Dear Prudence,My boyfriend and I have been together for three years and have lived together for two. Our relationship isn’t perfect, but I love him with my entire being. I have never cheated on him, but I have lied to him in the past. He, of course, inevitably discovered my lies. I lied because he has a tendency to be a little possessive and jealous. In no way do I think I was justified in lying, but I do wish sometimes he would have a little more understanding about why I felt uncomfortable telling him the truth. I wasn’t up to anything bad; I just didn’t feel like dealing with an argument. I know now that was incredibly immature of me and how unf
air it was for me to lie like that. I do regret my actions especially since I feel like I broke our relationship.
Cut to this past weekend where he had to travel out of state for work. He asked me if I had gone out at night and I told him no. I found out later that he had actually been taping me, so he could confirm, in fact, that I had been at home. My question is am I allowed to be upset that he was secretly monitoring me? I’m having a hard time processing it because on one hand I know I have screwed up in the past, but on the other hand it feels messed up. I keep wavering between feeling like I deserve this and feeling like I don’t. I broke the trust between us and want him to trust me eventually again, but this just doesn’t feel like the right way to build up trust. Is my relationship over? Am I overreacting? Am I supposed to be OK with this stuff because this is his way of learning to trust me again? Am I being unfair? I don’t have anyone else to turn to really with this and I’m starting to realize how irrational I am.
—Taped Because of Lack of Trust