Ask QC: Is he just texting… or is he still sexting?

Dear Ask QC,

I figured I’d give this a shot on your site…

My boyfriend and I have been together for over two years now. We have a wonderful relationship, but the one thing that has been an issue for us is his cell phone use. My boyfriend runs his own business and has an incredibly needy gay client that texts him at all hours of the day every day of the week.

It got to a point where it started to bother me and I asked my boyfriend to ask his client to ease up on the texting because it was disrupting dates and vacations and I never felt like I had his full attention. For two years I was assured that absolutely nothing was going on between the two of them so I just bit my tongue and believed that the texting would only be during business hours.

Well, nothing changed, and one night I was just sick of seeing his client’s name flash across the screen throughout the night. I just followed my instinct and looked through his messages and my instinct was correct, message after message of dirty sexting and picture messaging that goes back as far as our relationship goes. I confronted my boyfriend about him lying to me for 2 years and I was told that he took his “sexting” with this client too far and I was assured that it was only messaging and nothing physical occurred between the two of them. This of course, broke my heart because every other aspect of the relationship is perfect outside of this issue with the cell phone and the inappropriate messaging.

This occurred about six months ago and I want to trust my boyfriend, but I don’t trust his client and the texting at all hours of the day is still the same. I love my boyfriend and the relationship we have, but because of what I discovered 6 months ago, I’m having trouble trusting that my boyfriend isn’t still sexting right in front of me. And what’s worse is that he is very vigilant over his phone, it’s always face down, password protected, and it never leaves his side. My boyfriend and I have had conversations about how he handles his phone and how much his texting is disrupting our relationship, but it always turns into a conversation about me invading his privacy.

I wish we could work out some open cell phone policy or he could have his client email instead of texting if it’s outside normal business hours because every time my boyfriend gets a text from him it takes a lot of energy for me to bite my tongue and not ask to see what the text message says.

Any advice is appreciated, I’m close to breaking point over this and I don’t want this to completely ruin our relationship!

J.

Hi J. and thanks for writing in with your questions and concerns. Trust takes a long time to establish but can be broken in a moment can’t it? And in your case, that trust has taken a knock with your boyfriends constant sexting and will take time to heal. Do you now need an open cell phone policy to regain that trust? Or will your boyfriend see that as an invasion of his privacy? If you are still not happy with your present situation (and it certainly sounds like you aren’t happy) then you will need to discuss this again with him and set out the boundaries that will make you feel more secure and also allow him to regain that broken trust. How you approach this situation is open to debate, so dear QC readers have any of you been in a similar situation like this before? How did you handle it and what advice can you offer J? If you can help him in any way, then please share your wisdom and advice for all in the QComments section!
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