I'm a 34-year-old male and I've been dating a woman on and off for the past eight months (she's 27, though I'm not sure that matters much to the story). I really care about this person, and she opened up a serious can of worms recently when she opened up my sketchbook/journal one morning when I went to work. I completely believe her when she says it was an accident. It was right on top of my desk and she says she was looking for paper to write me a note. That said, she read through it, and she did not like what she read.

What she read specifically was from the first time we broke up was back in April. I was upset and I gave a pretty harsh commentary on her. I think I was trying to convince myself that I didn't feel as strongly about her as I did. A lot of the things were fair, but some were less so. She has some pretty heavy body image issues due to a significant weight loss that left her with excess skin and I talked about how it bothered me. I got over it, because I really value this person as a whole, but my own prejudice was a hurdle for me to get over. I never let it affect my ability to be intimate with her.

I think any trust we could have had is lost and I don't think she'll ever feel comfortable around me again. She's understandably upset, but do I have a right to be mad how deep she went into my private thoughts? And is she right to frame those thoughts as a inexcusable slight to her? Is there any way to salvage this relationship?

Betrayer/Betrayed

Nope.

Well... actually... I'm gonna walk that back. (One word into a response and I'm already walking it back—that may be a new record, even for me.) I should've said there's no way for you to salvage this relationship, B/B. It's out of your hands. If your girlfriend can get past it, if she can take her share of the responsibility for having poured this poison into her own eyes, if she can accept that no one loves every last thing (physically, emotionally, socially) about their GFs/BFs/husbands/wives/Dominants/submissives/whatevers, if she can will herself to forget the scalding shit she read in your fucking journal... then she may be able to salvage this relationship. But there's nothing you can do, B/B, besides what you've already done: apologizing (for what you wrote) and contextualizing (explaining when and why you wrote it).

If this isn't something she can get past—if she can't look at you looking at her without those stupid fucking journal entries thundering in her head—then this relationship is over.

Assuming this relationship ends, B/B, here's what you're not gonna do in the future: You're not gonna write down every cruel and/or shitty thing that pops into your fucking head about your future girlfriend(s). Just as some things can't be unsaid, some things can't be unread. And unless you're gonna carry your journal around in an aluminum tube that you stuff up your ass when you're not jotting down your cruelest and/or shittiest thoughts, it's a bad idea to put down on paper emotionally shattering things you would never say to your partner's face. Because people find shit and they read it. Yes, your girlfriend shouldn't have read your journal, you're right about that, but your own carelessness—leaving something so toxic in a place where she might find it and read it—was unforgivably thoughtless.