Hi everyone,

I am in a very confusing and painful place at the moment. My fiancee and I have been together for almost 3 years, and the last year and a half have been pretty great. However, we had a pretty rocky start in which a lot of trust was broken, and even though I know he loves me very much and it’s been years since many of those things happened, I am still tortured by the memory of them. I can’t decide if it’s a me problem (an inability to let go), or a him problem (i.e. huge red flags that my subconscious is telling me I should pay attention to).  I know that this post is very long, please bear with me. I could really use your advice.

I met him in Spain when I was studying abroad (he is Spanish). We completely connected in so many ways, even with the language barrier and cultural difference. We spent every moment together and were “official” after only a few weeks. The only thing that bothered me was that he had A LOT of female friends, of whom he was always very vocally appreciative- i.e. “my friend Natalia is so pretty, isn’t she?” or “do you remember my friend the bartender? The one with the big boobs?” or “yeah when Cristina goes out all of the guys always swarm her.” I started to feel very uncomfortable with the sexual way he talked about his supposedly platonic friends, so a few months in I brought it up. He said that the observations he was making were purely objective and that complimenting their looks was his way of showing affection for them, as his whole family does, but that there was nothing sexual between him and his female friends.

3 months into our relationship my computer broke, and he gladly offered me his laptop (without me asking) to use. I’m sorry to admit that I snooped. Lo and behold there saved on his computer was a folder full of naked photos of one of his female friends, a girl who we probably went out with at least once a week. Granted, this girl was in a relationship with a good male friend of my fiancee’s at the time, but still. I confronted him about it, and after berating me for betraying his trust, he told me that there had been mutual feeling between himself and this girl a long time ago but that in the end he decided that he didn’t want anything to happen with her because of the closeness she had with her -then current- boyfriend, and that he thought he had deleted the photos. The folder creation date was marked just 3 months before we met, but I didn’t think to check the dates of the photos, so I guess it’s possible that the photos were sent much earlier and the folder created at a later date.

A month after all of this happened my student visa expired and I had to go back to the United States. He asked me to stay with him in Spain, which of course I couldn’t do. I then asked if he wanted to continue our relationship and do long distance until I could find a way back to Spain and he said he definitely didn’t want to break up and that we would find a way. I didn’t want to break up either, but I left full of anxiety and hurt due to everything he had hidden from me in regards to this girl and the friendly relationship they still seemed to have. When I arrived home and started to see photos on Facebook of him and his friends going out (this girl included), those feelings swiftly turned into hysteria. I became clingy, obsessed, insecure, and demanding. Every conversation turned into a fight, and I never felt sufficiently reassured. He in turn became more distant and offended that I was “constantly accusing him of being a cheater” and said that my feelings were “absurd, everyone has some sort of ex”, which I took as further proof that he didn’t really want to be with me and may be hiding other things. The pain finally reached breaking point about a month and a half after I had returned to the United States. I told him that I didn’t think I could do it anymore, that a relationship was supposed to be more joy than tears, and that I thought we should leave it for the time being and see what the future brought. He said he was sad, that “no matter what happens, nothing can take away what you and I have experienced,” and that he needed to think for a few days.

3 days later he called me via Skype. I had hoped that it would be a reconciliation chat, that he would have realized the error of his ways and apologize for hurting me. Instead, what he said was this: “I’ve begun to have feelings for someone else, but nothing has happened yet. I care for you, but I don’t know if I am in love with you.” He went on to say that he didn’t think it would be fair for us to continue together because he couldn’t seem to make me happy. I reassured him that he did make me happy and that I loved him, and after a lot of tears and him confessing his feelings of inadequacy as a partner, he said that he didn’t want anything to change between us and that he didn’t have to have anything with that girl, she just seemed like a “good person”.

I tried not to ask any more details for fear of losing him for good, so five torturous months went by in which things were pretty touch and go. My insecurities were at an all time high, and he was just as distant as ever. Eventually I found a job in another part of Spain and he (somewhat uncertainly) agreed to move with me. As soon as I got back to Spain and we were together in person however, it was like nothing had changed. He was affectionate, passionate, and excited to move in together. I, however, was still tortured about everything he had said to me and finally had to start to ask for details. To his credit, he was pretty forthcoming.

He said that she started as a cook at the restaurant he worked at a few weeks after I had left. Our relationship was making him feel like shit, and my “constant accusations” pushed him away and made him feel like he had no one to talk to. He felt overwhelmed and hurt and just wanted to feel loved. He felt a connection and an attraction to her, completely due to the fact that he was able to talk to her without feeling judged. They went out twice as a group after work and the two of them stayed late afterwards talking. The second night, he walked her back to her apartment and she said something along the lines of “you’re not getting any tonight.” He responded with “that’s a weird thing to say, you know I have a girlfriend,” which she apparently did not respond to very well. He went on to tell me that the only reason he didn’t sleep with her that night was “out of respect for me, but not because he didn’t want to”, a line that still breaks my heart to this day. He said he felt that connection to her for about a month, at which point she became just “someone he worked with” although they continued to work together for another 3 months, which I find difficult to believe/understand. In the MANY talks we had about it over the next year, he went on to say that he never really wanted things to end with me, that he simply used the scenario as an excuse to get out of a relationship in which he felt completely overwhelmed, and that it never would have happened if things between us hadn’t been so bad and I had not been so far away, and that he always loved me, he was just angry at the time. Around this same time I also found a few more heart-breaking things, namely a drawing of a girl with sunglasses drinking a beer, which at first he said was “just some girl” and then admitted was a drawing he had done of her whatsapp picture; and something he wrote in his journal about her, which was something along the lines of “she wasn’t the prettiest girl in the world but she had a good butt, although that wasn’t the important thing. I wanted to connect, I wanted to feel loved, and with her I connected temporarily. Our legs pressed close together, it was a pleasant sensation, a moment of rest in our chaotic lives… a kiss would have been enough… she went her own way and I went mine… etc.” In the end, however, nothing physically happened, he chose to stay with me, and I guess there is something to be said for that.

When I came back to Spain he moved across the country to be with me, changing his whole life, and tried to work through this all with me, rehashing the same conversation and listening to me cry and berate him almost every day for a year, reassuring me constantly that he always wanted to be with me, that he’s never felt this way about anyone else. Then he came with me to the United States, then back to a different part of Spain, all far away from his friends and family, all (more or less) without complaining, and all so that we could be together. He is affectionate, loving, patient, passionate, and willing to change his whole world around in order to be with me. Almost two years have passed since all of this and he proves every day that he wants to be with me and marry me, but I still can’t bring myself to trust him fully. I am so traumatized by everything that happened that every time he comes home a little later than he said he would, every time he is on the computer, every “hey dude how’s life” text to an old girlfriend or even platonic friend, every time he writes in his journal, every time he draws, every time he glances at another woman, every time he gets along well with one of my own female friends, it looks like a possible betrayal. I know that love can’t exist without trust, but what I don’t know is whether my anxiety and lack of trust is something I need to let go of and move on from, or something I should listen to because maybe it is an alarm going off in my head telling me that there is real danger here.

Any comfort or advice would be much appreciated. <3