tanbark813 Posted September 10, 2004 Posted September 10, 2004 Ok, my gf and I have been together for about 6 months now. She lives two hours away but we spend the weekends together. She had time off work earlier this week and spent part of the week with me. She ended up just hanging out at my place during the day while I was at work. After she left to go back home the other day I got curious and did a little investigative browser history searching. I have trust issues and am generally suspicious of people because of having a few relationships fall apart because of untrustworthy girls. Hence, the snooping. Anyway, after looking around a little, I found out that she sent a message through our old high school alumni web site (it shows the command in the url history) to some girl. It turns out the girl is the wife of her ex's brother. That seems kind of random on the surface, but she also did google searches for that particular ex. She has also mentioned previously that she always wondered what happened to him and only posted her own profile on that website because she was interested in hearing from two people: him and me. It's because of me contacting her through that site that we reconnected and eventually started seeing each other. Now, all this was kind of bothering me all day yesterday and I was wondering what her intentions were for trying to get a hold of this guy. So last night on the phone, I mentioned that I had just been contacted from someone through the site (which really happened and was a conventient excuse to get on the subject). I then kind of casually asked if she got any more messages recently as it's kind of a running joke between us about who we get contacted by. I never told her I knew anything specific. Finally the conversation was steered to her ex and she talked about how he was really close to her back in high school and helped her through a lot of s***. She went on to say that she thought she really hurt him and always felt kind of bad about doing so and just wanted to make sure he's alright. At that point: Me: "So you never tried contacting him?" Her: "No. *Maybe* I tried emailing his sister a while back, I think." Me: "Oh, yeah.." Her: "And *maybe* I emailed his brother's wife, but I think I just never heard anything back and just forgot about it." Me: "Oh, yeah.. When was this?" Her: "Like a year and a half ago." When in fact, it was about 2 days ago that she emailed. At that point I just kind of let it go and we got off the phone not much later. I never got mad or accusatory, I just wanted to see what she would say about everything. I'm glad she brought up on her own having an interest in contacting her ex, but it really bothers me that she lied about when it all happened. So here's my problem: I don't think this by itself is that big a deal, but I do have a problem with the lying, especially since I caught her in a lie early in the relationship. I let that one go eventually because it was kind of early on and she was trying to save face. But I really don't like the pattern that's starting to show. I mean, maybe this wasn't that big a lie, but if she lies about things like this, why wouldn't she lie when confronted with a much more important issue? Plus, if her intentions in contacting her ex were completely innocent, then why not just tell me that it was recent as opposed to "a year and a half ago"? I already know she'd like to hear from him. So now I'm wondering if I should confront her about this. I want her to know she can't lie to me, and I want to know I can trust her to be 100% honest, but I also don't want to put her on the defensive or push her away in the relationship. They always say "choose your battles" so at this point I'm wondering if this is a battle worth fighting or if I should give the troops the weekend off.
uriel Posted September 10, 2004 Posted September 10, 2004 This is a more serious lie. And, as you say, it could be a pattern. You also don't know whether to buy that she just wants to see if he's alright at this point, or whether she's actually interested in him. Unless she comes all the way clean, you'll never be sure. I'd confront. -- uriel
hugznkisses21 Posted September 10, 2004 Posted September 10, 2004 This may not be any better as it is a lir too....but tell her that you were cleaning out your history for clearing hard drive reasons (say ur computer is starting to be slow) and u noticed this....you cant keep feeling good inthe realtionship never knowing if something she is saying is a lie. Bring it out in the open....let me know how it goes! I have trust issues to being hurt before I think that we can both benefit from eachothers and others advice
Author tanbark813 Posted September 10, 2004 Author Posted September 10, 2004 Well, I actually have no problem saying I was snooping through the history. First off, that's what I was doing. Secondly, I know she's done something similar. And finally, it's my godd@mn computer and I can do with it whatever I want. I'm just trying to decide if this is something worth discussing.
savethedrama4allama Posted September 10, 2004 Posted September 10, 2004 Man, I really feel for you. I wish I had advice, but I don't know. Its not a big deal right now, I would say, but it forces you to ask: 1. What is her need to lie? and 2. If she can lie about this, what else can she lie about? I think you should definitely confront her. What you do with her response...I'm not sure. By the way, I don't call it snooping if its on your friggin computer. And it was the search history, not even her email. So I wouldn't bat an eyelash about telling her that you found it and asking more questions. That would irritate me that she used MY computer to contact an ex out of principle. Respectfully yours......savethedrama
tiki Posted September 10, 2004 Posted September 10, 2004 Confront her. If she is commited to you, she doesn't need to be searching old exes. True? You could bring it up as such...you typed in the first few letter (or letters) into the search bar and his name was in the drop-down menu. Try it beforehand, if your computer saves that crap, this should work. Ask her why the hell she was searching for him. G'luck and keep us posted.
Author tanbark813 Posted September 13, 2004 Author Posted September 13, 2004 After thinking a lot about this, I finally decided to bring it up when I saw her Friday night. I was going over in my head for hours how best to address it, but I finally decided to just be straightforward about what I found in the history and try not to put her on the defensive. I basically told her that I didn't want to get into a big fight about it, but that I was looking around in the browser history and knew she lied about when she tried contacting her ex. I told her that I was going to be optimistic and assume that she lied only to protect my feelings (to which she agreed, of course), but that I can handle my own feelings and would rather hear harsh truths than sugar-coated lies. We talked about it for a while and she understood where I was coming from and apologized for being dishonest. She also said that when we were on the phone she was tired (granted, it was the end of a very long day for her), and she knew if she was completely honest that we'd end up on the phone longer and she just didn't want to deal with all that. But then she admitted that that wasn't the wisest decision since ultimately it just made things worse and we ended up in a big discussion about it anyway. On a side note, I'm glad I did bring the issue up because she said she was kind of freaking out the following day and had a gut feeling that something was up given the way the phone conversation went. So, at the end of a lengthy talk, she promised to not lie anymore if I promised to back off a little and cut her some slack. We agreed and the rest of the weekend went beautifully.
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