I want my girlfriend to unfriend her ex boyfriend. Am I just in this situation?

[Blimps321]

I believe my[25M] girlfriend Sally[23F] might still have feelings for her ex. I have no concrete proof, but there have been many instances of him coming up that I usually just brush off. But after yesterday's' red flag, I feel like I need to do something about this.

 

First of all, a bit of background: she likes to keep tabs on her exes for some reason by looking at their facebook profiles. I find this extremely weird but she says it's because they were good people and she enjoys looking at their lives. I brushed it off since I figured that's just a weird quirk about her and accepted that about her.

 

Now this one ex, John, she dated for 3 months early last year but broke it off because he couldn't commit to a "girlfriend" title. She still considers him an exboyfriend though. They don't talk anymore apparently, but are friends on fbook and like each other's posts once in a while. While she was dating me, she admitted to missing John as a friend because he was a cool person and she wished that they were friends still. She also likes to view his fb profile because of all the photography he posts(she's a amateur photographer). I brushed all this off since I thought it was fine to be friends with an ex. But I honestly cannot be dating a girl who still has feeling for their ex.

 

Anyway so the red flag - she opened her phone and a note came up of a text draft that she wrote up in her notes app. All I saw was "hey john.." at the start of it because she quickly went to another screen as soon as it popped up. It was a lengthy text, about 4 sentences. It really seemed like she didn't want me to be reading that. I asked her what it was and she said it was an old text in her notes from a year ago that she wanted to view because she's been thinking about him recently. She said the reason she's been thinking about him recently is because me and her spent Valentine's Day at a hiking spot that John and her used to visit frequently. And then the day after we saw a concert of my favorite band, which is coincidentally johns favorite band too. I asked her to show me this text, and she said it was private and she doesn't want me to see it at all. If this text was from last year, why would she hide it from me and be so adamant about not showing me? I feel like she was lying or hiding something. This was the first red flag as I think she wanted to text him something and she was hiding it from me. After arguing for a bit, she said okay fine do you want me to just unfriend him on Facebook? I said fine(even though I view this as an extreme. Was trying to see what she would do), and then she opened up her phone and was on it for 3 minutes. I was confused why it was taking so long so I asked her is it done yet and finally she says yeah I'm not deleting him, even though they don't talk at all and are not friends. She said she was doing some Facebook filter issue she had with family for the entire 3 minutes, like what? My guess was she was changing the note in the notes app from earlier because 10 minutes later she agreed for me to finally read the note. This was red flag number two, she wouldn't delete him even though she offered to.

 

Now keep in mind, just last week she made me unfriend someone on Facebook that I used to date. If I'm sacrificing people I used to date just for her, why can't she do the same for me? However there is a slight difference in the two situations. I lied about a text I sent to this girl, and thus my girlfriend had a hunch I was lying, got paranoid, and asked me to unfriend this girl. I unfriended her because I love my girlfriend and I didn't care about this girl I used to date. I eventually told her about the lie I told and she forgave me.

 

Anyway I'm super skeptical now about this John guy and I don't know how to approach this with her. We fought a little more afterward about trust and I still couldn't bring myself to believe her. She wasn't even trying at all to reassure me. She literally said I have no reassurance for you and she acted like she barely cared about this entire ordeal and that I should just trust her words. She also said if I want to stay together with her then I can never bring this up again about John. I told her we would stay together but in the back of my mind I still don't trust her with this John guy. I really want her to unfriend him now, am I just in asking for this? I am usually not the kind of person to resort to an ultimatum.

 

I would appreciate any advice, thank you for reading.

Edited February 16, 2016 by Blimps321

[smudge21]

As much as you're being paranoid, I do clearly see why. The most obvious is when she's asking you to unfriend ex's whilst she's not prepared to do the same. I would make it clear how you feel about all this and that if there is nothing going on, then how come she's being so secretive. You need trust in any relationship and if you're losing that because of how she is then it doesn't speak well for the future.

 

 

All that said, we all feel insecure at times, especially in relationships, so this could all be you making it worse by overthinking. You need to talk to her for definite, in a calm relaxed manner.

[PegNosePete]

Agree with the above. Don't make it an ultimatum or even about her ex, make it about building trust.

 

You need to trust her, and her actions are making that extremely difficult, because she is acting so shifty. Whether there's anything going on with her ex or not, is almost irrelevant. Her actions are not those of a trustworthy person, and they are making you think there's something going on, whether there is or not. If she wants you to trust her then she needs to start acting in a trustworthy manner.

 

Of course that goes both ways. You shouldn't be lying to her about texting other girls.

[Eaglescout88]

Hello, I am truly sorry about the situation that you are in. You have requested advice and here is what my thoughts are after reading your post. What I have learned in my time is that the purpose of dating is to find someone to marry. We may think otherwise at different stages in our youth, but marriage is the ultimate goal. With that in mind, the foundation for a healthy marriage is trust. My wife and I have been happily married for nine years. She is my best friend. When I met her, I had guy and girl friends. Though these were extremely close friends, when I started courting my wife, I stopped talking to them (not to mention stopped spending time with them). Once I identified that she was the one for me, everyone else was secondary. She did the same thing.

So I ask you, do you know what your intentions are for this relationship? Are you looking for the relationship to turn to marriage or do you just want to "have a good time?" Does she know your intentions?

Once again, I am really sorry that you are in the situation. Relationships really require work.

I will be praying for you. Kind regards, Kevin

[ManyDissapoint]

Your GF has a hole in her ego when she got dumped by her ex. You are treading on very dangerous territory my man. Her behavior is completely unacceptable, and I feel you are likely being used as a stepping stone to achieve whatever her grander romantic schemes are.

 

Her secrecy and hypocrisy and more importantly your gut instinct which brought you to this forum is enough evidence for me to say to dump her or at the very least begin the process of detaching yourself in order to protect yourself.

 

Begin preparing for something very shady here so you are prepared if it comes. You are completely justified in snooping in this case because her behavior doesn't add up.

 

My 2c

[d0nnivain]

If you want her to un-friend him & she won't, are you prepared to break up with her? If not, all you are doing by constantly harping on this is making everybody miserable. You are also teaching her that she can walk all over you.

[preraph]

She does sound like she wants to keep him open as an option. He, however, didn't want her as a girlfriend, and that's why they broke up, so she probably is carrying a torch for him, but it's not going to get her anywhere. I wouldn't like it either. I think maybe you should move on because you don't have her full attention. She needs to get good and used to the fact John doesn't want her first.