that it was still cheating. I haven't disputed that. What I don't understand is how after six months she has made ZERO progress at regaining her trust in me.

She claims all the time now that she DOES trust me. That she is only feeling insecure. But just like how you said. trusting is not needing my passwords or snooping or stalking. I can't even talk to my friends about my relationship because she gets mad. I've deleted the few times I do talk to my friends about this and that's still caused her to get mad. Says I shouldn't be deleting things if I want her to trust me. I understand what she means but she has to realize sometimes I want to complain to my friends to let out some steam knowing I won't ruin my relationship with her. It's not that im unhappy or want to leave her. Everyone gets frustrated in a relationship and everyone has that friend they tell those problems too.

I keep hearing that I should leave her but I wish there was a way to make this work out :/

[Ginger2013]

She doesn't trust you despite what she says. If she did, she wouldn't continue to need your passwords and be suspicious. She needs to work on the trust issue on her own. You can make it work if you drill it into her head that her actions will cause you two to break up and that you DO want to help her and support her, but that she has to make an effort to work on her own issues too.

[darkdann]

I've already told her that too. I told her that the way she's acting is pushing me away and that it isn't healthy. She's stubborn though. Im trying to get her a full time job so she doesn't have so much "free time" thinking that might help

[Ginger2013]

Nothing will help, she doesn't need distraction, she needs to deal with her trust issues. I guess it's your call as to how much you'll put up with from now on if she refuses to help herself!

[basilandthyme]

You're "trying to get her a job"? Why hasn't she gotten herself a job?? Big warning sign here

[darkdann]

She has a part time job. But she calls off a lot and has had her hours cut. She doesn't seem that motivated to get another job because she keeps missing interviews and the likes.

And I've been thinking....

Should I just change the passwords to all my personal stuff and basically force her to trust me or end it? Because this isn't helping me with my health and stress.