Codependency Support Group

It is good to find out now, that he violated your privacy and betrayed your trust. and he was not healthy enough to have open, honest communication with you about his feelings and thoughts that he has with you in the relationship.

Hmmm my first thought was "Thank god he's two states away!". I think it is a very controlling and untrusting behavior for someone to violate another's privacy like that. I think that maybe if you are going to make this work you will at some point have to address that issue, but concerning the need to make it right....You know, how you feel is how you feel. We all get frustrated with situations. We all get angry and think we cannot go on this way. And we all need to have someone we can vent to just to get the irrational part of those feelings out so we can hear them and see them and figure out what to do with them. Maybe if you could find a way to own those feelings and not be afraid to admit that you have moments of weakness, afterall you are human, it would help the situation. It won't "fix" how he feels about it, but I find owning my emotions a powerful thing to do.

I agree with "Scattered" in that he found private messages so own up to your own feelings and let him deal with it.

Tell him if he wants to peek into the private business of yours or of others (as he probably does it to others too) then he gets what he ask for.

If I knew how to snoop into other people stuff then I would need to enforce that new "stop-it" boundary on my self or I would do it too.

This way will fix it for him and for you.

You have your own right to say and feel and to get angry and talk it over with your friends and to put your feelings into emails or phone statements and if he intends to sneek and snoop then he needs to face reality.

You are not the only one to cuss out the boy friend in private, and I can assure you that men cuss out their girl friends in private too.

I would not even try to tell him not to snoop because all of us have to understand that what ever we say in private are not really secret.

"Listen NOT at keyholes, lest you be vexed." springs to mind. You are not responsible for his emotions or must you FIX this situation. He brought it on by HIS own feeling of insecurity..If he violates your privacy this way what else is he capable of doing?

I'm hardly one to give advice given the state of my own trust broken marriage that I continue to stay in. Funny how when I read your situation I immediately want to reply - This is not your problem this is his! You did nothing wrong you were having a private conversation with your friends - correspondence he was never to see. He betrayed your trust by breaking into your private communications not the other way around. It's not as if you were lying to him or cheating on him. Would he prefer you call him up and dump your frustrations and (face it we're women) emotions on him long distance or work it out with your friends? Why am I so fired up about this? Maybe because it is hitting so close to home. Stay strong! Or at least try not to let it get you down too much.

I'll say this. Anyone who says they never talk out their feelings and emotions on issues are full of it. You have no reason to feel guilty about a private conversation you had. Even if you laid it out on a forum,you have the right to vent!

My issue is the possibility that you feel guilty for saying what you did to your friend(s). This in itself(feeling bad) can make it difficult to set boundaries with people like your boyfriend-shaming someone when CLEARLY THE ONE WHO SHOULD BE ASHAMED IS YOUR BOYFRIEND is NOT healthy,it's manipulative. He has NO right to be angry at what you talked about,whether it was about him or not. HE NEVER SHOULD HAVE VIOLATED YOUR PRIVACY in the first place.

Hold him accountable for his actions. Personally this for me would be right up there with cheating,I don't tolerate cheating,and hacking into your email accounts(my opinion) is equally as damaging.

You have every right to not trust him. I would change all passwords. If this was a total stranger,you'd have the authorities involved immediately-I would suggest you have a real good long talk with him about what he's done and what type of behavior you will or won't tolerate.

Hugs,

You know, I'm not at all sure that we ALWAYS have to treat the poster as if he/she is the victim of the situation that they're writing about. I'm not sure who the "victim" is in this situation.

Obviously bf had some suspicions. Apparently those suspicions were confirmed, at least in part. Anyone here ever watch the show "cheaters"? Do you rise to the defense of the cheater because they're always upset that the suspicious partner is SPYING on them? And no, I'm not suggesting that you were cheating, ondarize...just using that as a for instance.

In a perfect world, you could have communicated your feelings to him in a positive way, and he would have responded in a positive way. It's not a perfect world. Sometimes we muddle through as best we can.

I'm just not sure it's productive to make him the bad guy here. I read a lot of bashing, and I'm not sure that all of that is called for in this situation. Like, "Thank got he's two states away!" and that he "violated your privacy and betrayed your trust," and even asking the question, "what else is he capable of doing?"

Just relax, and if you want to keep this relationship, use this as an opportunity to address some issues that might not otherwise have surfaced. If you're not into keeping the relationship, then don't. Long distance is hard, under the very best of circumstances.

I have been thinking about this thread more and more because it is a real issue and other people have posted about the bf or gf snooping into their cell phones and emails.

I kind of believe that most people are like myself in that most people do not snoop too much (we all snoop a little) not too much snooping because we just do not want to know too much.

It is a personal boundary if we snoop or how much we snoop or if we go all the way and dig through every thing.

What really gets to me is the boy friend admitting that he got into your business and then he has the nerve to complain to her about it.

"ODZ" said the boyfriend had it eating at him for a week first and then confronted her so the snooper must have really had a fight with his conscience and his own boundary.

If it were me (as she) then I would ask the man to explicitly explain what he did and how he did it to get into your email and phone records?

If you must tell then surely he must tell too.

Really, turn the table on Mr. snoop-and-tell by having him tell you how the deed was done.

That is my suggestion.

I think theres so much tructh in each of the sections you guys have posted. Whats satnds out to me the most and where I feel supported the most is that those are his feeligs and I am not responsible for them I am only responsible for my own thought emotions and actions. I did apologize to him if my emails seemed hurtful. I also let him know today that what he did was unexceptable it was NOT OK!!!!! He got a little offended when I said it was illegal. I think that I still have a ways to go but slowly and surely I'm standing my ground as these off the wall situations arise. My hope is to learn the lesson that I need to learn from this and grow. Thats pretty much my affirmation. I am strong, I am committed to loving myself, nurturing myself and speaking up for myself.

As we all know stuffing things in hurts nobody worse than ourselves.


PS: i did ask him how he did it and everytime i ask he gets defensive, he tells a little bit more but he always cuts himself off by saying "Thats besides the point, your words were hurtful". So I guess my approach with that is that his guilt must be killing him and he has to sit in his own suffering, his own hurt feelings. I can only own my own.

It truly sounds like both of you could benefit from Coda meetings..