To expect DP not to read my text messages

[Hiddenipad]

We've been together four years. 1 DC. I have 2 DC with my ex husband, divorced 6 years ago.

DP has always disliked the fact that ex is still in my life to the degree of being pleasant at drop offs, texting re kids, being at school stuff, birthdays etc. We don't communicate for any reason other than the DC but DP has expressed his dislike of us texting/phoning each other. DP does have a jealous streak which he knows I won't pander to and it has got better over the last few years.

About a month ago the iPad went missing. We searched high and low and couldn't find it. The iPad is connected to my account and all texts from my phone also go to the iPad via iMessage.

I've just been doing a deep clean in our bedroom and found the iPad, fully charged under DPs side of the bed hidden inside a boot box. All the text messages from the last month have been read. He's clearly hidden the iPad and been checking on all the messages going to and from my phone since it went missing. If it had just happened to be under there it would've been dead by now and when switched on the messages would have said unread.

I thought something weird was going on as last night he went to bed early and ex text me to ask how a school open evening for DD had gone. I text back and said oh not bad, think we are too far out of catchment though. That was the end of the conversation. Ten minutes later DP comes downstairs and says 'oh have you spoken to ex about the open evening?' which was weird in itself. He was obviously trying to see if I would lie? about having text him.

AIBU to think this is way out of fucking line and rip his head off when he gets home? I've never done anything to make him think I am untrustworthy. Ex has a long term partner and we have both moved on.

WWYD?

You are not the crazy one. No matter how traumatic his previous relationship, he seems to persist in being an arse about the possibility of having other relationships at every single opportunity. It's quite tedious. Unaddressed, it will break your relationship to pieces, sooner or later.

Even if his last partner was abusive, it doesn't rule out the likelihood that his behaviour and thinking existed prior to that relationship and that he didn't do it to her, too. You have no idea how ingrained this is.

But for now, tell him very politely to STFU until this evening. He's been doing this for long enough, so let him stew until you're in a position to talk to him face to face.

I think he does think about it a lot more than I thought he did. He references my past relationship/life with ex quite a bit. Did you and ex do things like this? You and ex always went to x places so you must like it there why don't we go? He's obsessed with not missing the gym so he can 'stay in shape' for me. I think that he thinks that if it wasn't for the affair then I would still be with ex (not true we had other problems), that is probably fuelling the feeling of being in competition with his idea of what our relationship was like.

I'm just exhausted with talking about fucking ex to be honest!

Speaking from experience, I'd say it sounds like the beginning of an abusive relationship. Just be very careful about your next move coz people can just turn all of a sudden, no matter how well you think you know them. He may already be thinking of other ways to control you now that the iPad has been found.

Reset your password on MN and it will log him out of the account. However if he has your user names, he can still trace you.

Could you add the find iPhone app? Next time your iPads goes missing, you can get your phone to contacts to send play a sound. I lose my phone in the house lol the time and it easier to find when you ping. BTW when read messages on my phone it still shows as unread on my iPad until I open the message app to show them. Don't let him try and wiggle himself out of that saying otherwise.

And agree - let him talk. It sounds like his jealousy problems have been going on form onetime. Plus he clearly has boundary issues with comments at a meal out and reading your texts. Don't let him guilt you. And sorry doesn't even cover it. He has serious issues that he needs to sort whilst giving you enough space to learn to trust him again.

I bet you are! I think I would have blown a fuse and said something like "yes I'm still fucking ex, happy now? That what you wanted to hear?!" Cruel and hurtful but he bloody deserves it. Tbh I don't know why you haven't challenged any of this before?

If he is okay about the rest of your life and 'just' fixated on your ex then I suppose it is fixable.

My suggestions are

1. Get some headspace somehow

1. Ask him how he suggests it gets fixed. Reject utterly anything that requires you to behave in a particular way to reassure him. Reject anything that includes him monitoring you. YOU ARE NOT THE PROBLEM. YOUR EX IS NOT THE PROBLEM. YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR EX IS NOT ANY SORT OF PROBLEM

Sorry to shout. I just think that he will explain sadly how insecure he is and he can't help it and if you would just do x then he would be fine.

I don't think he will be fine until and unless he owns the whole problem and accepts that it is him, not you. If he does that then it may be possible to get things back, if you believe it is a good idea.

This would be a deal breaker for me, but I get that not everyone would feel the same.

I agree with slightly. He needs to come up with solutions, including getting some help for what is clearly a very worrying problem.

I think he should leave for at least a couple of days so you can think.

That's if you want to try to work things though, I wouldn't.

Buy yourself a new shiny ipad. From yr joint bank account!

Very good post from slightlyashamed1 The onus is on DP to eat humble pie and mean it and somehow reassure you that nothing like this would ever happen again

Hiding the iPad and pretending to help look for it does take breach of trust to a whole new level ....... this is totally different from having a quick peak at a text when your DP's phone is sitting right in front of you (which I still wouldn't condone)

Yy to slightlyashamed

Some thoughts which I hope might help.
Does DP think his behaviour was acceptable?
Does DP realise that he has thoroughly destroyed your trust?
Does DP think he has done enough to reassure you?
Does he realise that he actually needs professional help to resolve his personal distrust of you?
Is he prepared to organise individual and joint professional counselling?
Does he really realise that you are on the point of walking out?
Hope it goes well for you - frankly my DW would kill me if I pulled a trick like he has.

Married 52 years. I'm working through a couple of nasty cancers, and DW has lady problems. But I still can't get enough of her, despite the hormone injections! She's still 23 and I'm 25 - in my dreams!

The only thing, slightlyashamed, is that he isn't just upset about her ex. She says he's also making comments about her colleagues and people at her gym. In other words - any situation where she may come into contact with a man who is not him. It sounds a wider problem to me.

But the fact that you are very aware of it all now OP, and hopefully that you know it's entirely his fault and nothing to do with you can help you moving forward.

biggabanga what are you going on about? Wrong thread?

slightly's post is great, but agree he needs to address the general jealousy issues. He must go to counselling.

So your ex cheated on you, presumably hurt you horribly and you had the get up and go to leave him?

And your DP of 4 yrs is so jealous of a man who f**ked up his family to that degree that he would risk your own relationship with such a massive breach of trust. That's just plain weird.

Is your ex a really high earner or something that would instill this level of paranoia?

If anyone should be stalking anyone and checking up on behaviours, it's you. Yes he had an abusive ex but there is nothing in your history to suggest that you a) have a history of infidelity and b) have ever given him the slightest reason to doubt you.

He is a gaslighting arsehole. that comment about the op's ex having had the affair in the restaurant is horrible, and was clearly designed to make the op sit up and take notice. The fact that everyone else went quiet speaks volumes.

I would be prepared to bet that he was this abusive in his previous relationship, and that although there was obviously violence from her side as well, it wasn't that black and white. The paranoia he is displaying just doesn't add up to someone who is just insecure, it's far deeper than that IMO.

The comment about the op's feelings about the ex having an affair don't sound to me like the comments of someone who has this on their mind, they sound like the comments of someone who doesn't actually believe op's version of events and were trying to trip her up.

What a tiring situation. My dh is like this too - insecure & would read my messages. I have used it to my advantage in the past but in this situation & the affair comment Id suggest counselling & wouldn't be pleased if he didn't do it. He's got an awful history so I can understand he's got issues but they need addressing. Good luck

My ex genuinely thought I wanted to shag every man I came into contact with, or they wanted to shag me. Every. single. Man (whether single or not). My hairdresser, doctor, random man on my regular commute, all of them. He behaved exactly as your DP is doing and drew other people (his mother) into the madness. It's at the very least exhausting and at worst utterly destructive.

As I said in my earlier post, he needs to engage in counselling if YOU decide that you want to stay together. I wouldn't bother if I were you.

I dealt with it too. I've spoken about it here before. I stopped seeing male friends, stopped going out in the evening with friends, and eventually stopped going out at all without him - all because he made me think I was somehow flirting and sending out 'signals' to tempt men.

It started very small and subtle, tiny little digs and gaslighting, but it ended up crazy. The more control he got, the more he needed. He'd go to the supermarket with me in case I tried to seduce someone in the freezer aisle, and god help me if we had a male checkout person or I walked past the security guard. I would hear for hours about how I was a cat in heat and a horrible abusive person to be in a relationship with.

It took him accusing me of wanting to have sex with my male relatives for me to finally get out of there. They were the only men left for him to feel jealous of! He'd successfully cut me off from all other men, and I actually felt relieved. And then one day - "I've noticed you always do your hair... before you go to your fathers house." Because doing your hair was a thing that only whores did, as was wearing makeup.

And I swear, he started out normal, except for those little passive-aggressive comments! I don't want to scare you OP, yours may not turn out to be a lunatic, but he definitely needs to work on his jealousy and his controlling tendencies, or he will make you both miserable.

Gordon Bennett love - this man is a gaslighting horror. Please don't buy a fucking house with him!

I'd be telling him he had this one opportunity to tell the truth about the extent of his stalking, and on which devices - the iPad, his phone (after you've used it), any other device? And for how long? And prompted by what? Agree with the pp who suggested saying little and letting him do most of the talking. The iPad stuff may be just the tip of the iceberg.

Some questions to think about: Could he be reading this thread on his phone? Can he read your emails? What else have you used his phone for?

That awful comment he made in the restaurant was not normal. That was a red flag.

This would be a potential deal breaker for me. But then I would have challenged him on the weird ex-related conversation after the first weekend. I feel a bit sorry for your DP because he obviously needs reassurance. But I don't know enough about this problem to know if reassurance will work - or if it's more likely that you'll end up unable to trust each other and subtly checked up on for the rest of your life. This jealous, paranoid undercurrent would have to end if I were you. I couldn't live like that.

This man just isn't ready for a relationship.

We tell women coming out of abusive relationships to give themselves time, to be single for a while and sort their heads out - for exactly this sort of reason.

He needs counselling for sure, but he is also quite clearly not in the right head space to be happily in a relationship, nor providing the other person in the relationship with what they need.

And as for suggesting leaving the iPad under the bed so that he can read it - that's terrible advice. Why should the OP give up her expensive device and forego her privacy to placate someone who is behaving so unreasonably?

Of course, we understand the explanation for his unreasonable behaviour, but that doesn't mean the OP should enable it?

Instead of indulging and enabling the symptom of a much bigger problem, he should be seeking professional help for the actual problem, and probably be single for a while.

He seems to be stuck in the belief that you would be still with ex if it wasn't for the affair therefore it gives him in his mind cause to feel insecure.
The methodical way he spied on you plus the questioning to try catch you out is quite concerning. More so than if it was a flash in the pan type of thing.
His obsession Will turn into a self fulfilling prophesy in that it will ruin the relationship.
He has done deep seated issues anyhow whether as result of previous relationship or from before. Nonetheless you have done nothing wrong and it is his issue to sort.
Counselling for him may help or it could be the thin end of the wedge to an emotionally abusive relationship.
Eithet way you are handling it well but tread carefully and trust your instincts. And put off house buying until you get a chance to think. But ifyou feel unsafe telling him about house buying plans while things are heated keep that to yourself for now.