Subject: We Don’t Trust Each Other
Dear Steve and Shirley,
I am a 30-year-old woman and I have been in a relationship with my boyfriend who is 35 for almost five years. Overall, it is has been good. We get along pretty well for the most part. We met in one city and after some time I had moved away for my job. For a while we were long distance and he did not want to move to where I was since I was planning on moving back as soon as I was able. After some time, he broke down and decided to move to be with me. I normally am not the type to “shack up” with someone. But since the circumstances were so unique, I decided to go ahead with it and just deal. After all, we were very serious and talking about getting married anyway. Things were great for a while and then things started to turn. I guess you could say we hit the relationship doldrums where you get bored with one another but you don’t necessarily want to leave. But all relationships have their highs and lows so I wasn’t too worried. I would feel him emotionally pulling away from me but there was not much I could do. He spends a lot of his time on social media sites “talking” to “friends”. Several times I have looked at these chats and text messages in his phone and found things that were completely inappropriate from a few different women. I was understandably angry and, of course, we fought about what was found. However, I decided to forgive him and we moved forward. In the last month I was contacted by my ex (who is married) and to make a long story short we had a trip down memory lane and had speculative conversation about being together. I knew that none of it would happen but it was nice to have someone to talk to since I felt alone in my current situation. Well, eventually he found the texts between myself and my ex. There was a huge blowup. I admitted to my wrong doing and had pointed out that I forgave him when the shoe was on the other foot. Things moved forward but didn’t really seem to get better. He was still distant and spending all his time on the computer so I decided to do the same. Since I am new to where I am and don’t know a lot of people I put myself on a social site to meet new people. He saw that profile and flipped out again even though I had not even started using it. He was angry at me even putting it up even though I was very clear that all I was looking for is friendship. I am angry at the double standard that he puts out. Why does he get to talk to people and flirt with people any time he wants but when I just look around on a site and not even talk to anyone it’s a big, huge problem. Bottom line is that the trust has been broken in our relationship for a while. Ever since I found those first messages months ago. I don’t trust him and he doesn’t trust me. Steve, I have fought so hard for this relationship over the years and poured a lot into it. I thought this was the man who I was going to spend the rest of my life with but events as of late have me thinking differently. What should I do? Should I try to repair what has been broken or should I just count my losses, put this up to experience and move on? Please help.
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