Dear Lily:

You are welcome. If my reply to you this morning would be of the good-guy/ bad-guy type (saying something like: Lily, you did not hook up with a mutual friend while separated from your boyfriend, but he did hook up with a mutual friend; therefore, you are the good-guy and he is the bad-guy and he deserves to suffer for it), would that make you feel better?

In the reply that follows, I will not go the good-guy/ bad guy route. Instead, I acknowledge that neither one of you is perfect (no person is perfect) and look at the reality of the situation, best I can, quoting from you and commenting. Before I start, I want to say: I understand how badly you’ve been feeling, “Conflicted” (the title of your thread) and so very troubled by the events that happened- or may have happened- during the time you were broken up from your boyfriend and beyond. I hope that this unnecessary suffering that you’ve been experiencing will come to an end sooner than later, and that you will experience calm and contentment instead.

“I suffer from anxiety and the fear that things are being hidden from me/ paranoia… during our therapy sessions, I expressed to him that I felt like he was hiding something from me, I just didn’t know what, but I had such a gut feeling… I feel scared that he’s still hiding something from me… I’m having a hard time trusting him… I just can’t shake the upset betrayed feeling I get when I think about it, and how I feel there’s more that is being hidden.. About three/ four months ago we were talking about dating/ hook ups in general and I asked him again if he had anything go on with anyone else while we weren’t together because I just had a gut feeling“-

– You shared that you suffer from fear that things are being hidden from you; from a paranoia (your word).  Paranoia, Merriam Webster definition: “a tendency on the part of an individual or group toward excessive or irrational suspiciousness and distrustfulness of others“, Wikipedia: “Paranoia is an instinct or thought process that is believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of delusion and irrationality“. Healthline: “Paranoia is a thought process that causes you to have an irrational suspicion or mistrust of others… Mistrust of others and constant anxiety can make relationships and interactions with others difficult, causing problems with employment and personal relationships”.

Suffering from paranoia does not mean, of course, that everyone you meet is trustworthy, but since you are aware that you suffer from paranoia (you stated that you do): at the least, give serious consideration to the possibility  that your suspiciousness and distrust of your boyfriend may be irrational, part of your experience of paranoia. You used the term “gut feeling” twice, in regard to your suspiciousness of your boyfriend, a term that refers to a feeling that is true to reality… but paranoid suspicion, although it feels to be true… is not true to reality. Let’s look at the reality of his behavior in the past and present time:

“I moved out and we had no contact. We would run into each other out at the bar and local places around our city. I remained no contact and acted as if he wasn’t around because that was how I was moving on from my heart break“- on your part, you ignored him when you ran into him because you wanted to heal your broken heart; on his part, being ignored by you probably hurt him and troubled him a lot.

“While we were broken up he would get drunk and bother me if he saw me out/ text me late at night, after me asking for him to respect my boundaries and leave me alone to heal“- on your part, you were angry at him for not respecting your boundaries; on his part, seems to me, he felt desperate for contact with you, and when drunk and his inhibitions lowered, he contacted you.

“He told me..  he was so drunk he barely remembers it…  He said… I asked how it happened and he said… She said… I asked him about that and he said yes he did come onto her (which he lied about initially)“-

– it may really be that he was so drunk, like he said he was, that he really was not able to recall what happened: it is common that people forget what happened when they were drunk. Also, when a person is interrogated (repeatedly asked the same questions over and over again, or repeatedly asked questions on the same theme), a common reaction by the interrogated is to eventually say whatever it is that will make the interrogator stop asking questions. Interrogations do not promote honesty!

“I told him that I had not hooked up with anyone… A mutual friend of ours tried very hard to hook up with me and I declined out of respect for him (ex at the time)… he ended up telling me he drunkingly hooked up with a mutual friend/ neighbor of ours *two weeks* before we decided to start talking again“- you indicate perhaps a moral superiority over him, and in the context of hooking up with a mutual friend while on a break from the relationship, you were indeed morally superior to him… but in regard to interrogating a partner, and as part of the interrogation, threatening him (“I told him that I would leave knowing that he lied if he didn’t just tell me”), he has been morally superior to you, assuming he did not interrogate and threaten you.

“He even told the therapist he wasn’t and that it’s hard for him to deal with me ‘accusing’ him of hiding something… We got into a fight about it about a month ago and he said he no longer wants to talk about it anymore and won’t answer any more questions“- it is very difficult to be in a relationship with an interrogator, with a person who suffers from paranoia (“I suffer from.. paranoia“).

“Everything was going so well before I found out and it just hasn’t felt the same for me since he told me“- everything was going so well for a while, but when a person suffers from paranoia, the going-so-well doesn’t last long. If it isn’t one thing that triggers the suspiciousness, it’s another.

“This is so hard because I love him so much“- love him enough to stop interrogating him and instead, do all you can- in the context of quality therapy- to heal from and manage your anxiety and paranoia?

“I think I want to know more and more because I do not get a consistent answer from him, and I get dismissed very quickly because he doesn’t want to talk about it anymore.. so it makes me believe something more is being hidden“- the more you interrogate a person, the more he/ she will lie to make you stop the interrogation. Interrogating a person does not promote honest, consistent answers.

“I feel like if I am able to get the honest answers and even possibly proof? Or a in depth conversation, then I can move on and that ‘itch’ would go away“- From personal experience with “itches”: no answer, no proof and no in-depth conversation with “the suspect” can take the itch away for good.

“I have debated with myself why I want to know about something that went on when we were apart… I feel betrayed. I feel I would have been fine with it if it was just out in the open from the beginning“- I am guessing that “from the beginning“, that is, when you were a child, you really were betrayed, that important things really were hidden from you (“the fear that things are being hidden from me“), and that emotionally, you keep re-experiencing that early life betrayal in the context of your relationship with your boyfriend.

We can communicate further if you’d like. Please let me know.

anita