Meredith – help! I am a long time reader of your column (think you’re great) but have never written to you before. Something happened this past weekend though with my boyfriend that I am still processing, and when I got to work today it clicked – I should get Meredith’s take on all this.
Some background: My boyfriend and I have dated on and off for the past five, going on six years. Our relationship started towards the end of high school, got rocky and on-and-off in college, and has recently (the last six months or so) been very much on. It is a long distance relationship – we live two hours apart. We frequently visit though, and things have been great lately. I have always felt that we have had good communication and been open and honest in our relationship.
This past weekend, while I was visiting him, I used his computer to check a blog I read that starts with the letters Ga – when I typed in Ga, a popular gay social networking site came up as a prompt — meaning it was in his history. I was shocked. It’s not as though I haven’t before suspected that he might be curious about such things, but it felt like proof right there in front of me. In short, I freaked out.
When he came back into the room, I asked him to type what I had typed and he did so very willing. He was shocked to see this website. (For the record, it’s a social/lifestyle website, one I’m familiar with because I have a plethora of gay friends, and it was not one of the more raunchy gay networking sites.) He said he had never been to the site, didn’t know why it was there, yadda, yadda.
He said someone else must have been using his computer. He said he was incredibly hurt that I didn’t believe him. I wanted to believe him but I also knew if I were in his position at that moment, I would have said exactly all of the things he had said. I suddenly felt as if this person I care about so deeply had been having a secret other life. I felt betrayed, hurt, confused and insisted on sleeping on the floor that night.
The next day, I looked a little deeper into the history (I’m not a snoop – I swear, but wanted to fully understand). I found that nothing had been deleted from his history in the past three weeks and the gay website had only shown up once – three weeks prior when my gay best friend had been hanging out with us/using the computer. There were sexual things in the history, as I’d expect with most men in their early 20s, but all of a very straight nature.
I told him about this and he said “I told you so, do you believe me now? I know nothing about that site.” Now on the one hand, I do believe him. If he were visiting gay sites, I would imagine there would be more than this one and they would have shown up more frequently in his history than once three weeks ago. Also, the fact that there were sexual things of a straight nature in the past weeks makes me feel that it’s unlikely it was him after all. Although I also realize that this is what I WANT to believe.
So what do you think? I want to believe him, and for the most part I do, although the whole thing has planted a seed of doubt in the back of my brain that continues to nag. I love him unconditionally and I begged him to just be honest with me – if he’s curious, it’s not a problem with me, as I’ve expressed to him my past curiosity about women and he’s been accepting of that. I know it’s different with bisexual or curious men in terms of stigma, etc. But that’s not the part that bothers me – the part that bothers me would be the secrecy and trust issue if this were in fact true. Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

– Confused About His Potential Confusion