Would you ever end a relationship on a gut instinct rather than solid evidence?

[Yummum19]

I've been seeing a guy for just over a year now but for various reasons only been in an official relationship for a couple months.

Back when we were just seeing someone he slept with someone else but he told me straight away, apologised profusely and it was something I felt at the time I could put behind me.

Fast forward to now and things (i thought) were going great. However Friday night he went out for work drinks and I didn't hear from him then until Saturday morning. He claims he stayed at a friends house but left at 5 in the morning as he couldn't sleep.

I instantly didn't believe him, I just got a gut feeling he was lying. If it's worth mentioning the previous case of him cheating happened exactly the same.. He went out, ended up staying out all night, claimed he stayed with a mate and turned out he had spent the night with a female.

Is it enough to end a relationship with a man I love purely on gut feeling with no real evidence to suggest he has cheated? Or should I drop it and put it down to me being paranoid because of past experiences?

I'm asking for different viewpoints on this as I'm hoping you can give me a wake up call - whichever answer it may be.

[springydaffs]

He didn't tell you straight away the first time - he told you he'd stayed at a mate's.

Personally, if someone cheated early on I'd not be able to trust them again.

[MollyTwo]

Trust your gut instincts, they are there for a reason.

[jimijack]

Na, trust your gut.

Don't settle for anyone's shite. Life's too short.

Next.!!

[iPost]

Nothing wrong with trusting your gut.

If I'd have trusted mine rather than waiting for solid evidence (accidentally discovered behind a wardrobe one day when I impulsively decided to change the bedroom furniture around) I could have saved myself about 9.5 years of my ten year long first marriage.

Honestly, your gut doesn't even have to be right about what the issue is. It's telling you that something, somewhere in the relationship is failing a sniff test. Which is a perfectly reasonable reason to cut your losses.

[jimijack]

What the feck was behind the wardrobe ipost??

[SirChenjin]

Trust your gut (and the fact that it's a flimsy story at best)

[iPost]

jim

A lovelingly created, 3D, memento infested, framed shrine to ... somebody who wasn't me.

At the time I was pole axed. 20 years later... thank god I got the urge to switch the room arpund. One decade wasted is bad enough. 3 doesn't bear thinking about.

[SirChenjin]

Oh gosh iPost

[jimijack]

What!!!!! Like a picture or dvd? How long had it been there? Did you know the person? Did he go to this person when you found the thing?

[ImperialBlether]

Wow, iPost, that must have been a terrible shock. How the bloody hell was he doing it, though? Was he dragging the wardrobe out every other week? I'm glad you got rid, you poor thing.

[Doinmummy]

A gut feeling / suspicion / spidey senses or whatever you want to call it are just as valid as hard evidence. You can ignore them but they won't go away, which in the end is as destructive as finding hard evidence.

[MewlingQuim]

IMO the most important thing in a relationship is trust. If you don't have that now you will never have it.

[RandomMess]

A few months of an official relationship? Definitely go with your gut feeling and just can him - there is no point if you don't trust him at a gut level.

[iPost]

Sir Jim Imperial

It was like a ... very deep massive picture frame. So all the non flat mementoes included didn't get squished by the glass.

Before the vomitting and the trots (so romantic, others get a broken heart... I got a broken digestive tract and intestines instead ) kicked in and required me to put it down and dash for the loo....I was able to work out (via which of SIL's endless stream of new puppies was being featured in a particular lovesick picture) that almost the entire time I had been in his bloody country I was most certainly not his priority. So... at least three/four years. I wasn't ever entirely sure if it had been a long distance thing before he decided he wanted to go home and took me with him. If not her, based on the constant colonic pinging... there will have been another woman previously. Or women.

On one level it was horrible. But that was the day my (rather overworked at that point) gut finally got to resign as Klaxon In Chief. So I don't think of it as a bad day. More like the day I was released from the prison of needing "proof" rather than just paying attention to everything my body had been telling me the entire time we were together.

He must have been pulling the wardrobe out every time he needed access. Or it was only there temporarily and normally lived at his sister's house. Who knows. I didn't ask. There didn't really seem much point because he hadn't told me a word of truth in a decade so the chances of getting any facts out of him were slim to none.

On the bright side, I moved away, moved on and DH 2.0 & I have been very happy together for a couple of decades. The only gut pinging I suffer from these days is when our teenage DS swear blacks blue it wasn't him who went through the fridge contents like a plague of locusts.

OP

I can heartily recommend any gut twinging being restricted to the non "the man I am with is not wholly truthful" kind. Life has an entirely different patina when you aren't sitting there everyday wondering when the other shoe will drop.

[AndTheBandPlayedOn]

When you tolerated it the first time (even when the relationship wasn't "official") it gave him the green light to think he could get away with it again.

You know what you feel. That is your truth. You don't need validation or proof or anything else (his agreement or permission) to proceed with what you think you need to do.

[jimijack]

Gob.
Smacked...

LADY IPOOD the relief within your bowels must be tremendous, you did indeed "purge the shit" from your life.
Well done for that.

I have gut twinge this day due to the empty coke bottle & crisp packet I just sat on....which no one left there apparently........

[iPost]

you did indeed "purge the shit" from your life



True that.

[Yummum19]

Thank you everyone for your advice that I guess deep down I knew you would all say. If I was an outsider looking in I would not have advised accepting the first incident either but my low self esteem and his ability to talk himself out of anything just fooled me into thinking I'd never be able to find better.

ipost so sorry to hear you had to go through that but pleased you've found your happiness now! X

[iPost]

Yum

I promise love, low self esteem is not an inevitable, life long condition.

It can reset to healthier levels. Especially once you jettison the lead weights pulling it down. --> please see entire kilo of Pb called crappy boyfriend.

I think the day I sat on a plane for sixteen straight hours and cried all over a bemused, but very nice and sympathetic Egyptian, who must have cursed his company for not springing for the non weeping female section is the day my self esteem peeked up from behind its lowly rock and decided it might be safe enough to start to poke its head up.

It peobably felt like a particularly paranoid meer cat. Scared to stand up straight and gaze off into the distance because life, and I, had had a horrible habit of plonking it in the line of fire.

Took a while. But it was much encouraged by me standing up for myself. By taking myself, and therefore it, outside of the line of fire, it felt safe enough to come out of hiding. And over time both it and I have become far more resiliant, even when curve balls come along and whack us on the back of the head.

[Trills]

Is your life better with him in, or would it be better without him?

That's all you need, you don't need proof that he has done anything "wrong".

[DeathStare]

You don't ever need evidence to leave a relationship. You don't even need a reason. If you feel it's not right then it's not right. And that's all you need.

[Yummum19]

Just to update you all, I've finally got the truth out of him (well partial truth still)

He has admitted he spent the night with a female. Apparently he was too drunk and passed out on the sofa, not that I'm stupid enough to believe that though.

Feeling quite sick but just glad I have peace of mind that ending it is totally the right thing to do.

[Doinmummy]

Sorry Op that he has done this, what a shit. At least you know now for sure and won't be forever wondering if your gut instinct was right.

[SirChenjin]

So sorry OP

[springydaffs]

oh, so sorry Yummum

What a SHIT