What would you think if your boyfriend did this?

I think you should definetly tell your boyfriend to keep from doing that sort of thing! It’s not fair to you OR this other girl, and he doesn’t have the right to screw with either of your heads. Similarily, she really needs to let go. I would advise perhaps emailing her yourself and letting her know how you feel about it, and asking her to refrain from sending him messages like that again.

I’d also be sure to ask my boyfriend every now and then if they’re sending messages back and forth. Trust his word, but if you get suspicious, tell him. Honesty is the key, and by letting you see those emails, he probably wanted to come clean.

He has been your fiance in other questions. What is the nature of the relationship?

You’re both young, and he is young and immature. I’d cool the relationship while you both grow up a bit. (He has farther to go than you do, I think.)

PS: He may have blocked her, but I’d bet that was only temporary. He’s afraid to make a real commitment yet, is my thought, which is why he sort of keeps her in his back pocket. You’re right to be unsure of his commitment to you at this point.

He’s full of bullshit.
That is what I think. ;)

I’m not sure relationships need to be this hard. I would bail.

If he has stopped the correspondence and blocked her, what are your concerns?

He could easily have loved you, but kept on with the correspondence out of habit.

He agreed to let you look through his emails and now you are punishing him for what he did in the past. That doesn’t seem fair.

First, let’s get the semantics straight – “fiance” means he’s bought you a ring, your parents know you’re getting married, you have at least a tentative date. There’s a public promise. You’re publicly engaged. Anything else is a “serious boyfriend.” This is important because young women tend to use “fiance” to mean that they are sleeping with their boyfriend but don’t want to be considered easy. Guys tend to shy away from the word “fiance” unless they really mean marriage.

This is important because in the first scenario, he is cheating on a serious commitment to you. In the second, as a serious boyfriend, he may be making noises that sound like commitment to you, but it may be infatuation, or it may be what he thinks he needs to say to get in your pants. The fact that this girl is constantly a presence in his life sounds like there is some unfinished business there. He needs to go back and finish it, on his own. If you hold him accountable to cutting off contact because you tell him to, cheating on your relationship is always a possibility. He needs to be released from whatever promise you have, and he needs to finish the relationship with this girl, one way or the other. She will always be present until he takes ownership of putting it into perspective. Ending it only because you insist it ends is not taking ownership of it; that becomes you taking ownership of the relationship, and if he cheats, it becomes your “fault” because you knew he had feelings for her.

On second read, @BarnacleBill is exactly right. I totally missed the first sentence my first time around… “My boyfriend and I are engaged…” Great call on “semantics”, @BarnacleBill; very well done.

I do not agree with others that “you’re punishing him for behavior in the past”. It’s as if “breakfast” was “in the past” ... only in the sense that he has already had breakfast and won’t have that breakfast again. He’s going to have breakfast tomorrow, right? I’m sure that as regularly as he eats breakfast, he’ll be communicating with this other woman at some point, too.

So I stand by me earlier advice, but I redouble it if you think (or if he thinks) that he is in any way your “fiance”. He needs to do more than just “block her calls”; he needs to actually get over her.

@CyanoticWasp is correct. He should not be accountable to you that he will not be cheating with her. He needs to convince her that she has no role in his future, and he is not interested in pursuing her. She needs to go away and stay gone because there is nothing there for her. Blocking her calls just leaves unfinished business with her. He has to man up and tell her that he chooses you over her, that he sees a future with you, not her. But you can’t tell him to do that, he has to choose to do that on his own.

Well, that’s nice, @BarnacleBill, but you were more right than I was, and sooner. So there.

I agree with the others here:

There’s a HUGE difference in the mind of a man/woman between bf/gf and fiancee.

Your guy blocking her or ignoring her sends a message he’s doing it because it bothers you and he wants no grief for what he might do otherwise. He needs to be sure himself and then you that it’s really you he wants. He needs to feel in himself that it’s a choice rather than punishment to exclude her because he chooses to give whatever intimacy there was between them to you now, joyfully, freely, respectfully.

If his emailing her back and forth is in the past, and his proposal has come since that time then like @marinelife says, he may have already decided he is sure with you and all done with her for good. Some people’s idea of what the past means though in terms of time span, well… for me, I think of the past as at least 6mos. or more but it may be a different comfort span for you guys.

Break up with him.

This is exactly why i have always called the the computer, the devil. emails and text messages get more people into trouble.

If he still loves this other girl, then you are playing second fiddle to her and i think you know this. what i don’t understand, is why he allowed you to read his emails? surely, he knew you would discover the old love emails.

Why did he do this?

I’m with you @john65pennington

Frankly, I wouldn’t know what to think. The only person who has that information is your bf. I think it might help if you get him to tell you the story of what his behavior meant. You don’t want to start out mistrusting him. Depending on that conversation, I would then follow the excellent advice of @BarnacleBill and @CyanoticWasp.

When a man acts interested in you, no matter how far the relationship goes, it is a mistake to think that you are the only one he is communicating with. Anything he says to you or does for you he is generally doing with at least one if not a few or several others.
Or so my experienc has been.

Have you simply asked him “Why?” It seems like that’s the big issue. Why would he do that? Being in a relationship and in love with someone, to me, means that I’m not interested sexually or romantically AT ALL in anyone else. And I think that’s the way it should be, unless you and your partner are both okay with an open relationship, which I see that you are not…so…yeah, what’s his reason? I’d be sad and want answers.

@Trillian I will agree with you, maybe in the VERY beginning stages of a relationship. But no farther than that.

How long have you guys been in a relationship? How old are the both of you? Are you both still in school or working? College? (I ask because some of these details give a sense of what an “engagement” means. I dont want to be presumptuous)

@john65pennington You’re the only person that said something I could agree with 100%. The internet, E-mail, text-messaging and social networking do NOT mix with relationships.

It’s hard to crack a relationship case because every relationship is unique. What’s true for this one may not be true for others, and vise versa.

I can’t say anything for sure. Maybe this guy is a big cheater or maybe he just thought he still had feelings for this girl in the beginning of your relationship, but has since then realized he has something beautiful with you. Collectively, you guys surely know your relationship better than we do. How are we supposed to know? It sounds like a big discussion is in order about everything – the other girl and unfinished business, the engagement, the E-mailing, everything.

Sorry if my contribution is a little weak, but I can say this much with confidence: Without trust in a relationship, you have nothing.

If you look at the situation you have right now, imagine what would be in the future. Thats all I gotta say.

hm…well after reading that issue, I wouldn’t be able to say either. If I was in your position I wouldn’t believe him…He kept in contact with the girl for a while and it doesn’t seem like he even has his mind set. He doesn’t seem like a good match for you if he’s willing to go behind your back and talk to the ex…Just wouldn’t do it for me. I wouldn’t stay with him… but that’s only my opinion. Do what you think is right, maybe you two should settle this out maturely and no jump to any conclusions. Maybe there is a good explanation. To me I think not though.

Me thinks he should be jibbed!