Man Breaks Up With His Girlfriend After Reading Her Diary Without Consent & Finding Out How She Truly Felt About Her Ex
His own selfish and impromptu decision did more harm to the relationship than he initially anticipated.
Prostock-studio / Shutterstock "I'm currently dealing with the fallout of a painful and confusing breakup. I don't even know how to process this," a man admitted in a confessional post to the subreddit "r/AmIOverreacting." He claimed that after going through his girlfriend's personal belongings, he found out some interesting details about the relationship she'd been in before him.
He broke up with his girlfriend after reading her diary without consent and finding out how she felt about her ex.
In his since-deleted Reddit post, which has been reposted on X, the man explained that he and his girlfriend had been together for almost two years, and he thought that she would be the woman he'd eventually marry. However, it didn't take long for his opinion to sway.
He informed Reddit readers that his girlfriend is a writer and has multiple journals and diaries that she will scribble in. Her writing has never been something she's refused to share, and she has always shown him the poetry and short stories that she would work on.
"I guess I just had a curiosity one day, but I took it upon myself to read some of her journals while I had the place to myself," he recalled. "What I found ... I broke a little bit inside."
Probably one of the worst ways to violate someone's trust and privacy is to sift through their personal belongings with direct consent. Just because she's shown him her writing in the past doesn't mean that he's suddenly entitled to all of it, especially when she's not home to give permission.
It was his entitlement and curiosity that ended up hurting his own feelings. He claimed that before the two of them got together, she'd been in a relationship with her ex-boyfriend, Steve, for around four years. It was an incredibly painful breakup, and she was left devasted by how it ended. In her diary, he stumbled upon an entry titled "The String Theory."
The String Theory is an actual phenomenon that is similar to the East Asian "red string of fate" folklore. It's said to mean that an invisible red string connects the fingers of people destined to encounter each other at specific moments and signifies that the people in question are predestined lovers.
In his girlfriend's diary, he read her words about the "synchronicities she felt with Steve," including how they had the same hair and eye color, had matching birthmarks, and had parents with similar mental issues.
"Both of them met for the first time when they were toddlers playing on a park complex," he learned from her diary. "She recalled how 'weird' it was reconnecting with back when they were 15. How he's familiar."
She wrote about how she still missed her ex and that "no one would compare." While some of the writings had dates on them, others did not, so he didn't know if she'd written entries before they'd gotten together or after.
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When she eventually returned home, he immediately confronted her and explained what he saw in her diary. She told him that she had written all of that a long time ago, but he refused to listen and promptly broke up with her. His hasty decision didn't take into account that his girlfriend clearly didn't want to be with her ex-boyfriend if she'd stayed with him for two years.
People in the comments section agreed that he definitely overreacted and shouldn't have read her diary in the first place.
His own selfish and impromptu decision to read his girlfriend's diary ended up doing more harm to the relationship than he initially anticipated. Just because you're in a relationship with someone doesn't mean that suddenly, you are owed insight into all areas of their life. Everyone has a past, and he knew before dating his girlfriend that she'd gone through a horrible breakup after being in quite a long relationship.
To completely ignore one's past is unrealistic, and to expect that your partner hasn't had any great love before you is quite naive. If he'd had a simple conversation with his girlfriend instead of jumping to conclusions, he would've realized that there was probably nothing going on with her ex and that they truly were just old words written in a diary.
Others agreed that he acted out of line, with one Reddit user writing, "Since you just ended things without any kind of discussion, you’ll never know. You invaded her privacy and decided you had the right to read her diary; then, when you didn’t like what you read, YOU got mad at HER and ended the relationship."
Another user added, "You invaded her privacy, and you hurt your own feelings. How long were you digging and reading through these before you even found this? And you know she went through a difficult breakup with this person. You did this all to yourself."
Nia Tipton is a Chicago-based entertainment, news, and lifestyle writer whose work delves into modern-day issues and experiences.