She Hooked Up With Her Ex Before We Became Official. Can I Trust Her?

How to know if you can trust your girl if you catch her lying to you about an ex.

In this video coaching newsletter I discuss an email from a 25-year-old viewer from South Africa who’s been following my work for two years and read 3% Man five times so far. A year ago she revealed that she slept with her ex right before they became exclusive.

She also lied about what actually happened until recently. Now he wonders if he can trust her. My comments are in bold italics like this below in the body of his email.

This particular email is from a 25-year-old guy from South Africa. He’s been following my work for two years, yet he’s got through 3% Man five times only so far. You got to do better, bro. It looks like he’s doing pretty well just judging by his girlfriend’s behavior, but there’s kind of a wrinkle and we’re questioning her honesty, her integrity and definitely her loyalty.

So he says a year ago, she revealed that she slept with her ex right before they became exclusive. In other words, they became exclusive a few weeks after dating. Then somewhere in those few weeks, she hooked up with an ex-boyfriend and then asked him to be exclusive. So I’m kind of starting to think that she was still talking to an ex. She’s talking to this guy and she slept with the ex to see how she felt and she was already sleeping with this guy, so she chose him. In other words, her feelings were stronger for him than they were for the ex. She realized she didn’t want to take another trip down memory lane with the ex. She dipped with him and and then asked this guy to become exclusive.

So like a year later, after they were together for a whole year, he starts asking her about her past, but she’s kind of young. She had five boyfriends total from the time she was 19. She slept with all five of these guys and now he’s kind of regretting kind of getting into it because she admitted or volunteered, “Oh, by the way, back in our talking stage,” she said she went and slept with an ex-boyfriend and he’s like, “What?” Because he had always told her, it’s like, “The one thing is a deal breaker with me is if you’re disloyal. If you cheat on me, it’s over forever.” So she quickly changes the story. “Oh, I’m just trolling you,” but now a year after that, this is after two years of being together, then she says, “Well, I wasn’t trolling you.” She actually did sleep with the guy, the ex-boyfriend. So now he’s like, “Fuck, she lied to me.” They are two years down the road about this one event. This is like the only hookup. Everything else is perfect. He’s like, “Fuck, can I trust this girl now?”

If you got two years invested with somebody and they lied about something like this, what are you going to do? You’re going to end the relationship over two years when it’s one instance, you weren’t exclusive at the time, you weren’t official, but you did become official probably within days or a week or two after this? So that’s why I suspect she slept with the ex to see how she felt, and she definitely liked this guy more, so she chose him. The problem is she lied. So if you’re trying to vet somebody for their character and you caught them in a lie about an ex-boyfriend, then your natural next question to yourself is going to be like, “OK, well she lied about that. What else did she lie about?” Then you start wondering, “How can I trust her?”

Love cannot exist where there is no trust. If you’re thinking about involving the government in your relationship and having a family, you got to know whether you can trust the person or not. You got to be able to believe what she says. So it’s clear that if she thinks that he’s going to get upset about something, she’ll just lie to cover it up to avoid him getting upset. So that’s kind of what liars do.

Viewer Email:

Hi Coach,

My name is Bob, and I’m 25 years old from South Africa. I’ve been following your work for the last two years and have read your book five times, which has significantly improved my dating life. My girlfriend is studying for a medical degree in college and I work in the same city.

I met my girlfriend through a mutual girl friend, and we instantly hit it off. At first, I wasn’t looking for a relationship, so I took things slowly. After asking her out, we started talking. She asked if I was seeing anyone else, and I told her I wasn’t. She said the same.

So how a woman thinks, everything’s qualification, right? Seeing anyone else and how hooking up with an ex-boyfriend one time doesn’t technically qualify as “Seeing.” It was just sex. “It was just once.” So technically she wasn’t seeing anyone else. I would say when she told him that, that was true, but it’s also possible because in that time frame, we know she slept with this guy. Maybe he called her up, she thought, “Well, let me see. He was really nice.” So she got together with him, hooked up again and she’s like, “Yeah, I definitely don’t want that guy back.” Then shortly thereafter, she asked this guy to be exclusive.

A few weeks later, she made our relationship official. After some research and vetting, I found her to be a person of good character.

That’s what he seemed to think. So that’s why I’m thinking that, because we know she slept with this guy before they were official. Probably she slept with the ex, realized it wasn’t going to go anywhere, wasn’t going to work, didn’t work the first time, it’s not going to work the second time around. So that helped her make her decision that she wanted to focus on this guy. That’s what it looks like. I could be wrong, but that’s what it looks like.

As we got to know each other better over the months, I looked into her past. Though it wasn’t the best decision, I thought it wouldn’t be too bad since she seemed very innocent and inexperienced in dating.

Yeah, it’s always the innocent ones that are the biggest fucking freaks.

She hesitated but eventually revealed that she had dated five guys from the time she was 19, and she had been intimate with all of them. She is now turning 24. Our relationship has been great. She pursues me most of the time, communicates like an adult and we’ve never argued.

So two years of no arguments. That’s pretty good. Good job! Men who understand women don’t argue with them, but it really makes a difference if you made a good choice. Are you with a girl whose parents, especially her father, did a good job?

We sometimes have differing opinions, but share the same beliefs about many things like relationships, family and religion. She is super kind, sweet and loving, and she tells me I’m the best partner she’s ever had. Despite our busy schedules, I try to set up a date every week and she calls me every day to check up on me. I have informed her about my boundaries, especially that cheating is a deal breaker. When the issue of exes came up, she suggested we remove all exes’ numbers from our phones, which we did.

Everything was going well. The sex, intimacy and communication were great. However, about a year ago, she revealed, while we were hanging out in my car, that she had hooked up with an ex during the talking stage before making our relationship official.

That’s why it sounds like she got together with the ex one last time to see how she felt, and obviously she didn’t feel good about that. She felt better about this guy, and that’s why she asked him to be exclusive and official, because what do I always say? Women care about how they feel about you. It doesn’t matter what a good guy you are, how good looking you are, or how much money you have. The only thing that matters is how they feel about you. So in this case, she felt better about him than the ex. So there’s that. That can be some comforting thoughts here, but obviously the lying, that’s not a comforting thought. Nobody wants to sleep with one eye open the rest of their life.

She said she regretted it and cut him out of her life, but I didn’t take it lightly and considered ending the relationship, feeling she had cheated.

Well, if you weren’t together officially, then everything you know, you were both free agents.

After seeing my reaction, she panicked and claimed it was a prank to avoid breaking up. I brushed it off and believed her since I had no reason to doubt her, and we continued our relationship as if nothing happened. Fast forward to this year, she admitted that everything she had said was true and that she was scared to tell me about meeting up with her ex and hooking up with him when we were getting serious.

So she says that, I’d be like, “Well, is there anything else you want to come clean about? I mean, you might as well.” That’s what would have been my next statement. I would be like, “Oh well, so you lied to me or lied right to my face.” Not good.

I feel betrayed…

Obviously.

…Because she kept this from me for so long despite my multiple attempts to get her to be honest with me.

So he probably brought it up multiple times and she always maintained, “Oh no, I didn’t. Oh, that never happened.” Then after, who knows, the eighth or 10th time, she finally says, “Well, technically I did sleep with him.“

Now, I’m questioning the relationship and her character because she lied for so long, and I don’t know what else she might be hiding.

That’s a good, good question to be asking.

After thinking about it, I reached out to her, and she pleaded with me, saying she loves me, wants a future together and is sorry for lying.

Well, she’s sorry she got caught, but at the end of the day she admitted it. She revealed it. She came clean. This is what typically happens when a woman falls completely head over heels in love. It’s like, whatever reason, it’s like they feel they got to confess their sins. It’s like they want to come clean to you, and it’s only then that you’re going to find out what was really going on with that dude from work, or the other guy that was just the friend or any exes in the background.

That’s why it’s important to follow what’s in the book, because you get her head over heels in love with you and goo-goo ga-ga. That’s when they admit things like this and then you’ll have a clearer, probably never be a fully clear, picture of what really happened.

She promised to work on gaining my trust back. I gave her the benefit of the doubt because I love her and want this to work…

Plus, you’re two years down the road.

…And she hadn’t given me any reason to doubt her intentions during our time together. I can tell she feels guilty for lying, but I don’t know whether to trust her again or if once a liar, always a liar.

Well, Ronald Reagan said it best: “Trust, but verify.”

Your guidance has always been spot on and incredibly helpful, so I would be grateful to get your insights.

Bob

So we don’t really have enough evidence to boot her out. I’m sure some of you guys in the comments are gonna be like, “Fuck her, she’s gone! Dump her!” It’s easy to say, but this guy’s two years down the road. Other than this lie and the fact she slept with her ex, but again, the way it looks, it looks like she slept with the ex and was like, “Fuck that guy.” Then she got serious with this dude because he’s a much better option, obviously. She had stronger feelings for him, so she chose him, but there’s still the issue that she lied to his face on multiple occasions and only came clean after about two years.

You got to understand that the vetting process is not complete. Now it’s a big fucking question mark. So it’s best if she thinks that you trust her implicitly, because if she thinks you trust her implicitly and she really is a dirt-bag, a liar and a cheater, she’ll slip up and you’ll catch her. So in this case, I would say it probably be a good idea for you when she’s not looking, she’s not around or maybe she’s passed out that you can take the cell phone, hold it over her face, unlock her phone and just go through the messages, see if there’s anything in there incriminating because again, she’s lied to you. She lies to your face. So it would behoove you to always know your downside risk. Especially if things keep going the way they’re going, other than this little bump, you’d think, well probably they’ll end up getting married and having a family at some point, but before he’s going to feel comfortable, he’s got to know for sure and the only way to know for sure is to go through her phone when she’s not expecting it or not aware of it, and just see what’s in there, like James Bond style. That’s what you see in the movies, right? The chick that he’s spying on goes into the shower or the bathroom, he goes through her phone, he plugs a little memory stick into the side of her computer to hack and see what’s in there, download files, stuff like that. Put everything back before she comes out of the bathroom. Most of the time he never gets caught. So that’s what I would do here.

Well, let’s just let her think that you trust her, but in the back of your mind, you need to get peace of mind, and really, the only way you’re going to get peace of mind is if you kind of go through her phone when she’s not expecting it and just see if there’s messages to other guys. Did she really delete all the other exes? Because this was her idea, remember? So if you go through her phone and there’s a bunch of conversations with exes, especially this guy or maybe other dudes, then you’ll know for sure you can’t really trust her.

I had a phone conversation with a guy the other night. The whole time he was with his wife, even to this day, her phone is always face down. She won’t let him go through her phone either. On top of that, she has family in another country. So she is out of the country for months at a time, and he doesn’t really know what she’s doing. So she doesn’t want him going through the phone. She absolutely refused to let him see what was in her phone. She wouldn’t unlock it for him. She always has it face down and then claims, oh, I just like looking at the back of my phone case.” It’s like, that sounds totally legit, right? But until you go through, like in a case again, this would be the type of thing where if it gets to that point, at some point whenever you get the opportunity, you’re going to want to go through her phone, because if you go through it, there’s absolutely nothing in there. You’re like, “Wow, man. I feel great. Maybe it was just a one time thing.” Then I’d say, “You’re probably alright,” but if you go through the phone when she’s not expecting it and you see bad things in there, well then you know what you got. Then that’s heartbreaking, that’s terrible, but you need to know, you got to find that out. Especially before you consider taking your relationship to the next level, having a kid or involving the state in your relationship. That’s what I would do if I were you, but based on the evidence that you’ve brought so far, that’s a nasty lie.

Like I said, the way it looks is that she hooked up with the ex and she was like, “Yeah, definitely not that guy again.” Then she got serious with this dude, but multiple repeated lying about this event over the course of two years before she finally comes clean, that’s not good. So he’s got to have peace of mind, and the only way to get peace of mind is to go through her phone to know for sure and to be able to go through her phone and her never know that you went through it. So that’s what I would do if I were you. If there’s stuff in there that incriminates her, then you know that she’s just not a good, honest person. She puts on a good facade, but it’s better to do that than to start accusing her, because then she’ll become much better at hiding things.

So in these cases, when you’re vetting, it’s always better to make her think you trust her implicitly, because if she thinks you trust her implicitly and she’s a scumbag, a liar and a cheater, she’ll get sloppy, she’ll slip up and it’ll be much easier to catch her, versus if you’re always hovering around or wondering what she’s doing, demanding to look at her phone or whatever, then she’ll just delete all the messages and you won’t know that they’re there. If she thinks you trust her implicitly, she’ll have everything in her phone and you can go there and you can look at her apps. You can look at Snapchat, WhatsApp, her call log, her FaceTime log, or the chats that she has and her messages to know for sure, and if you go through there and there’s absolutely nothing incriminating or nothing bad, then you’re probably going to be OK.

Like I said, right now, the jury’s out. We can’t make a decision one way or another, but that was a nasty infraction to maintain those lies for two years like that. So you got some work to do, Mr. James Bond.

So, if you’ve got a question or a challenge and you’d like to get my help, go to UnderstandingRelationships.com, click the Products tab at the top of your screen on any page, and book a coaching session with yours truly. Until next time, I will talk to you soon.