My girlfriend of 8 months and I love each other. When we decided to see each other exclusively, she agreed that in our conversations, she would refer to her male friends by name. This had been a point of confusion for me. When she and I were “just dating” I kind of expected that she had other dates and these were were her “friends” that she referred to when she told me she had been out to dinner, etc, as opposed to going out with her “girlfriends” . She simply agreed that all her male friends would have names from now on, for my benefit.

She has followed this, I now know more of her male friends by name as she talks about them and she is not dating any of them. However, there was one person that she was exchanging text messages with one evening, at a social gathering 2 months ago. She was sitting next to me texting him, I could see the screen on her phone, it said “Tom”. I was slightly irritated that she was having this private conversation with Tom, whom I had never heard of previously. And we were at my cousin’s home, and she was with me. They texted back and forth for the duration of a whole football game. I felt a bit disrespected. Afterwards, I asked her who was her friend that she was texting, and that I had never heard of Tom before. She refused to answer, and kind of snapped at me. So I dropped it.

I have told her previously that I did not want to hear about her past boyfriends because i do not want to picture her with anyone else and refused to divulge details about my former girlfriends. She is a very private person.

A few weeks later, I was at her apartment browsing her bookshelf, and came across a book with Tom’s name in it (he owned the book and had obviously given or lent it to her).

At some point later, we were at breakfast, and it came up in conversation that an “ex of hers” had given her a book. I put two and two together, that Tom and her had a history together.

Just last night, she referred once again to a “friend” in casual conversation, she actually said that she directed an email to this friend rather than me because he knew more about that situation the email refers to than I do. This bothered me.

An hour later, I asked her directly who this friend was, and why was she not naming this friend. She did not immediately answer. Then after pressing, she told me it was “Tom”. I asked her if that was her ex-boyfriend. And is this the same guy she was texting previously at the party. She nervously laughed, tried to re-direct the question. Finally she admits, “We dated”.

Later I told her how this bothered me, that felt like she had been witholding information, and it was obvious to me that her and Tom had a past because of her apprehension in telling me his name, as opposed to her other named “Friends”. She denied it, insisting that she just felt like I don’t need to know everything about her, it had nothing to do with me. I asked if they slept together, she said yes. This relationship was about 5 months previous to ours. They were never actually boyfriend and girlfriend, it apparently was a more casual thing than that and never got to the relationship stage.

She says that I have nothing to worry about, and that he should be the least of my worries. They call each other regularly, exchange texts, and meet occasionally for lunch when she goes to New York for business. She does not pick up his calls when she is with me. She says that she does not feel the need to talk about me with him, he does not know about me, and she does not ask about his love life. They are friends now and they get on amazingly well in a light, non-serious way. She says that she will tell me whenever she does see him now.

I gather from other advice columns that I should be accepting of her former lovers, as she is who she is because of them. And that she is with me now, we have a status that he never achieved with her.

I am really not worried about him and their relationship. What bothers me is that she kept it from me. Just wanted to bounce this story off of someone else to be sure that I am not being naive, or is this a “red flag”. Is this girl trustworthy? I had previously refused to answer questions about my ex-girlfriend when she pressed me for her name, and asked if she had met my family. She has met my family and I am very happy with her, as she is with me. Was this a mistake on her part? What can be done? We are taking off on a trip this weekend. I am wish that this had not come up now. We have had only one previous disagreement.

Thank you for any advice.