‘My girlfriend was cheated on in a previous relationship and takes it out on me’

Dear Roe,
I am 36 and my girlfriend is 32. We’ve been together for nearly three years and are talking about the future but I’m scared to commit without knowing if our issues can be fixed. I love her but she was cheated on in a previous relationship and has serious trust issues. I have never cheated on anyone and never would and am always respectful of our relationship but still, three years in, she treats me with suspicion and throws fits over nothing. If I mention a female colleague, she’ll ask me endless questions. After one of these mentions (of my married, sixtysomething colleague) she dropped by my work to “take me for lunch” but it felt like her checking up on me. If she thinks a female friend is talking to me too much – even if it’s completely normal in a group setting in front of her – she’ll scream at me when we get home and accuse me of cheating, wanting to cheat, and not finding her attractive. I’ve stopped mentioning any women, even in passing, and some of my very old friendships are now fading because she doesn’t like me talking to female friends on their own, or because she’s decided that she doesn’t like or trust women in our larger friend group. I constantly tell her I love her, I try be romantic, and so far I’ve done what she’s asked in terms of letting her have my phone passcode, always telling her where I am, and so on, but it’s been years and she’s still suspicious of me. I love her but I can’t live like this. What can I do to make her trust me?
You can’t do anything to make her trust you, because you aren’t the problem. The issue is not that you are not trustworthy, it’s that she is not trust-capable. And ironically, her inability to trust makes her an untrustworthy partner.
You can’t trust her to self-regulate. You can’t trust her to respect boundaries. You can’t trust her to react appropriately to normal sharing about your life. You can’t trust her to support your friendships. You can’t trust her to treat you with respect. You can’t trust her to be a safe partner. You can’t trust her to stay in the present without projecting her past on to you. You can’t trust her to grow and evolve as a person because she’s so stuck in her previous role of cheated-on girlfriend that she can’t be loved girlfriend.
Some people cannot metabolise love and respect and trust. They can’t hold it, process it, let it build up within them. You can pour affection and devotion and loyalty into them but it just dissipates so they’re always starting from zero – and in your girlfriend’s case, because of her previous experience of betrayal, she’s starting below zero, from a place of mistrust, and can’t get out of it.
I feel for her, I really do. I think we often underestimate how devastating betrayal and being cheated on can be for people, how it erodes one’s self-esteem and trust, not just in other people, but in oneself. Having the one person who you’re supposed to be able to trust and who is supposed to be committed to making you feel safe and loved betray you can wreck your worldview. But at some point, you need to make a decision to trust again. You need to make a decision to choose love over suspicion. You need to make a decision to leave the person who betrayed you in the past, instead of bringing them into all your future relationships.
I will always give people who have been betrayed some grace. When wounds are relational, some healing needs to be relational too. I think it’s natural and can indeed be important to say to a partner, “Here are my vulnerable spots; please be extra careful around them”, or “Here’s where I was wounded before; I had to put some walls up to protect myself, and I may need help dismantling them”. But asking a partner for help in healing from something is just that – asking for help, an assist, not asking them to do all the work while the injured party does nothing. Healing requires the wounded person being aware of what needs to be healed, wanting to heal, taking responsibility for their own healing – and doing the work.
Here’s where the problem lies in your relationship. Your girlfriend isn’t only abdicating her responsibility for working on her own healing; she doesn’t even seem to want to heal. Instead of focusing on healing her pain and insecurities, she’s cultivating and enabling them. She’s letting them control her, and is then trying to control you in an attempt to soothe herself – but of course it’s not working, because she’s not addressing the source.
And this control? It is not only unacceptable, it is abusive. I need you to really hear that. Her behaviour towards you is abusive. She screams at you, she is isolating you from important relationships, she is surveilling your devices and your workplace, she punishes you for normal interactions and is making you feel anxious, guilty and in a constant state of fear of her next outburst. If a female friend told you that her male partner was doing all these things, what would you think? Your girlfriend experienced pain in her past. Guess what? So has just about everyone. But not everyone uses their past pain as an excuse to abuse the people around them. Your girlfriend didn’t choose to get cheated on, but she’s choosing her current actions. She’s choosing not to focus on her healing. She’s choosing to hurt you. Only she can choose to stop and if not, you need to choose to leave.
[ I ended my last relationship and am worried I won’t find anyone elseOpens in new window ]
If you are determined to give your girlfriend another chance, you can have a conversation with her. But this conversation cannot be about you, your actions, or her struggles to trust you. This conversation is to explain the impact of her behaviour on you, to address how she has become an abusive and untrustworthy partner, and to ask her what she intends to do to address her feelings and change her behaviour. She has spent nearly three years abdicating responsibility, and she can either take responsibility now, or lose you. They are the only two options. She needs to find herself a therapist and start immediately, actively working on regulating her emotions and stopping her abusive behaviour. A couple’s therapist may help you both navigate this and rebuild trust – not in you, but her, and only if earned.
I know you love this woman. But love is not enough. You need a relationship that is safe, respectful and where both of you are committed not only to caring for each other but to working on yourselves. You cannot create that relationship on your own – your girlfriend has to want it and build it too, and she has opted out. If she is ready to make an immediate and dramatic transformation, it may work. But do not fall into the trap of thinking that you can change someone who has never shown any interest in changing; do not fall into the trap of thinking that you can build a relationship with someone who is committed to destroying it from the inside; and do not fall into the trap of thinking you are responsible for a person’s choice to abuse you.
You’re right – you can’t live like this. And you don’t deserve to. Take care of yourself.