Little background. I'm not typically a jealous person, prefer transparency to secrecy, yadda yadda. We started dating not long after she broke up with her ex and I knew all about their connection (college love) and was cool about her taking time to fully "let go" as long as she was open about it. I'm on good terms with most of my exes and occasionally bump into them so it's not a big deal for me. Fast forward 4 months(January 2018) and one night she's not responding to calls or texts. I have this weird feeling about it but don't say anything. A few days later we're watching Netflix on her Mac and her text thing goes off on the computer with a text from her ex. Okay, I thought... Whatever. But she got really weird and tried to distract me mid show by kissing me as soon as the chime went off. I hate snooping but we were/are open with each other's phones and I had this nagging feeling something was off. Clicked on the thread later when she wasn't around and looked at the prior day in question and there were consecutive texts leading to midnight then stopped. I had called at 1230 and didn't hear back until almost 2am. So I went into her phone (not proud) and found a 1.5 hr conversation during the time she had said she was "busy and didn't have her phone". Brought it up a week later, talked about how it just seemed wrong to hide that from me because I only care if it seems intentional to be secretive about it, she half apologized and we moved on.

She was really open about their conversations for a couple weeks then stopped saying anything so I figured they must had moved on. Queue us taking a trip together in the summer and on the drive home she was asking me to go through her pictures and favorite some. In doing so I stumble on quite a few saved screenshots of their recent conversations, talking about life and happiness and their future goals and aspirations, friendly for the most part but also emotionally connected at first read. So again I go to the texts and there is nothing there. I confront her in the car right then and she says she saves all kinds of conversations, ours included (she does have some of ours) and it's not a big deal, she deleted the thread because they weren't really talking anymore. All right I guess, still kinda weird but sure, I believe her but conscious of the suspicion growing in my mind.

Fast forward to 1 month ago. She's showing me something in her email and her texts are pulled up in a separate window. When she minimized the browser I noticed his name in one of the top slots. She went to the bathroom and left her phone so, guiltily and hesitant I open her phone texts...nothing. I checked her computer again and there are texts from a few days before up to this day. I bring it up a couple days later and she says, "I deleted them from my phone because I knew it'd make you upset". This is the moment I got upset and tried to calmly explain just how suspicious that is. After talking in circles and trying to change the subject numerous times she said "I'm sorry you saw them and it upset you". I'm not the jealous sort, but this is undermining my trust in her. Queue to this past weekend she goes on a girls trip to the cottage her ex lives in (coincidence). Shows me their itinerary and what not, looks fun ok love you have fun bye! She calls me at midnight on Saturday and we chat about the weekend so far, then in a barely audible whisper she says, "do you care if I go get coffee with ex". Im shocked and just say, "babe I don't know what you expect but I can't give you approval for that. Do what you want to do, it's fine but I'm not going to say I'm okay with it". That was that, we hung up and didn't really talk until she got home the next day. I was waiting for her to bring it up which she never did until I breached the conversation. After several attempts asking her why she was barely whispering when asking that she said, "cause [insert friends names] wouldn't have agreed with me going and they were in the next room". While I did appreciate the honesty about it, I don't know what to think about the whole situation. Am I the asshole for calling her out about this? I told her it's selfish to ask me for approval and asked her to put me in her shoes doing the same thing with my ex.. she said "it's not the same, you guys didn't date as long" (which is true, by 6 months). Idk.
