After 10 years will he forgive me?

I am so sorry.
If he truly loves you, he will come back.
If he was wandering, he might be bored, but still loves you.
Give him time. Good luck. My heart goes with you.

I think he overreacted.

I’ve had exs and even my current girlfriend ask about contact details and texts that they’ve found, and it irritates me to no end, but it isn’t something i’d consider breaking up over.

10 years and he broke up with you because you looked-up his cellphone calls? No way. There has got to be something more to it.

So instead of him apologizing for calling another female, he gets mad and breaks up with you and you want forgiveness? I would think he would want your forgiveness for contacting another female or at least he should explain who she is and what their relationship is.

@tinyfaery I think I agree with you here

Is there a reason you are aware of that made him react so defensively? Maybe he really was hiding something.

That would be up to him but that sounds like a petty thing to break up over especially after a 10 year relationship.

If you were to break up after this, it is not a result of the cell phone situation, but something that’s been building for years. People don’t break off long term relationships because of a single argument over cell phone calls.

Are you sure you want him to come back? Who is this female friend? Why didn’t he tell you they were communicating? I’m not convinced that the sole issue here is with you. I think you need to talk about what is really happening.

@tinyfaery I second that. There’s more to it than just cell messages. But I would be veeeeery mad if someone went looking in my phone or my computer files. But to break up over it? Nah.

I third @tinyfaery. The story does not fit. Are you are the jealous type? Do you check up on him or ask where he has been and who with? If so perhaps this was the final straw. Other than that it seems like an overreaction.

1. You totally need to apologize a ton for that invasion of privacy.
2. That was probably the straw that broke the camel’s back, but he was already headed this direction. Still, the apology might put you back in a place where you can talk about the problems you’ve been having.
3. You need to understand that you totally over-reacted. Yes, there might be something going on. But flipping out and demanding to know what he’s doing because you invaded his privacy isn’t going to ever get the answers you want. He has a right to have friends who are not you. Even lady friends.

Ask yourself why you looked at his cellphone records. You must have been feeling like something was wrong in your interaction.

If it was innocuous, he would not be as angry as your describe. That was defensiveness.

You two need to be able to talk more openly about what made you feel concerned enough to look at the records in the first place. If he cannot respond to your feelings with anything other than anger, you may have to look hard at the relationship and whether it is right for you.

@Marina: Actually, if my boyfriend looked through my phone records and then confronted me about them, there is every chance I’d break it off in the heat of the moment. That’s a massive invasion of privacy. Just because you suspect something doesn’t give you a right to violate my privacy—not even if you are correct.

@EmpressPixie I agree that looking through phone records is a violation. I just don’t think most people randomly do that especially after 10 years without cause.

If my companion of ten years looked through my phone records or email or whatever, my first reaction would be, “Why?”

The 10 years is significant here.

If it was a new relationship, looking through my private stuff would be a huge red flag that I might be dealing with a controlling personality.

But if I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong, and I knew and loved my partner well, I would want to know “Why the paranoia?”

If, on the other hand, I was stepping out or cheating emotionally at least with someone, I would hide my fear of discovery with a big smokescreen of outrage.

Hate to say it, but I agree with tinyfaery, too. It’s understandable that he would get pissed about something like that, but if you’ve been with him for 10 years, a major fight would have been the more likely reaction if things were normal. Breaking up over something like that, after ten years, seems very strange to me.

@Marina Very good points. I dated a guy who went through my stuff, phone records, address books, etc and we had only been dating for about a year. When I first found out, I overlooked it (after a heated discussion) because I had nothing to hide. Turns out, he was the one with something to hide so he figured I did too. I think the 10 years is the telling point here. Something more has gone on.

If you share a cell phone account you have a right to look at the calls. It is sneaky but something inside you told you to look. He got way too defensive about it, which is a sign he is doing something wrong or like others have said the relationship was crumbling and this was the last straw.
I don’t think people in a relationship should have secret friends. If you love someone you want to share your life with them. Why wouldn’t he of at least mentioned her name before? Couples shouldn’t hide things.

I have lots of friends that I talk to all the time. My deeply committed SO doesn’t know most of them. I’m not cheating on him. He shares a cell phone account with his roommate and best friend. I can guarantee you there would be a shitstorm here if one of them started to examine the other’s calls. Even if you have access to the data, that doesn’t make it right for you to examine it. He trusted you with something huge (the ability to see who he was calling) and you betrayed that trust.

@EmpressPixie What you’re saying makes sense and most people would get extremely pissed about the violation. But most people that were in love and had been together for ten years, wouldn’t typically break up with their SO over something like that. Ten years in a long time and a lot of love to throw away simply because your privacy was violated once. Something about it isn’t right.

@DrasticDreamer: There are two points here—one, I simply don’t know the young man but he could be the type to over react to that kind of thing. The second is that if I spent ten years with someone thinking they were one person, then they committed that kind of betrayal, honestly I’d wonder if I ever really knew them and what is important to them. Or if they knew what was important to me.

@elijah Whether or not you share an account woth someone ir not, it DOES NOT give you the right to go snooping through their phone. Now if calls show up on a phone bill, then it’s out there for you to see. But stay away from the phone itself.

She said she looked at the bill…

You must have other red flags in the relationship to make you want to look at his cell phone records. It sounds like the relationship was ending for him, and justified (in his mind) that the reason the relationship was ending was because of your “behavior” and not his.

A 10 year boyfriend-girlfriend relationship is a bit of a red flag anyways. Why no commitment?