My boyfriend and I have been together five years, but were long distance until seven months ago. We moved in together, and then two or three months ago he moved into town during the week for work. He comes back where I live on weekends.

A month ago, he told me he made a Craigslist ad to meet some friends who could hang out during the week with him. I was fine with this. He is careful and sensible, honest to the point of being blunt/ an ***hole sometimes, but he's always been straightforward with me.

Anyway, he tells me about this lesbian girl that contacted him and told him she was in her late twenties and wanted to hang out. I was totally for it. According to what he told me, she seemed like a decent person and was into a lot of his hobbies as well.

Turns out, maybe the second time they hung out, she got drunk and admitted she wasn't a lesbian, wasn't nearly as old as she claimed, and then she tried to get him to sleep with her. He had to drive her home because she was drunk, and she tried to have sex with him. He declined, and went home.

He told me after that, that he wouldn't talk to or see her again. I was very angry about the situation, since it could have turned ugly very fast. But he seemed genuine about cutting things off.

Fast forward to a few days ago. He came back for the weekend, and had me go run and get some food for us. I was sitting in a drive through, bored, so I decided to clean out his car for him. I ran across his old phone (he had gotten a new one about a week beforehand because his old one had been messing up).

We two have a very open-policy regarding our stuff. Our phones have locks, but we use each other's all the time. We have agreed that since we have nothing to hide, we can go through each other's stuff whenever. No big deal.

So, out of curiosity as to why his old phone was still on, I looked through his texts. He had been texting that same girl, a lot. He made references to seeing her at work, saying he "loved when she was working (I later found out she worked at a strip club). She had texted him saying that she was in the area and to come meet up. He texted her while drunk, revealing intimate things.

I was devastated. The ONE thing that my boyfriend had told me was that he ALWAYS would be honest. If he felt the need to be intimate with someone else, fell out of love, anything-- he told me that he would always tell me.

But he lied to me. So I went home and confronted him. He admitted to everything. I asked if he'd continued talking to her, he said yes. I asked if he'd met up with her, he said yes, multiple times. He said he knew how bad it looked, but he'd never done anything with her, and hadn't saved her number in his phone because he'd been "looking for an excuse to stop talking to her."

When I asked him why on earth he would feel the need to lie to me about something so trivial, if he hadn't actually "done" anything, he said it was because he just didn't want to deal with me about it, because he knew I'd be upset that they were hanging out again.

I ended up forgiving him, because I love him, but I cannot shake this feeling that something else went on, or that he isn't telling me something else. It makes me upset a lot, but I don't want to keep rehashing it over and over. I just want to feel better, and not be so upset or distrustful all the time now. Does anyone know what I can do to get over this?

He was looking for an excuse to stop talking to her? How about not talking to her as he had been in texts, and certainly not meeting up with her, multiple times, because he is supposedly in a serious relationship with you? THAT isn't enough of an excuse for him? He knows what she has been after; no doubt he is enjoying the talk even if they aren't taking it any further. But now you are left to wonder whether he is lying about that as well.

Rebuilding trust takes a great deal of time. For some, it can be years. The onus is on him to do all that he can to help you have faith in him again. I wish there was a fast way through it, but there just isn't. You work at it together. He needs to be willing to answer your questions when they come up, but you want to be careful not to dwell on it all the time, as it will only make you feel worse.

Trust can be rebuilt, but both people have to be willing to put the effort in.