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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think that late night texting to a single ex-girlfriend is inappropriate

69 replies

Moreamoxicillin · 29/03/2012 21:02

Brief facts: 60 odd texts from my DH to his single ex-girlfriend in the last three and a half weeks. Mostly sent after 11pm. Five or six some nights then none for a few days (I.e. not just two per night). Every single text, plus replies, deleted. I found out cause I saw his phone bill. I don't know if it's been going on for longer, as I only saw a current phone bill.

Aibu to think something must be going on?

OP posts:

Original poster

Moreamoxicillin · 30/03/2012 10:50

Sorry here's the link www.relate.org.uk/family-life-channel-common-problems/504/index.html

OP posts:

YouOldSlag · 30/03/2012 11:58

OP, I get that some people are friends with exes etc. However, he is talking to her after 11pm when he should be talking to/bonding with his wife. He is investing emotionally in her and not in you.

However, the red flag for me is that he's trying to make you out to be the unreasonable one: "I don't have to justify myself" and you'd only "misunderstand which is why I deleted them".

He is trying to make you feel and look bad so that he can imply you have driven him to it. That would be a louder alarm bell than the late night texting. It shows a total lack of regard or respect towards you. If he loves you, he should not be treating you like this. If he doesn't, he should go.

In your shoes, I would go to counselling only to learn how to make a clean break and I would most certainly bring this up in counselling. he is being massively unfair to you and showing you NO support or even kindness.

Get rid now and save yourself years of doubt and heartache.

ElizabethDarcy · 30/03/2012 12:13

Ask him how it would make him feel were YOU the one texting an ex boyfriend like this?

Not on at all :(

NoOnesGoingToEatYourEyes · 30/03/2012 12:20

It doesn't sound very good to me.

Does he text other people that often and that late at night too? Not suggesting other women but other friends and family? And if so, are those texts also deleted?

If he's doing the same thing for lots of people it might not be as bad as it seems, although the previous lying is still a big worry. If it's just her, I would be worried.

I don't want to say too much about this as it happened to a friend of mine, but her husband did a similar thing. Lots of texts and phone calls to a girl (she was 18, he was much older) who had recently started to work with him and he talked about her a lot as just a friends as she had a fiancé.

When my friend got suspicious he protested a lot, refused to end his friendship and stop any contact with the girl, which he could have done as he was working in a different office by then and away from her.

My friend got all the blame for being paranoid and jealous and weird and spiteful and every other name he could call her. He said he had a right to have friends and a right to send messages without being questioned and that my friend was controlling and manipulative and he was just an innocent victim of her paranoia.

The girl and her friends were posting abuse about my friend on Facebook and the fiancé rang her to call her a liar.

My friend was pregnant at the time with their second child.

And just when she felt she was going mad and was as bad as he was making her out to be, the girl rang her up and confessed to having had sex with him. Turns out when he had had enough of her he ended things and she was spiteful enough then to tell the truth, which he finally admitted.

Actually I've said quite a lot there but sadly this is all to common

ohdearwhatdoidonow · 30/03/2012 12:25

You have her number? I'd threaten to ring her and ask her what's going on if he doesn't come clean!

Pandemoniaa · 30/03/2012 12:45

I'm always enraged by the standard old bullshit line "I don't have to justify myself". Because actually, people have to do just that thing if they behave inappropriately. Texting an ex isn't necessarily proof of something underhand going on but sending 60 texts over such a short time and then getting defensive adds up to a lot more than would be reasonable.

I hope your worst fears aren't realised but it doesn't sound good.

Original poster

Moreamoxicillin · 30/03/2012 13:53

Thanks for your input. So I did send the ex a brief pissy text when I found out. I've met her a few times, though she lives at the other end of the country (which at least means I think they are unlikely to have met up). She replied to me saying she would break off contact as it was obviously upsetting me, and that DH values our relationship etc. Ex then texted DH to say that she was breaking contact, as it wasn't worth risking his marriage for the "odd chatty text". If it was the odd chatty text, there would be no risk. 60 texts from DH in under a month, and presumably an equivalent number from her, does not, IMO constitute the odd chatty text, particularly not when they are sent at 11pm or later.

So contact is apparently broken, but I have no idea if it'll move to email or whatever. Sadly, I'm in a position where I can't trust DH's word.

OP posts:

SuePurblybilt · 30/03/2012 14:06

I'm afraid I think that men who lie like this (or women, but I've only experienced it with men myself) will keep lying. He's got form for lying about contact with other women and is both defensive and aggressive about this. Like you say, can you ever trust him, really?

MrsTerryPratchett · 30/03/2012 14:26

It looks as though she is the innocent party. She was calm, saw the issue and broke contact. I wouldn't say the same for your OH.

PfftTheMagicDraco · 30/03/2012 14:30

My H used those words "I'm entitled to"

We are now separating.

uruculager · 30/03/2012 15:11

Why are you going through his phone and reading his phone bills?

SuePurblybilt · 30/03/2012 15:14

Maybe because he has a history of untruthfulness? Maybe she does the household admin and goes through bills before paying?
Is that really what stands out to you from this situation?

Bogeyface · 30/03/2012 16:01

OP, he will do it again.

Sorry, but he will. I gave mine another chance after he did this once before and lo and behold, he did it again.

Original poster

Moreamoxicillin · 30/03/2012 16:51

Spb - I checked his bill because I don't trust him. I then asked if I could look at his phone and saw all texts had been deleted (he doesn't ordinarily delete texts).

I just remembered today that, in a different context, he'd told me less than a week before I found out about this that he realised how important it was to be honest with me. The following evening, when he was away, he was alternating texts to her with texts to me, all evening and (with just her) long into the night.

I just see no reason why I should now trust him. As far as I can see, he conceals and lies unless presented with incontrovertible evidence of his dishonesty.

OP posts:

YouOldSlag · 30/03/2012 18:16

OP, the fact that you had to get the ex to end this because he obviously wouldn't says it all.

He has not only shown you no loyalty, but has also tried to make YOU feel bad about asking him.

I'd leave him. It doesn't look good and you deserve so much better.

HoudiniHissy · 30/03/2012 18:20

He'll get another phone... one you don't know about.

YouOldSlag · 30/03/2012 18:32

Houdini- agree.One of DH's friends has a phone which he keeps in his car dashboard. His wife knows nothing about it. It's horrible. I have no respect for him and neither does DH.

DoubleGlazing · 30/03/2012 20:00

YANBU. Hopefully the counselling will unravel this more and things will become clearer.

Bogeyface · 31/03/2012 01:38

Houdini is right. Thats what STBX did as soon as he knew that I was on his case. :(

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