AIO: Partner doesn’t trust me after 10 years
My partner and I have been together for almost 10 years, on and off. We started dating at 18, took a few breaks in college due to long distance struggles, but have been fully together for the last 5 years. We have lived together for around 3 years now. He is genuinely my best friend, we get along incredibly well, and rarely ever fight. We are able to have hard conversations in a mature, respectful way.
During the breaks in our relationship in college, we both met other people and did other things.
He believed that I cheated on him in college, because i started seeing other people very shortly after we broke up. I did not ever cheat on him, and there was never any overlap between him and my other partners. This caused a huge strain between us for about a year, but after many conversations, he told me that he believed me that I did not ever cheat on him. Although he believed me, he still struggled to fully trust me for a while, which I could understand.
Fast forward 5 years to today, I had believed that we had completely moved past that situation. We are very happy and feel/seem very in love and on the same page. We are planning to get engaged this summer!
This past weekend, I went out for drinks with my best friend. After a few bars, my boyfriend met us out for drinks. At the bar, I was chatting with a stranger and he told me he wants to break into an industry that I recently got into, and wanted to see if I would give him advice and help him with resume/interview. **EDIT: The stranger was at the bar with his wife, and she was a part of the conversation as well**** I said of course, and he took my number down. Somehow, the wires got crossed and my boyfriend somehow believed that I had been giving out my number to random guys all night for the wrong reasons. He did not say anything about it that evening, and we went home and went to bed. I was very drunk and asleep many hours before him.
When I woke up, I just so happened to check my screen time for the past week and saw that my phone was used for 1.5 hours between 1-3 am. I was dead asleep at this time. The next morning, he was in a pissy mood, so I decided to confront him. I asked him if he went through my phone last night and he lied to my face and said no, MULTIPLE times. He eventually admitted that he had gone into it, but only said that he went into my messages for a minute to check if i was texting other guys. This simply is not true, because I saw exactly what apps were used and for how long. He went through my social media, photos, and messages. I outed him for this, and he was very embarrassed and ashamed for doing so, and he said that he clearly has an insecurity issue and that he will work on it.
I did not want to fight and was kind of in shock, so I accepted his apology.
I told him I wasn’t mad that he went through my phone because I truly have nothing to hide. However, I was mad that he was sneaky about it, lied to me, and was not going to tell me that he did it. He was genuinely upset with himself. I accepted his apology, but i told him that if he ever lies to me again, I will leave him because I do not tolerate dishonesty.
I have been reflecting on the situation over the past few days, and I am growing more and more anxious about it. I am not sure what to do, because I had NO clue that he was experiencing jealousy and insecurity, and that these old wounds are still open. It has me wondering if he has gone through my phone before? Does he genuinely not have any faith in me? I truly don’t care about him going through it, but it just feels like an invasion of privacy and a betrayal. I just wish he asked to look through it, and I would have gladly handed it over. I have been acting like everything is fine for the past few days, but I am growing more and more sick over it. I do not want to leave him, I am just at a loss and feel blindsided and confused. It makes me nervous how easily he was able to look me in the eye and lie to me. I would never go through his phone because I have 100% faith and trust in him… Am i fabricating this unease in my head considering he did truly apologize and felt bad? AIO?