Dear all,

I am moving in with my bf/partner in a couple of weeks time. We have been in a relationship for 4 years, 3 of which have been a distance relationship, he lives in the UK and I am in Scotland. We have a great relationship and have managed to see each other about once every month and now finally we are going to be living together. I have been totally faithful to him in those 3 years as we had agreed we were in a committed and exclusive relationship.

The problem is that I did something very wrong and looked through his emails which he left open accidentally one day. I found a couple of emails between him and a former ex (who was essentially his mistress for nine years while he was in a very unhappy marriage). These emails seemed to point to lots of contact and very possibly/probably more. They were from 2 months ago and I could see no more. Yes, I know I did wrong and shouldn't have snooped but I was devastated when I read them.

I didn't confront him as I needed time away to digest. I asked him casually very recently if he ever sees her (as they live in the same village, she is still married to the same man when he was first seeing her) and he said he never sees her. He mentioned something cryptic a few months ago about how if someone strayed but broke it off when they realized it was wrong and they already had the best person with them. The thing is I simply don't know if there was something going on (looked like it though) and if it is really over.

I am understandably scared about moving a long way to him but at the same time I love him so much and feel I owe it to myself to now try and see how we get on living together after all this time. I worry that I am completely mad and if I am doing the right thing..

Neither one of you can trust the other so the whole trust thing is out the window.

Some people that cheat need the excitement of cheating in a relationship. Don't go into this assuming he won't cheat on you too. Once a cheater always a cheater for the most part.

Bottomline is you both shouldn't move in together until all of these issues are resolved.

Snooping is the proverbial Pandora's Box. Now you are damned if you do and damned if you don't - confront him, that is. It's a decision only you can make. If you don't, will it be in the back of your mind and destroy what you have together? If you do, can you apologize for snooping, and accept what explanation he gives you, or are you going to mistrust him forever?
The cryptic remark he made leads me to think that he possibly did cheat, feels bad, ended it, it's over, and to my mind is forgivable. It isn't easy to have a LDR for so long, and it's easy to fall back into the arms of someone you know, someone who may have been needing a shoulder to cry on. I'm not claiming that she seduced him nor am I blaming her, but I'm also not blaming anyone.
Anyway - that's me. If you decide to let it go, do it fully. If you decide to confront, accept the consequences.

What was the nature of the email between your boyfriend and his ex mistress? Was there anything about the email to suggest that they had been getting together?

That he cheated with a married woman for 9 years, surely is something that I would question his character over. And he too was married, and cheated on his wife at the time. I would be questioning the reasons his first marriage ended.

If he has been seeing her (lack of email doesn't mean a thing), it has been convenient because your relationship with him is a long distance one.

For you to up and move at this point, without really knowing this man, or whether your can trust him, could pave the way for more of the same doubts. If he lied to his wife all those years, he could easily lie to you, and to his mistress.

My advice to you is to tell him what you found, because you caught him in a lie, over a woman. That's a pretty big lie. He should offer up some sort of explanation as to why he has hidden his contact with her. You would be doing yourself a favour by not entering into a live-in relationship with this man until you are sure of who he really is. Lingering doubts will follow you from Scotland to England.

What was the nature of the email between your boyfriend and his ex mistress? Was there anything about the email to suggest that they had been getting together?

That he cheated with a married woman for 9 years, surely is something that I would question his character over. And he too was married, and cheated on his wife at the time. I would be questioning the reasons why his first marriage ended.

If he has been seeing her (lack of email doesn't mean a thing), it has been convenient because your relationship with him is a long distance one.

For you to up and move at this point, without really knowing this man, or whether or not your can trust him, could pave the way for more of the same doubts. If he lied to his wife all those years, he could easily lie to you, and to his mistress.

My advice to you is to tell him what you found, because you caught him in a lie, over a woman. That's a pretty big lie. He should offer up some sort of explanation as to why he has hidden his contact with her. You would be doing yourself a favour by not entering into a live-in relationship with this man until you are sure of who he really is. Lingering doubts will follow you from Scotland to England.

Hi Jake, thanks for the advice. The email was a chatty one she sent while she was on holidays abroad with her mother. She said in it that she was thinking a lot about him and that she was missing him. His reply didn't include that he likewise missed her or was thinking of her, was just chatty but he did say he felt sorry for her there alone with her mum and 'wish I was there.. ' . It is a very difficult position, and with regard to earlier advice I am going to try and see how it goes living full time with him but if I have any more hints that there is anything untoward I would not stay in the relationship. My belief (or want to believe) is that there was something going on again with them and it is over so I suppose I want to try and see how it goes and not always be left wondering if I had missed something good. If I confronted him it would be over anyway, as I snooped.. but thank you for all your thoughts and I agree with most of them.. but will see how it goes, I have a time frame in my own mind to see if I can reconcile that all will be well in our relationship. Thx

Its up to you whether this experiment starts with fear and untruth (snooping), or whether you build the future with an honest evaluation of the NOW. You have a few weeks to use them to clear the air and reach agreement for the way forward.

If as you say, your snooping will end things any way, then hiding the truth will only muddy the waters further and prevent the haring and honest communications and trust couples need to build a healthy relationship.

If you cannot express your concerns honestly now, then you poison things for later. You both should come clean, and see what can be done if you wish to take this experiment to the next level together.

I feel sorry for you and wish I was there are not necessarily words that you can automatically interpret as a sexual relationship. I do think it's possible that they had one in the past, but only from the cryptic remark. Perhaps he really does 'care' about here and she milks it for all it's worth in her unhappy marriage. Perhaps the desire for sex with her is long gone.

Perhaps I am projecting. I found letters to and from a lover that my mother had saved from when she was about 45. She had had a brief affair on a boat, probably 2 weeks or less, but she pursued the man long afterwards. He wrote back each time, patiently trying to soothing her with kind words, but really all they did was keep her hoping. He clearly had no intention to resume the relationship and tried to say so, and my mother couldn't hear it.

This is apropos of nothing other than my own slant on your situation.