Truth About Deception

I found an email when my lover and I first started dating.  Her e-mail was already up on her computer and I was curious about a credit card she had in her possession with someone else's name on it.  I saw the name in her e-mail queue and it confirmed that this person got the card for her and wanted it paid off.

Around the same time she was talking to an old lover that found her via facebook. I didn't care and she told me about it immediately but she said they were like siblings. There was an e-mail from this person as well so I looked. The e-mail correspondence was about her wearing the same perfume she had been wearing for 20 years and had been given to her by this person.  She reminded them of that, it sounded like "longing" and that made me upset.

I admitted my snooping, confronted her about the perfume (but not the credit card), she apologized, said it was stupid and she stopped wearing the perfume (I didn't ask her to do that btw) and we moved on.

Fast forward: I was looking through some old photos b/c I wanted to surprise her for her birthday and I found instead buried in the picture box a receipt for a hotel in another city dated two weeks before we started dating. she always maintained that she and her ex had been platonic for nearly half a year before we got together and there had been no one else before me. Once again, I admitted my "snooping", she confessed they had been together but nothing happened. I chose to forgive the lie b/c she didn't cheat on me. We weren't together yet.

But the lies started looking like a pattern and I became paranoid. She's a very secretive person in our relationship (i.e. doesn't like to talk about childhood, has no close friends from childhood or adult life really, very mysterious life in general, etc) but appears to be very open, forthright and charismatic in public. Not quite jekyll and hyde but different enough for me to notice.

So, I looked through a bunch of her personal things and would discover facts about her past and then ask her casual questions to see if she'd lie. in some instances she did lie and now I know what she looks like when she's lying.  I know all of her "tells" and it makes me feel like crap (even though I have to admit I feel relief to know the difference).

I wish I could tell her she doesn't have to lie to me and that I know this stuff about her.  Yes, some of the things I've found upset me. She's lied about how many people she's been with or who those people have been. She's also kept stuff from relationships she had 14 years ago but gets upset if I have anything from my past, even pictures.

But some of what I've found is inconsequential stuff and I feel like a jerk when I play this game to try to catch her in a lie. I think she lies b/c she doesn't want to be judged which I can empathize with completely. but it's wearing me out trying to keep tabs on her or draw her out.