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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think this is not normal?

168 replies

TacticalWheelbarrow · 15/05/2013 16:07

My step sister (but we are very close) has been in a relationship with a guy for three years now. They have been living together for 2. Her DP lived a fair bit away but only a 45 minute train journey, he moved away to live with her.

In those three years she has never met any of her DP's friends or family. He goes home to visit his family regularly for a weekend but never offers to take her. He also goes down there for Christmas, New Year and Easter but yet again never gives her an invite. When he is with his family he never picks up the phone to my sister and will call her back a few hours later.

My step sister has asked to meet his family but he always says no and gets very defensive. Apparently his family is wierd?
It's all really dodgy, when someone from back home calls him he takes the phone call and if step sister or anyone is in the room he walks away and has the phonecall in the bathroom out of earshot.
He never talks about his family and if step sister or her family and friends ask him about them he becomes very guarded.

He is 6 years older that my sister if that means anything.

Is my sister and I right in thinking this is bloomin weird?

OP posts:
BestParentEver · 15/05/2013 23:42

Guy is cheating. I think you should get your sister to pretend to have a double life too, or ditch this loser.

Also don't say DP..... doesn't sound nice

LessMissAbs · 15/05/2013 23:49

When theres secretive behaviour theres usually a secret to hide.

I once was sort of seeing a guy who behaved like this. Except I was the one who had met his parents and the other woman was in a long distance relationship with him and slotted into the weekends he wasn't in his home town or visiting his family.

He also had several other "female friends" on the go. He justified it because he didn't have sex with them all. When I dumped him, he lost his temper and told me about his other girlfriend and that he preferred her.

I still feel I never quite discovered --all- the truth about him. But basically he wanted to be seen as single and available yet have a girlfriend (or two, or three) on standby for security.

noseymcposey · 15/05/2013 23:58

God, I just couldn't be bothered with all that!

Spero · 16/05/2013 00:00

There might be an 'innocent' explanation. I don't know.

But what is clear is he won't discuss it, whatever it is. How can you have a relationship with someone who can't or won't communicate?

What if they have children? Or get ill? Life is full of stuff that you have to talk about, or you and your relationship go under.

Having washed years of my life with someone who could not or would not discuss things with me, I say please, please get out now and don't waste anymore of your life.

DonDrapersAltrEgoBigglesDraper · 16/05/2013 00:08

I blithely go through life thinking I am normal, but it's threads like this that make me wonder if actually, I'm the weird one...

I do not understand how you can be with someone for three years, with this HUGE family of (weird?) elephants in the room and put up with it. What is so amazing about this guy that your sister is prepared to be made a total mug of over? I cannot believe that people's twunt radars are so dysfunctional that they overlook this sort of thing. Or that they're so desperate to be in a relationship - any relationship - that they ignore their wildly beeping, flashing twunt radar.

And hiring a private detective?! In whose world is hiring a private detective, to scope out your partner, normal?

Life lesson no. 93: If you've got to the point that you need to hire a private detective just to get the measure of your own partner; the person you love and trusts and who loves and trusts you, it's over. There is no coming back from that.

Again, am I the weird one, to feel like this? Confused

I apologise right up front for the less than sympathetic post. But seriously, blokes like this ARE NOT WORTH IT!!!! Your sister can do sooooo much better than this weirdo. Why can she not see that? :(

OrangeFootedScrubfowl · 16/05/2013 00:15

I know someone too whose DH worked away regularly and turned out to have a second family.
This chap clearly has something to hide. Hs facebook sounds like a fake account too. :(

QOD · 16/05/2013 00:15

Dying to know . . .

Parajse · 16/05/2013 00:20

One of my best friends was with the teenage equivalent of your step sister's partner a few years ago- she was sitting her A levels at the time, she met him outside school and he said he was a 19 year old student. Long story short, he turned out to be a married 27 year old with 3 kids, blessed with a youthful complexion Shock

Seriously, if there's stuff he's this reluctant to share with her, he's hiding something. It might just be embarrassing relatives, but surely if he feels that strongly about keeping your step sister away from that part of his life it begs the question is he really that committed to her?

SoggySummer · 16/05/2013 00:27

The FB with only 23 friends sounds potentially fake. I could be wrong because not everyone has 2000 friends - i keep mine limited, but this alongside his secretive behaviour is yet another red flag.

Whatever his secret is - maybe its something genuine(ish) police protection/changed id of his family for some scary horrid reason (clutching at straws here) - his ongoing secretive behavior is just not on. What ever he is hiding - is preventing him from having a normal open relationship.

Seriously - what does your sister think?? Where does she see this relationship in 5 years??? Does she not feel any desperation to know more?? Or does she just accept this is how it is???

She has already wasted too long on a relationship full of scerets and going nowhere. Do her a favour and help her out here by finding out who the hell he really is.

Parajse · 16/05/2013 00:39

My FB account was probably down to less than 10 friends at one point (and I was 18 at the time). I felt the need to keep it extremely limited at the time for personal reasons, it was so private it was hardly worth bothering with. And it was my real and only FB, honest!

What's ringing alarm bells for me though is that it sounds like the majority of his 23 FB friends he knows through your step sister- that to me is suggesting he doesn't know anyone else under this identity whom he's able to friend on there. If he wants to keep his friends to a minimum then to include lots of his partner's family but none of his own/few friends of his own etc sounds very odd. If I was to cut my FB friends down again to 10/20ish, I certainly wouldn't have room to include too many of DD's dad's family, if any.

LondonKitty · 16/05/2013 00:47

I agree with DonDrapers, and there's a moral part of me that feels it is appropriate to quietly and respectfully let these people mourn their oh soooooo doomed relationship....

But I really, really want to know what this guy's story is. And how quickly mnetters can dig it out. And what sleuthing skills I might learn from this thread. And whether there are going to be any unfortunate bum tattoos. Or a dramatic helicopter rescue on an island near Shanghai....

I'll get over the ethical dilemma if you just keep us updated...

HollaAtMeBaby · 16/05/2013 07:34

He's definitely up to something and I agree that the FB you've found is a duplicate/decoy account. Have you tried to find him on LinkedIn? though bear in mind that LinkedIn tells you who's looked at your profile (I'll do it for you if you PM me his details!).

What does he do/say if you ask him about his family and where he comes from? in a "friendly" way? Does he act cagey or change the subject?

IneedAsockamnesty · 16/05/2013 07:52

Or of course she could just tell him she does not wish to remain in a relationship whilst the other member behaves like that, cut her losses save time and effort and just not bother with any more effort.

christinarossetti · 16/05/2013 08:02

oh how awful for your sister.

What job does he do?

buildingmycorestrength · 16/05/2013 11:54

Tactical I wonder if you discovered anything. I kind of think you did and you are having to deal with the repercussions now.

Or maybe you just aren't glued to MN like me.

magimedi · 16/05/2013 12:22

I wonder if sister actually knows more than she is letting on & is so besotted about the guy that she won't tell you?

I'm not meaning to sound harsh with that comment but so often "love is blind".

KitNCaboodle · 16/05/2013 15:37

Any news Tactical?

IsaacCox · 16/05/2013 15:46

Any news? not marking place, oh no

Pendipidy · 16/05/2013 15:58

You should tell your sister your suspicions . It isn't normal for a relationship.

lljkk · 16/05/2013 16:12

.

lljkk · 16/05/2013 16:13

I don't think OP should say anything to her sister (yet), there may be an explanation that still puts him in the clear morally.

CoffeePleaseSir · 16/05/2013 16:22

Blimey he sounds so dodgy, I agree something else is going on with this man, wife, kids, whatever but he definitely sounds like he has another life somewhere else Shock

eminemmerdale · 16/05/2013 16:24

3 years Shock. I'd be fuming and would have found out where they live and gone round there!!

wannaBe · 16/05/2013 17:09

I don't necessarily agree that 23 friends on fb equals a fake/dodgy account. Lots of people choose not to live their lives on fb or in fact don't have fb at all, that doesn't make them dodgy.

I do agree with whoever it was that said up thread that if you hire a private detective to find out about your partner then the relationship is over. If I were the partner I would probably hire the PI because I would want to know (as I said up thread). however, it is entirely possible that there could be an innocent explanation.

And while I think that checking on the internet etc is perfectly ok, for the op to be hiring a private detective would be overstepping a line - whoever it was who suggested that.

Ultimately, if the sister is happy in her relationship then is it really for someone else to try and prove that this man isn't who/what he says he is? I can understand why op's dh doesn't want her to be involved.

piffpoff · 17/05/2013 09:54

Damn you Wannabe/ Voice of reason, but some of us have no life really need to know.

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