What would YOU think about my OH's behaviour?

[HotPots63]

Sorry this may be a bit long. think I already know what I should do about this,but I'm just asking for MNer's opinions. There are 3 issues in question here.
My OH (I can't even bring myself to call him DP any more) went back to his home country in Africa nearly 4 weeks ago to visit his family,for the first time in nearly 18 years. He said he was going for one month,so he would have been due back this coming week. I spoke to him on the phone this Monday just gone,and he kindly informed me that he will be staying for 3 months,not one,and will be back about a week and a half before christmas. He swears that it was a 'spur of the moment' decision,not pre-planned. I have my doubts. I was upset enough about him going for a month,so my gut feeling is that he knew it was for 3 months,but didn't tell me because he knew it would upset me even more. I just feel so let down and pissed off about it all. I was so looking forward to his return then he drops this bombshell.
The other issue is his behaviour prior to him going away. He had told me back in August that he was planning on going,he just wasn't sure at that stage exactly when it would be. I accepted this,but said could he please give me a bit of advance warning and not drop it on me at a minutes notice (he has form for being a bit of a last minute merchant). He assured me he would. Anyway,he turns up round at my place on the evening of the 18th September and says he's going on the 21st! As if this wasn't bad enough,he then asked me for all his clothes so he could get packed. I said that a lot of his stuff was in the dirty washing,they wouldn't be washed and dried until the following evening,thanks to him not giving me enough notice. He had the nerve to grumble about this,saying he had told me he was going. I said yes,he HAD told me he was going,but not exactly when.
I have since also found out that I'm pretty certain that he's lied to me about which airport he flew from. i.e. that he went from our local airport which is literally a 15 minute bus journey from where I live,even though he said he was going from an airport which is about 30 miles away,and impossible for me to get to on public transport (I am without a car at the moment).He said that if he had been going from our local one,I could have gone with him to see him off,but that it wasn't practical from the one he was actually going from. Out of curiosity,a couple of days after he left,I looked up online which flight he'd taken. I knew which airline it was and he had said it was a direct flight with no stopovers. But no direct flights operate from that particular airport to where he was going. In fact there were no flights to the particular airport he was going to,on that day,full stop. So I've come to the conclusion that he DID actually go from the local one,but told me otherwise to put me off going with him. Now,if he hadn't wanted me to go with him for whatever reason, (hating goodbyes etc) I would have accepted it. But why lie about it? I have not said anything to him about this during our phone calls,but it is bugging me. I feel like he has told me lie after lie. What would you think? And what would you say/do when you saw him? We've been together for 2 years and 7 months.

Cut your losses, OP, and put yourself first from now on. Something is not right with all of this and you feel this instinctively.
Time to move on, you deserve better.

I’m sorry OP but I have to agree with the PPs, this guy has either buggered off with another woman, left for good or is pissing you about in some other way, when he next calls let him know that you are having a clear out and ask if he wants to get his cousin to pick up his clothes he left behind, that way his stuffs gone, then ask him outright if he will be back or not as you’d like to move on then babe don’t look back!

No employer gives anyone 3 months off work. Does he have a job to come back to? How is he funding his 3 month stay away and is he still paying for accommodation where he normally lives? I would put your energy in to finding a partner who wants to live with you 100% of the time, not just at weekends and who wants to share all of their life with you.

then ask him outright if he will be back or not as you’d like to move on

So she waits for him to decide whether she stays in a relationship with him? Err no! Why do so many people have such low standards for themselves?

Do calls register like that? I.e.: "Ethiopia". When I get calls from abroad, they just have a different series of numbers before them.

I was going to say that, LoveDeathPrizes.

I have an iPhone and calls from landlines that aren’t in my contacts list will say things like “Birmingham, England” not sure it would happen with OPs boyfriend though as I assume his number is stored in her contacts list.

Some phones do show up foreign calls like that - can you look at the call log OP and see what the full number is? That will tell you what the county code is so you can double check.

However, AFAIK that doesn't preclude him just borrowing a foreign cell to call you from while still in the UK.

Could he be having some kind of immigration issue which might explain his extended absence?

There's been an unacceptable lack of communication either way as far as I can tell. I don't think it's worth pursuing more information on why he really went since he clearly doesn't care about your feelings.

Yeah, as @saluk said, he doesn't give enough of a crap to even grant you the courtesy of frank communication so I'd tell him to shove it.

His three month absence could be because he is applying for a visa for someone? Or maybe something has happened to a member of his family that he wants to sort out? Or he could just be a dick who ran away?

Wherever he is, change your account details and let him stay.

Why did he not see his family for 18 years? And what happened or changed that he can now devote three months of his life to sorting them out?

I thought arranged marriage or he hasn't left the country.

After 2.5 years you only spend one night per week together but you do his laundry.

I think you won't see or hear from him again unless he wants money

I did struggle to get past the washing thing!
Why are you responsible for his dirty kecks?
Sounds as if youve had a lucky escape. Change the locks and celebrate.

It’s a bit odd, this relationship you have as it involves him paying you to do his laundry and the odd meal?

As the OP is on benefits, I could actually see this happening in a genuine relationship if a bloke didn't want her to be out of pocket feeding him, doing his washing etc. There is often a very thin line between being able to manage on benefits, and being pushed into VERY hard times.

To me the fact that he dumped this on her with short notice, and then rang up just before he was due back to tell her that he was staying longer, suggests that he is keeping his options open (otherwise he just wouldn't have bothered coming back).

I think that he is possibly looking for a wife who will be more acceptable to his family (it isn't just white people who have their prejudices), or that he is just having a whale of a time as a single man and wants to milk it as much as he can.

Either way, he has lied to the OP and is treating her very badly, expecting her to be at his beck and call when it suits him. This isn't the behaviour of a caring partner. If it happens once it will happen again if OP lets him back into her life.

OP - bung his remaining stuff in a bin-bag, contact his cousin that he lives with and tell him to come and get it on your ex-P's behalf, and leave it at the end of your drive/ on the doorstep - wherever. (Make a list of what you put in the bag and keep it in case they claim it went missing or that you kept some stuff. Feel free to sew up/ superglue all of the pockets/ zips etc.)

OP - this is an awful and heartbreaking shock for you - you obviously care for this man and thought he felt the same about you - and he may, but culturally you seem worlds apart. If, after two years he isn't prepared to make your relationship into something less casual, he never will.

Don't let him damage your self-esteem any more. Get him out of your life so that there is room for the people who do care for you. You may or may not meet someone else, but I promise you that being with a git is worse than being without a bloke.

Singlehood (if that is a word ) has a LOT of benefits. (And you want someone to treat you like a servant and who will disappear and return as and when they feel like it - get a cat )

Yes, I think phoning his work is a good idea, and they are likely to say either he is on holiday, or he has left the company.
I’m struggling to see why he would choose a flight from a local airport, but change the airport, unless it was a genuine flight. If he had thought it through he would have realised this mistake and told a more consistent lie. However I suppose if he didn’t think it though and was adding lies on to lies as you asked him questions, it could be true that he was disorganised, and therefore true he hasn’t actually flown anywhere. Which does he fit op, is he calculated or not?

I think it’s perfectly reasonable to be upset you partner is leaving for a month. Upset doesn’t mean demanding he stay or sulking about it. But for him to know you were upset and still lie is rubbish. He would have known you would be even more upset but didn’t want to face his responsibility. This is probably his version of letting you down gently that he isn’t returning at all.

Good luck, the paranoia would drive me mad

Dont think he has left the country. Trying to end it maybe? Seeing someone new?

Haven't rtft properly however I think this could stem from him expecting a big reaction from you and him taking the easy way out to minimise this. You say you would have been upset if he told you he was going for 3 months. How upset would you have been? He hasn't been back for 18 years. I don't think it is remotely unreasonable to stay for three months our even plan for one but want to stay longer if he is having a great time. He could easily arrange this at work.
Regarding the airport, if he was expecting you to make a scene then saying he was going from a different one would be a way of avoiding this. A cowards way maybe, but perhaps an understandable one.

On the other hand he could be an arsehole. But that doesn't immediately jump out at me from your op. You sound quite insecure and needy. You know your relationship op. Could there be anything in my take of things? I accept I may be completely wrong though.

It wouldn't surprise me if you never see him again. Does he have family over here? Do they know about you? It sounds suspiciously like he's moved back there and just didn't want to tell you. He wouldn't want you seeing how much stuff he took to the airport as that would make it obvious that he wasn't going for just a month. He also made sure he had all his things from your place.

^This

Is your 'DP' younger than you OP?
I just ask as you say you have an adult DD and grand daughter but DP has no children... Sadly I echo previous posters in suspecting that he has another woman/wife-to-be... one his family approves of and who is young enough to give him children and his parents grand children.

You know what you have to do...........dump him. You have caught him out. He's a liar and he treats you like a fool. I can't believe you are doing his washing. If he has a key to your place........change the locks and don't let him back in. Learn your lesson.

I have a close friend who is half African...and she married a Ghanaian....fabulous man. He went back home to Ghana for about a year in the end...turns out he had a wife out there and 2 kids. Since my friend and him had been together for 5 years and this was his first visit home during that time....I don't think he had much of a relationship with his wife but it was all still a relationship based on lies
Some years later, she met another man...I can't remember for sure but I think he was African or Caribbean but that was a shocking relationship. This man had 3 or 4 women on the go.....he was getting them all pregnant.....he would never move in with my friend, left clothes there yes but insisted he wanted to remain in his flat....and she never was given his address. Over the 3 years they were together it was nothing but mental abuse....he would use her address for his bank account.....he 'borrowed' her car and pretty much ran it into the ground.....don't start me on the money......she 'lent' him thousands (mum then dad passed away...he knew thus because he was one of the paramedics who regularly attended dad). Eventually he started pushing her around which eventually pushed her into 'kicking' him out. But it took about another year for him to leave her alone. He still comes round now and again to pick up his bank statements. She once opened one of them up.....there was 40k+ in one account. Sometimes he was putting in 10k a week. Clearly drugs money. I always say for her to call the police...let them deal with it but she is so scared of the repercussions, she really is frightened of him.
But back to my point...in one of our many chats about the situation with all these women, she said she's now realised, talking to other black women that thus is part of their culture. Men often have 'baby mother's....they don't live with any one woman...they flit between women taking what they can and expecting them to loyally wait for their return.

The Ops situation sounds wrong....too many things don't add up....and I'm hearing similarities to what my friend exoerienced. Get out whilst you can is my advice. Change the locks...have his stuff packed and ready to hand over....change your phone numbers if you can because I promise you that when he does come back..he will carry on using you the way he has done.

Go to his work - much better than phoning!

Why don't you Skype him and tell him you're missing him so you're flying out to see him for a week. His reaction will probably tell you everything you need to know.

lalliella

. . . you little tinker!

He’s got other relationships on the go.
Don’t ever get sucked into doing someone’s washing and cooking ever again. You’re better than that.