My girlfriend and I have been together for 3 years, living together for 1. We had a major argument several months ago that has shaken our trust (especially mine). For a few long weeks, several “hacks” occurred on my social media. It all started when my girlfriend’s friend sent her a dating profile in my name, with startlingly accurate information about me (facts not many people knew), as well as a relatively risqué photo I had only sent to my girlfriend. She brought it up to me and asked if it was me, and I got upset and accused her of being responsible. We argued about how this picture got there, but eventually talked it through, somehow both convinced neither was responsible. We dropped it, because what else could we do?
Maybe a month later, my girlfriend found out that the person (I’ll call him douchebag) she was seeing for the brief time while we had broken up over a year ago, was studying abroad. Apparently, douchebag was not only in our country, but our city, at my girlfriend’s college. My girlfriend is not at a school that is particularly famous to attract people from all ends of the globe, so this seemed odd at the time but irrelevant to my life.
However, some funny things started happening with our emails and Facebooks that all seemed strangely intended towards dismantling our relationship. My girlfriend’s relationship status kept changing to single. Messages I never wrote were sent from my account to hers claiming I cheated and we should break up, etc. I was very concerned with my internet privacy, and we changed our passwords multiple times. We talked and cried several times over the miscommunications with no clue why this was happening to us. Eventually, my girlfriend started to suspect douchebag, noting that he was something of a computer genius and may have the skills to do all this (I’m pretty tech savvy myself, but to this day find these NSA-level hacking abilities to be unbelievable).
My girlfriend scheduled coffee with douchebag while I was at work, and called me crying afterwards. She said that they had a loud embarrassing argument in the coffee shop. I was told that douchebag admitted to everything, claimed I was a liar etc, and said that they could have a great life together. My girlfriend told him to stay away from us. But things did not stop.
Maybe a week later, my girlfriend’s password to Facebook had been changed and she claimed she had no access. One night, I found my girlfriend’s Facebook was marked online. I showed her that this was our chance to talk to douchebag and get him to end this once and for all. My girlfriend said she didn’t want to exacerbate the situation and told me not to message him. Basically, I told her I was going to message douchebag anyway, and my girlfriend got angry and left the room. I then had a very unproductive conversation with douchebag on my girlfriend’s Facebook, where he taunted me about having had sex with my girlfriend, stealing my girlfriends naked pictures in our emails, and ignoring any attempt to have a mature conversation. I asked for my girlfriend’s password, which he had set to ilovedouchebag. I then came to my girlfriend to talk about the discussion I had just had, but nothing was really gained from it. It was only in hindsight I realized my girlfriend could have been behind this conversation while she was alone.
There were a few other scenarios. Emails sent from my account to my girlfriends with cropped Facebook conversations of provocative conversations with my previous relationships, and one short message I’d forgotten I had written to a friend a year ago about having doubts about the relationship. There are probably more I’m forgetting. Lastly, my girlfriend claimed a naked picture was posted of her on Facebook through my account. She claimed to have reported it immediately, but it had already gotten a lot of attention (100 likes and many comments saying “slut”) by the time she did. There was no notification on my Facebook of anything, and I never saw this post or any evidence of it. Though I suppose a fake account with my name and profile picture wouldn’t be hard to create.
So, the troubling part is, I have no hard proof of anything – even that douchebag really exists. I was not there for the coffee shop meeting, or to see the naked Facebook post, and potentially my girlfriend could have done all of this and made the rest up. She would have had access to my laptop while I was at work with all my saved passwords in chrome (I’ve since updated my security and password protected my devices). But in her defense, I’d find it highly uncharacteristic for my honest girlfriend to spend so much time going through my Facebook, creating a fake dating profile for me, having conversations with herself back and forth, and acting shocked when she opens these emails/messages if they truly came from herself. Especially because this only caused problems, and I am sure above anything else she wants our relationship to work.
But if what she says is true, I have to believe some ex she dated for like 1 month fell so madly in love with her that he traveled to our city a year later, somehow repeatedly and easily hacked into our accounts despite changed passwords and growing security measures. Douchebag also has no Facebook or social media – which makes me think he doesn’t exist, but is also consistent with a hacker who knows how his data could be misused. Even writing it out, both scenarios seem equally unbelievable to me.
At this point, my girlfriend desperately wants to get past things and has told me she would make any effort to earn my trust back. When she talks about what happened, I sincerely believe she believes this hacker story. She maintains that the situation traumatized her too, and has voiced that I’ve ignored her feelings because I blame her (which is true, because whether it was her or her ex, it still “came” from her). She gets upset when I accuse her, but not overly upset like you might expect someone to do if they were lying. I have confirmed with a friend of hers (who I also trust) that she told her the story and it is consistent with what she told me. She talked to her friend and mom about this as an evil ex haunting her – meaning if this is a lie, she has perpetuated the lie perfectly to friends and family. She has offered to work with me in any way – saying even if we break up she does not want me to think she would do this to me. I have toyed with having her text douchebag (assuming she could get the number) and somehow lure him back into our country or at least get him to admit something, but how would I even be sure the number is real?
I cannot quite think of a motive for my girlfriend to do all this. She is insecure so perhaps she would want to check up on me? But this is very extreme and elaborate. I want to believe my girlfriend, and I do when she’s talking because she seems genuine. I’ve never caught her in a real lie (miscommunications here and there, but I think this is normal). But once I’m alone, the facts do not add up and doubts cloud my mind. Not sure if I’m crazy or if the small evidence that I have does point to her.
What the fuck Reddit? How do I make sense of what happened? Assuming my girlfriend is willing to work with me completely, show me her devices, go to the police, contact the douchebag, etc, can we make this work? Is there a way we can get to the bottom of this? What could I/we do to prove that either this ghost hacker exists, or my girlfriend whom I’ve loved and trusted for 3 years has been lying all this time?
tl;dr: Both my girlfriends and my accounts were hacked and personal information/deception was used to get between us. She claims it was her ex, but it is possible that she was responsible for everything. Not sure which scenario I’m supposed to believe but I want to verify the truth. Help!