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even though I do still believe she won't be contacting me again.

Well you probably thought this before, too, didn't you?.....and then she did. All you can do is deal with yourself. By not being *proactive*, you are placing yourself in a bad situation. By not already having her blocked, you are leaving the door open. Sure, *today* you may not want anything to do with her.....but you don't know the future. You cannot with any credibility say that you will NEVER be in a mind-space where you won't respond to her -- and even a negative, leave me alone response is a response. In this situation, I tend to characterize your exgf as a girl that you have in your back pocket.....you may not be actively pursuing or communicating with her or even thinking about her, but you *know* that she's there......

the first email was literally two short, hateful sentences, directed at me and only me

So, what, you just decided to *handle* this one on your own? This type of *lone wolf* thinking is what brought you guys here in the first place.

The second email remained in my inbox, which is how it was found; I made no effort to conceal it.

So do you want a chocolate chip or a sugar cookie?

By not proactively bringing this issue to Sparrow, you WERE hiding it. She had to search it out on her own. Here's the thing about a BS who looks through the WS' texts/emails......the BS isn't looking to find something, the BS is looking to NOT find something. See the difference? Also, no BS wants to be the warden, nor does s/he want to have to be the one who has to open the can of worms when something like this found email happens. You had a worlds-fair-break to earn some trust points, and instead, what you've done is shitcan a lot of the ones you may have already earned.

You are not a child and she is not your mother. I don't know what the conversation was after this 'hangout message' was found, but I highly suspect that it was akin to one that would be had with a naughty child.......(very simply this:

"what is this" "idk" "well why didn't you tell me about it" "idk" "well don't you think it might have been a good idea to bring this up to me""idk".)

She's your partner, treat her like one and start proactively protecting the relationship.

I do however, for whatever reason, feel like an NC letter would be excessive, and as you can see from the varied responses I'd gotten to the inital query here, I was not alone in that thought.

The variability of responses you got was because you weren't honest about what the situation was.

Anyway, to address the first email I got, I wasn't trying to minimize anything- the first email was literally two short, hateful sentences, directed at me and only me.

Who else would be it be directed at? Obviously if the woman is sending you hateful messages, she has unresolved feelings and you need to go completely NC with her. This isn't even close to being a dilemma.

I suppose I should add that I had already blocked my ex-GF in email prior to my B.S.'s response last night, and right after I saw that she did respond, I let her know that I'd already done so, and proceeded to block my ex-GF in everything else right in front of her, even though I do still believe she won't be contacting me again.

He didn't block her, he un-friended her. Big difference. I checked, and saw her Hangouts message still displayed... Along with quite a few others, including a couple other inappropriate ones-- One of whom he swore was finished sending him dirty pictures of herself, and that he swore he'd never initiated contact with. Guess who had last messaged her 5 days after D-Day, with a jaunty little "Knock, knock."

I don't even know what to feel at this point, other than just... Let down.

[This message edited by SparrowSoul at 10:49 PM, August 30th (Saturday)]

RM

I think that you need to change your point of view on this. This is how I look at things now. Every temptation is an opportunity. I have destroyed my BW trust. So any time that something like this pops up. If you do not bring it forward it will take your BGF back to dday, if you do bring it forward it gives you an opportunity to build trust. There is no middle ground. You are either resetting the clock, or building trust.

It seems to me that you are trying to keep a safety net/open door. Just in case things do not work out here. I can promise you, that by keeping safety net you will absolutely need it. It will seal your fate in this relationship. So I would recommend taking an honest hard look deep inside. To make this work, you are going to have to be 100% committed to SS and only her. This is going to take 2-5 years. to recover. Do you have that in you? Because that 2-5 years resets everytime one of these things happen. And eventually your BGF will be tired of your shit and make that decision for you. There are waywards that do everything right, give 100%, are open and honest. And yet they still don't make it. So what do you think your odds are when only giving 75% or 50%?

With your BGF here and posting on SI, everytime you have one of these "slips" "mistakes" "lapse in judgment" "incidence" or whatever other rationalization term you are using. To "protect" your BGF. She is going to get more and more advice to just leave you. You are fighting an uphill battle, and pouring oil in front of you to make sure you do not make it up the hill. why? Do you want her to leave you, so its "not your fault" so you do not feel bad? Do you want your freedom? Do you not think you did anything wrong?

If the shoe was on the other foot. And she was the wayward, how would you want her to react? would you think "hey that cool, you can still sext other men, just not the one you stepped out with" I would have a hard time believing that is how you would feel.

So it is time to get real with yourself. Are you committed to this relationship? Are you committed to R? Are you committed to doing whatever it takes? For however long it takes? If not, stop inflicting further hurt on your BGF and let her go so that she can heal and move on with her life healthily. Not stay with you for more years of pain, and end up separating anyway. Remember the choice is yours. You made the choices that got you into this. And you get to make the choices as to which way to get you out of this. The journey is yours.

We stayed up til about 4am talking about this, going over if it was worth it to even try, and I still want to try. For the record, my ex-GF has never been something I wanted to 'keep in my back pocket, just in case'. The whole "google plus" thing confused the hell out of me; I never use Hangouts, I use the chat that's in Gmail (which I now know is all connected, hence why it says I'm in Hangouts, but it sent me an email). ANYWAY. I blocked her in everything with my B.S. watching.

A few days after D-Day, I contacted the (now former) friend of mine who was always flirty, always sending pics, etc., and I did so in order to set some boundaries and let it be known what my situation was, and to not contact me. I've recieved no correspondence whatsoever since then, and the "knock-knock" I sent was not "jaunty", it's how I have always messaged anyone. Yes, she sent me a pic of herself in a corset, but No, I didn't respond to that. I have fucked up, but I really wouldn't do that directly after all that happened here, so very recently. I apologized to my B.S. that I didn't mention it to her, but I mean it that any contacting I did to anyone was shortly after D-Day, and none later, to enforce No Contact. Since that time, and for the past month and a half, all I've been doing is purging my life of friends/acquaintances, reading/writing on SI and focusing on my B.S., and trying to work on myself. I now have no Yahoo, I have no Tumblr. I never used Yahoo except for messenger anyway (had that since 2004). I have my one email account, and I mentioned the idea of terminating my phone. It'd make my job a little difficult, but oh well. (little known fact; before I moved here, I didn't even have a phone, from 2005 to 2012. I was difficult to get in touch with.) I went through my phone's contacts this morning with my B.S. right there, and showing her, blocked/deleted numbers left and right of unnecessary people. It felt good, and I hope it means something.

I've been all in, despite the discovery of the last old correspondence (which was initiated by me to END correspondence). My existence has been THIS. Nothing but THIS. Every day. Day in, day out. Trying. If the last few months are now meaningless? Then I guess I'll just keep trying.

Yesterday I was proactive in writing down "why"s here. I'll keep going. I'm not stopping.

This is my life, and while it sucks right now, I know it's my doing, and am taking steps to make it better. I do not want to be a bad person.