My [31M] girlfriend [29F] has been texting her ex [38?M] a lot, she showed me her chats, and now I'm worried.

My girlfriend and I have been dating for about 1.5 years. Last night she was really upset about something and I tried to console her. She told me that me being there wasn't helping and that she wanted to be alone. It really sucks to want to help you partner and to be told to leave but I understand that sometimes people need their space.

About an hour later she came back to me apparently in a better mood, which I thought was great. I noticed she was on her phone a lot though while we were watching TV. I asked her what she was doing and she said texting a friend. This went on for another 20 minutes or so, she was sitting right next to me so I looked over and saw that she was texting her ex. They were in a relationship for 8 years I think, and it ended about 2 years before she and I started dating. From what she told me it ended pretty poorly but it is really difficult to get her to talk about, she gets really sad and I don't push it.

I have met the ex once but he doesn't like me. He was actively trying to get back together with her before her and I started dating. I asked her point blank are you texting ex? She said yeah. I asked what about and she said they were just catching up. This next part really confuses me. She asked if I want to see what they were talking about? For the life of me I cannot figure out why she asked me do this, I think she thought it would help clear things up? But what she showed me made my heart sink. We do have an open phone policy but I have never looked at her messages until she showed me them last night.

She had messages going back years with him. Sometimes there would be maybe a week in between texting, but recently they've been texting every other day. Most of the subject matter was pretty innocent, it would be memes, news articles, talk of vacations, etc. But some of it worries me. Let me remind you, SHE SHOWED ME ALL OF THIS WILLINGLY. So I have to assume she thinks this type of stuff is just normal. Maybe it is and I'm being insecure? But I don't think this is normal, I'll let you decide based on what I saw, and hopefully you have some advice for me. I only looked back a few weeks at the texting history with her, I have no idea what else is past that.

(1) With regard to the above incident of her being upset and telling me she wanted to be alone, I found out she was texting her ex the whole time she was alone! They were setting up a time to hang out when she goes back to her home town in a few weeks to catch up. News to me... She normally is very upfront and asks me if it is cool if she sees her ex for lunch etc., and I've never had a problem with it. But I guess the reality of the situation has been that she makes the plans and then asks me later knowing that I'll be cool with it. She actually told me that if I said "no" she would probably still go see him because it isn't a big deal. When I got mad she backpedaled, saying she wouldn't see him if I was really serious about it.

(2) What the heck is this about telling me she wanted to be alone and then talking to her ex? She said he texted her first which only half true, she texted him earlier in the day (when she was already in a bad mood) and then he just happened to respond like 2 hours later right after she had asked me to leave her alone.

(3) On more than one occasion he is the first person she texts in the morning, and last person she texts at night. Things like "good morning, hope you have a great day". It's weird because you could cut and paste some of the things she says in her texts to me, it sort of devalues it for me, if that makes sense. And a lot of late night texting on both ends, sometimes at like 1am when I'm asleep in the bed with her they're texting. And they text a lot, like I was saying almost every day.

(4) The subject matter: "I miss you" going both ways. Reminiscing about their past relationship, things they did, good times they had. She says that is just how they talk, it is how friends talk but I don't know anyone who talks to an ex like that? I also found out he does all these things for her family, like help her grandma sell her stuff online, and helps my girlfriend with her work all the time. It make me really sad because I run an online eBay store in my spare time and she never asked me to help. She said it's because he lives just an hour from her family and I live thousands of miles away. He tried to invite himself to a wedding with her, she shut it down and said I'm going with her (news to me? I haven't saved any dates). He halfheartedly bad mouths me on some occasions, she also shut that down. He invited her to stay at his place overnight because she misses his dog, she left open ended and changed subject. When I raised concern about these things she initially disagreed and said I'm overreacting, she said I don't understand their relationship.

I got pretty upset about seeing all of this. She got confused. She tells me that there's nothing to worry about but all of this has completely blindsided me. I can't believe she showed me these things and I almost wish she never had. I told her I couldn't talk about any of this last night and needed time to gather my thoughts. I haven't spoken to her since. I couldn't sleep last night, wondering if they were talking. This morning she was asking me what is wrong like yesterday didn't even happen, I seriously wondered if I had dreamed it.

Am I being paranoid? Is this stuff normal in relationships? She is telling me it is normal but I can't think straight right now. None of my past girlfriends had relationships like this with their ex's. I can't believe that this had been happening our entire relationship and I never knew. I feel crazy and like I'm over-reacting because she is acting like all this is completely normal, she isn't hiding it and hasn't tried to. After reading her texts I almost feel like she has 2 boyfriends, and I only looked back over a couple weeks! What else is in there?? She never brought up texting him so much until last night. I would hear about him maybe once or twice every couple months. I feel like an idiot and to blame because I didn't set a firm boundary.

Right now she is saying she is concerned about my feelings and wants to talk, but are things even worth trying to save at this point when there is such a huge disconnect between what we expect from each other? Is this just an extreme case of latent, unrealized incompatibilities? How can I communicate to my girlfriend that her actions have made me feel really bad, that I feel like a second boyfriend. I feel like he is super involved in her life and she never thought to bring it up to me, if she hadn't shown me these texts when would I have found out? I have yet to talk to her about any of this but am having a really hard time gathering my thoughts, can you all help me come up with a plan? Just writing this has helped too, but now seeing it all written out I'm scared for our relationship.

TL;DR girlfriend has apparently been texting her ex going back a really long time, I was surprised to find out the extent to which they were involved in each other's lives. She doesn't seem to understand why this bothers me. How do I talk to her about this?

Submitted September 27, 2018 at 02:19PM by hellerrrrr https://ift.tt/2xYdQK6