Poll: To trust or not to trust?

[BloatedGuppy]

I hope that wasn't too convoluted. And yes, I am giving real world relationship advice from Seinfeld.

Seinfeld is meant to be a manual on how NOT to act in real life. My girlfriend is a mental health professional and they actually use the show to model socially inappropriate behaviors for their clients in workshops.

 

[Beffudled Sheep_v1legacy]

She should talk to him about it like an adult. If she doesn't trust him then she shouldn't be with him, simple.

And if I were him I'd leave the girl in a hurry. "Accidentally" snooping around and then confronting me about cheating because I managed to meet someone in another country of the opposite sex and enjoy conversing with them would make me pretty pissed off and questioning the quality of my relationship.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

She should talk to him about it like an adult. If she doesn't trust him then she shouldn't be with him, simple.

And if I were him I'd leave the girl in a hurry. "Accidentally" snooping around and then confronting me about cheating because I managed to meet someone in another country of the opposite sex and enjoy conversing with them would make me pretty pissed off and questioning the quality of my relationship.

As per OP, the guy had cheated before. I think given those circumstances, a slightly higher level of suspicion is hardly surprising or evidence the girlfriend is a paranoid fruitcake.

 

[Hagi]

They should talk to each other.

She's obviously insecure and he's obviously uncomfortable (although not necessarily due to cheating). Just talk to each other, either they're able to work it out and everything's fine or they can't and they should break up already.

Communication is key in a serious relationship, if you can't manage it you're just setting yourself up for disaster.

 

[Fuzzed]

Just leave him. Chances our she'll find a nicer dude with a bigger penis.

 

[Aslyn]

(and being a girl with crazy hormones and shit)

Please don't think you need to blame having opinions on crazy hormones. Own your opinion. Be confident. And don't propagate the lie that all women have crazy hormones that make them irrational. The rest of us don't appreciate it. Thanks.

OT, I voted confront it head on. Regardless of if something is happening with this one girl or not, that is sketchy behavior. He needs to be up front about what he wants and needs out of the relationship. If he's not fulfilled, he should end it. Same for her. She needs to let him know that she needs to trust him, and all this deleting conversations and changing passwords is not exactly trust inspiring.

She also needs to not go nuts spying on him and checking his stuff all the time. True trust needs to be established, or the relationship needs to end.

 

[Kaymish]

yeah given the flags this is shady like super shady i am 0.95 sure that this guy is up to something at first i was thinking that with out knowing the contents of the messages it was difficult to tell i mean just cause he has a girlfriend doesn't mean he cant talk to other women just means he cant sleep around
but then the red flags came up
flags like trying to hide it having a history of cheating
and being a crap liar i mean who says (even if it is hersay and had the shit paraphrased out of it) "it was nothing and that he only talked her that one time and that they swapped contact info randomly" obvious lie is obvious

 

[Beffudled Sheep_v1legacy]

She should talk to him about it like an adult. If she doesn't trust him then she shouldn't be with him, simple.

And if I were him I'd leave the girl in a hurry. "Accidentally" snooping around and then confronting me about cheating because I managed to meet someone in another country of the opposite sex and enjoy conversing with them would make me pretty pissed off and questioning the quality of my relationship.

As per OP, the guy had cheated before. I think given those circumstances, a slightly higher level of suspicion is hardly surprising or evidence the girlfriend is a paranoid fruitcake.

I read that part too but it was when they were practically children. Maybe I have just slightly too much faith in people but a 15 year old and a 20 something year old are different (sometimes). Hormones ravage, people change, etc. If the guy has a history of cheating a lot then he obviosuly hasn't changed but once as a young teen shouldn't be a permanent blackspot on his relationship record. I don't blame her for being a bit on guard and I'm not calling her a paranoid fruitcake but I think immediately jumping the conclusion of "cheating" is a bit on the extreme side.

But if she doesn't trust him enough to not cheat when speaking to another female on the internet then she really shouldn't have been in a relationship with him in the first place.

 

[otakon17]

Funnily enough this kind of situation happened between my cousin and his girlfriend. Same kind of deal too, she was snooping in his phone and found some texts with another girl. They worked it out though, they're not together anymore but that break up was amicable at least. Confront it directly and work it out.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

But if she doesn't trust him enough to not cheat when speaking to another female on the internet then she really shouldn't have been in a relationship with him in the first place.

True, true. That's why cheating is generally seen as so damning. Once trust is broken, it...much like Humpty Dumpty...is pretty hard to ever put back together again.

 

[Beffudled Sheep_v1legacy]

But if she doesn't trust him enough to not cheat when speaking to another female on the internet then she really shouldn't have been in a relationship with him in the first place.

True, true. That's why cheating is generally seen as so damning. Once trust is broken, it...much like Humpty Dumpty...is pretty hard to ever put back together again.

Exactly. But she made a choice, trust issues or no, to go back out with the guy and as a (hopefully) mature adult she should have acted in a more mature fashion than immediately calling and thinking "cheater" after snooping through his private stuff. Even if it was "accidental" snooping.
And the guy really should have talked to the girl before changing all of his passwords to explain. Both parties seem to be acting a little childishly and certainly don't seem to trust each other very much at all.

 

[Johnny Impact]

It takes years to build trust, and only suspicion to destroy it. Perhaps he's "just friends" with the Skype girl. Men actually can be just friends with women. I've done it.

 

[101flyboy]

Of course he shouldn't be trusted, based on the sole fact he tipped his own hand with the secrecy. Their relationship isn't going to last.

 

[janjotat]

If there was nothing to hide he would have let here see nothing was there as proof. Granted you friend is stalkerish for knowing he is trying to delete his conversations. But she should confront him then dump him.

 

[Colour Scientist]

So basically I want to know your opinions on a current situation my friends are going through as i just can't make up my mind.
EDIT: this applies to both males and females if it were your friend or partner.

I clicked "Yes, trust him".

Being paranoid and suspicious is a good way to ruin a relationship. Just let it go. Random chatting is no big thing, and poking it is a good way to upset someone. If someone confronted me about something they found in my history, I'd be changing my passwords too - that's invasion of privacy right there.

Right now, I'd say she's in the wrong for looking in the first place (and saying that the woman is in the wrong about a relationship is pretty foreign to me, so... yeah).

It's a free country - he's allowed to chat with whomever he likes.

And so is she.

If the genders were reversed, I'd be angrily talking about how men and women can just be friends and how insensitive he was to look in her account. She should look at it that way - if their situations were reversed, how would she feel about him accusing her of the same? If your friend would be offended if he did this to her, then it is absolutely hypocritical of her to be upset with him over it.

And, fellow Escapists - you think about that too.

I was planning a big post but it's already been done for me.

I would freak out if I caught my boyfriend reading my messages Skype/phone/Facebook or whatever. For me, it would be a dumping offence, depending on the situation. I would, at the very least, change all of my passwords. There's nothing suspicious in there but they're my business, my conversations with other people are none of his business unless I discuss them with him and I'm sure he feels the same way. If you feel the need to do that you don't trust the other person, end of. You're just looking for trouble. I don't believe for a second that she happened to stumble upon their conversations. It might have popped up by chance but she could have given him his privacy. Not only that, she tried to continue reading through them to keep tabs on him AND checked his browser history.

There's no point telling her to trust him, she seems to have already decided that she doesn't. That kind of paranoia and jealousy is going to do her head in so I would advise her to either get out now or try to figure out what it is that's actually making her so paranoid and deal with that.

she fears that if he is searching for something else with people on the internet that there is something seriously wrong with their relationship.

There's something wrong with the relationship but it's not that.

Now there had been issues of trust and cheating years ago when they had been together before but they had both agreed that being 15 you tend to make mistakes and as they are now 24/25 it would be different.

That could well be the source of her paranoia.

 

[Colour Scientist]

That right there is why.

If the conversation, and future conversations, were harmless then there would be no reason to need secrecy. Especially since this comes immediately after a head-on open discussion of the issue.

My internal dishonesty alarm would be blaring quite loudly, and if I can't trust my partner I have no desire to be with them.

Of course he changed his passwords, she was snooping around his private conversations.

 

[Xariat]

I choose other because honestly, I think the relationship is doomed no matter how they handle this.
She can't trust him because of a few skype messages.
He can't trust that she won't snoop around.
I mean they're 25, they should be able to talk about this without getting suspicious about each other.

BUT! for the sake of discussion let's say that they can't talk about this without suspecting things. If my girlfriend decided to confront me because of some messages I sent to a girl in a different country then I'd probably want to change my password too. why? so my girlfriend wouldn't be able to snoop around and draw stupid conclusions that could further ruin the relationship. Now when I chat I can write some pretty borderline things as jokes, this is not because I'm cheating but because I like to throw weird jokes around from time to time. The girl on the other end would probably know that I'm joking and might even play with me, My girlfriend on the other hand might not have the context of the chat and could potentially draw very wrong lines.

However this is all if's and but's, there's not enough context in the OP to draw a straight answer and I think one could argue back and forth about this for a long ass time. it really boils down to the two people in question's personality and behavior, which no one here knows.

 

[Lt._nefarious]

K, well I'd trust her... Or him... If it was in my case it would be a her (or a he if I somehow got asked out by Robert Downey Junior) but for your question he... Right? Got that? I don't...

Anyway if I found out my gal pal was going through my Skype conversations I'd probably change my password too because A) It would mean she had access to a 2 hour text-versation about fake tits and the price of hentai and B) I never ever tell anyone my password to anything.

But if I found out she was talking to another guy on the internet I'd be cool with it. If she's not ever naked underneath/on top of this guy then it's not cheating, just porn, in my mind. I think I'd just assume she was mates with this guy though and leave it at that, I'm fine with that. Also I'd be so fucking thrilled I had a girlfriend that I would probably just roll with it even if I caught her recording herself with her lady-bits exposed while talking to the guy...

*sigh* That was depressing in a "fuck-am-I-really-that-lonely" kinda way...

 

[winginson]

I don't see a problem with just talking, or the fact that he changed his passwords after. Just because you are in a relationship doesn't mean you must lay every single aspect of your life bare.

I put LEAVE. If her first thought isn't "Huh, a friend of his" but "Being cheated on" then it ain't gonna work.

 

[J Tyran]

...he then proceeded to change his passwords, and had been searching up ways to delete skype convo's.

Changing the passwords after she invaded his privacy isn't a red flag by itself at all, in fact its a red flag for him if anything if she is going through his conversation history. Thats getting pretty close to boiling the bunny territory.