My partner and I have been arguing for a week…

Honestly, none of that sounds particularly salacious to me. A lot of people end every message (including posts on here) with an x, and I'm pretty sure they aren't expressing that they want to fuck all of us. The boss being away thing is pretty much just "the mice will play" ie we all have a bit more freedom while they're away, and jokingly giving each other the finger is not exactly giving big love vibes. It could be flirting, it could just be messing around.

The female friend was an issue. I would have just dumped him when I read the helicopter thing, because what is he, five?

I've read the updates but I'm still struggling to see what the actual issue is here. Can you distil it down?

• at the start of your relationship (how long ago?) he was messaging a woman all day, sent her a video saying she was cute, and made a joke about showing you his penis. Contact with this woman has now stopped
• now, he has messaged a woman at work a middle finger emoji and a different woman ends her messages to him with an x

Is that right?

What do the emails say

How are you seeing the emails, snooping or is he showing you to make you jealous

What relationship with female colleagues would you be comfortable with, would there be an issue if the same emails were being sent to a man. If so I'm going to say YABU.

You can't be in a relationship with someone who for whatever reason you don't trust.

Give an idea of what the emails say?

I was always VERY insecure as my ex cheated and my mum is massively insecure and passed it down to me. I hated my DH talking to any women etc! Once I realized he was different and hadn’t done anything wrong, I started loving myself, trusting him and accepting he can talk to women and not fancy them!

However, it does depend what they say?!

I think we need some more specific details

It's easy to become jealous of female friends. I've been there.

It's your survival instinct kicking in - could she be a threat to my relationship / wellbeing etc? It's natural.

But we live in a culture where men and women work, study, socialise etc together. He will encounter women, and you'll encounter men.

Friendships that are perfectly innocent do happen. And those can evolve into crushes, romantic thoughts, affairs. Can. It's not inevitable. But it's one of the side effects of our culture.

We can't tell - are you being overly suspicious? Is it just that you don't want him associating with any women at all? Are you trying to control him? His tone of voice in emails, his conversations, the way people behave at his work, which may be different to yours?

I would not be pleased if my partner decided to police my work emails and my personality.

Or - do you have good reason to be concerned and suspicious? Is it one particular woman? Does he have form for cheating?

If that's the case, why are you still with him?

Only you know.

It's very difficult to make any kind of judgement here. I've never read a single one of DH's work emails or chats (how would I? Why would I?). I work in a corporate environment too, but a bit of friendly craic makes the workday go faster. I'm perfectly capable of understanding where the line is and don't go over it, either in terms of professionalism or fidelity. And I'd have major, major problems with DH inserting himself into and policing conversations with my colleagues.

The devil is in the details here, but he clearly doesn't agree with you, end of story, so likely you should go ahead and break up.

This is who he is. He will not change. Either you will have to tolerate the intolerable, or end it with him.

At the beginning of our relationship he had what I felt was an inappropriate relationship with a female friend.

Can you say a bit about this? What made it inappropriate?

What did you feel was inappropriate about his female friendship?

Without some more details, it’s hard to know if you are unreasonably jealous and controlling or if he is taking the piss.

Without actually seeing the conversations or knowing your partner’s friendships, it’s impossible to say whether you’re being unreasonable or not.

On the face of it, I have to say that if my boyfriend was telling me my friendships with men were ‘inappropriate’ or reading my emails/messages I exchange with people at work, I would be walking away from the relationship because I don’t want my life policed in that way. I’m not having an affair and I have no wish to, not in a million years. But I have male friends and plenty of ‘banter’ if that’s what you want to call it with friends and colleagues of both sexes, and I wouldn’t change that because a partner was paranoid about it.

But it obviously depends on the nature of said ‘inappropriate’ friendship and the ‘banter’. If the friendship involved them sharing a bed or texting about how much they fancied each other, obviously that’s quite different. There isn’t enough info here to go on.

You don’t trust him. Regardless of whether there’s an objective basis for this, it doesn’t sound as if it’s a workable relationship. I can’t imagine being in a headspace where I’m reading my partner’s work emails to judge whether every word is ‘necessary’.

Is it banter or sexual suggestive intentions?

Some people enjoy banter and workmates are that - work mates, they like them, enjoy their company.

How are you accessing these emails? Are they showing you them? If so - why? Are they wanting a reaction from you if they know it pushes your boundaries?

I work in an environment where email banter isn't seen as appropriate.

I think both of seeing seeing a therapist might help - you can get to see each other's point of view in an environment that you hear each other. You are currently arguing and neither feel heard.

But if they are dangling women along - get rid.