To preface, my girlfriend and I are extremely happy in our relationship. We plan to marry. All cheesiness aside, we complete one another. We love each other very much.
In her last long-term relationship, which ended a few months before she met me, she was unhappy and felt suffocated. The man she was with was troubled and manipulative. It resulted in her turning to having what she described as an affair. Cheating on her boyfriend, with whom she lived, with one person over the course of a year. When the boyfriend found out, it ended violently and abruptly.
She regrets what she did and knows that it was wrong, she says she deals with this guilt internally every day.
Since then, however, she has kept in occasional contact with the man she had the affair with. They were friends since high school before the affair occurred, and were somewhat close as friends after the fact. She wanted a relationship with him before she met me and after her long-term relationship ended, but he let her down. She has described him, perhaps just for my benefit, as a bad person.
I have expressed my discontent with her communicating with him, as I do not trust him, and I suppose a part of me does not trust her. I feel in my gut that she would not do something like that to me, but I don't like leaving anything to chance. She goes back-and-forth between agreeing with me and not agreeing with me about a cease of communication with this person, but he is somewhat ingratiated in her social group.
We will agree that she should talk to him again, and a few weeks later I would find that she has. She will initially lie to me about it, but I know her well enough to know when she is. In the conversations I have overheard or otherwise bore witness to (never in person), she always speaks to him as she does to any of her other friends. I don't get a hint of romantic interest.
Anyways, it's a complicated situation and I have no one to turn to for advice. What do you think is the best course of action?
In her last long-term relationship, which ended a few months before she met me, she was unhappy and felt suffocated. The man she was with was troubled and manipulative. It resulted in her turning to having what she described as an affair. Cheating on her boyfriend, with whom she lived, with one person over the course of a year. When the boyfriend found out, it ended violently and abruptly.
She regrets what she did and knows that it was wrong, she says she deals with this guilt internally every day.
Since then, however, she has kept in occasional contact with the man she had the affair with. They were friends since high school before the affair occurred, and were somewhat close as friends after the fact. She wanted a relationship with him before she met me and after her long-term relationship ended, but he let her down. She has described him, perhaps just for my benefit, as a bad person.
I have expressed my discontent with her communicating with him, as I do not trust him, and I suppose a part of me does not trust her. I feel in my gut that she would not do something like that to me, but I don't like leaving anything to chance. She goes back-and-forth between agreeing with me and not agreeing with me about a cease of communication with this person, but he is somewhat ingratiated in her social group.
We will agree that she should talk to him again, and a few weeks later I would find that she has. She will initially lie to me about it, but I know her well enough to know when she is. In the conversations I have overheard or otherwise bore witness to (never in person), she always speaks to him as she does to any of her other friends. I don't get a hint of romantic interest.
Anyways, it's a complicated situation and I have no one to turn to for advice. What do you think is the best course of action?
Updates
+1 y
* When I say "allow her to communicate" I mean "should I allow myself to be subjected to it", in other words, should I end the relationship or take other such action if the situation does not resolve. I am not a controlling person.
* Missed a word in second-to-last paragraph - "We will agree that she should NOT talk to him again"
1 minute ago
* Missed a word in second-to-last paragraph - "We will agree that she should NOT talk to him again"
1 minute ago
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