Rachel,

Men often don’t handle their emotions well, and blame others for their pain. He sounds as though he is externalizing his guilt, or seeing you with grey tinted glasses. Honesty is important in relationships, and he was deceptive to you. Your intuition told you something was off, and you went exploring to discover the truth. And you did. Yes, the boundary thing wasn’t the best choice, but a smaller thing than his choice.

Said differently, his actions carry a greater weight of tresspass against the union, in my opinion, and his poking at you is perhaps his way of trying to keep the heat off of himself. Why was he so scared that he hid from you? Why is he so entangled with the events that he lashes out at you?

I can appreciate your desire to fix things, take the blame, and so forth, but you can’t fix what are not your broken bits.

If you two can come to a mutual agreement such as “I promise to be more respectful of boundaries, and not snoop, if you promise to not withhold that which is important.” then perhaps this road bump can get behind you.

As far as his poking, he’s clinging to the mistake, and in his pain, reopening the wound over and over. Consider a little mama bear self protection. “Hey, your poking will take you all the way to the bottom of a swamp if you let it, your lack of forgiveness for my mistakes are your issue, not mine.” Its not yours, sister, remember that. His lack of forgiveness is his burden, its not because of some character flaw you have. Don’t buy into his bullshit, his “pain vomit”… it doesn’t help either of you.

Namaste, dear sister, may you both find a deep and rich forgiveness, and in that forgiveness, find one another again.

With warmth,
Matt