We've been together for 4 years now, pretty happy...bar some fights every now and again we have had a good relationship. When we met, he was dating a girl who he had met on tinder and they'd been seeing each other for a few weeks but because they lived a 5 hours drive from each other I kinda knew it wasn't gonna work out, so I didn't feel bad in making a move on him. I'm missing a lot of the story because its irrelevant but there was a moment where he and I decided to just stay friends because he wanted to see where things could go with her, it was a hard time because I felt really down on myself and thought of course he would choose her instead of me, she's so perfect for him etc etc. I mean, even now I do wonder if she really was better for him. She was this good looking artsy outdoorsy girl who played guitar and drums and painted in her spare time...pretty much his exact type! Anyway, we ended up getting together and he broke things off with her. In the months following, I was INSANELY jealous about her, I don't really know why but the whole thing left me feeling so salty about it. She lived hours away with no connection to him anymore so it's not like I was jealous that he would get back with her, just obsessed over this idea that she was better for him and I was a second/last resort. It preyed on my mind a lot and honestly I was BITTER. Even though I got him in the end, weird. One thing I always had was this insatiable curiosity to see what his last messages with her were, pure morbid curiosity just to see how he ended things with her, I never really knew how that conversation went and I really wanted to find out, but for years I was adamant...never go through someone's phone. I always stuck by that, my boyfriend lets me use his phone whenever mines out of charge and I'll look at his old photos, snapchat memory photos (which he knows about, and is fine with) everything BUT his old messages, I was always so adamant.
Cue the other day, all these years have gone by and I had longer felt jealous or bitter, I hadn't really paid her much thought over the years but the other week I was on his phone and I don't know why but I just started scrolling down the messenger app, reading the first line of each person, I saw her name as I scrolled far down. The curiosity just took over any logical and moral thinking and I read a little bit, I just wanted to see the last couple messages to satiate the old curiosity. I clicked off when I felt satisfied but a couple days later I did it again, reading a little bit more and then again, and again. What went from a little peak turned into scrolling up to messages I definitely should not have seen. I didn't really feel bad the first time I did it, but the more I kept doing it, and the more things I kept seeing the more guilt I started to get. I've probably done it now about 3/4 times and honestly, the curiosity is now more intense than ever. It hasn't solved anything and honestly it has just completely reignited some weird obsession I have with this ex of his, that he only dated for a couple months!! It sounds ridiculous but it's almost become an addiction at this rate, I so badly want to read from top to bottom of their old messages and completely satisfy that initial curiosity. I don't really feel anything, even when I saw sensitive messages, it didn't make me feel jealous or hurt my feelings, I just felt this rush of excitement that I could finally see these messages...I'm such a weirdo.
Honestly my boyfriend would be furious if he found out, I think if I had just done it once and stuck to reading just those last messages then he wouldn't be mad but the fact that I KEEP doing it and going out of my way to snoop would hurt him I think, because he's someone who does value privacy and thinks people who read messages are weird. It's a mixture of intense guilt, because I KNOW how ****ed up it is, feeling like I complete freak for even caring this much about some girl he went out with and mad at myself because the guilt doesn't seem to be enough to stop. I don't know what to do, I don't think I'll ever tell him because why would I do that to myself, I think I just need to stop doing it but I don't know how.