Not sure how to handle this...

[catstar16]

Hello All

AIBU?

I met my partner in July 2017. So we’ve only been together just over a year. We live together and get on very well.

Tonight, I had to go on his laptop to help him with some writing (he has dyslexia) and......I don’t know what came over me but I thought I’d take a sneaky look at whether he had used the dating site we had met on since we had got together. He is at his friends house tonight.

I know...not very trusting...but I just had a weird feeling I should should check it.

Anyway...I found that he had been using it.....here’s the timeline:

1. met July 2017. In the early days, he worked away and so we only saw each other at the weekends. Fine with me.

2. September 2018 he’d viewed girls and made contact with them (well...even though we’d already had a chat about being ‘exclusive’, instigated by him might I add, I figured this wasn’t such a big deal. Still new in the relationship, less than three months

3. October 2017 - over the duration of a week, he contacted 5 pages worth of girls in the area in which he was working away. Our relationship was fantastic at this time (well...I thought it was! We were crazy about each other. He has literally contacted and viewed pages and pages of women).

4. November 2017, he speaks to me about giving up working away and moving in with me permanently to work from home. I’m happy, so is he. We’re really excited. I move out of my house share and in to our own place. At the same time, he makes contact with women on the dating site

5. December 2017 he moves in with me. No more action on the dating site (he stops contacting them end of November).

.........I’m just really annoyed at this.

I know we were newly in a relationship but it was serious.

The month that he had contacted the pages and pages of women (October), he hadn’t been home for a month. I found this to be a struggle. Once in October, after I’d gone through him promising me for three weekends he’d be back but then cancelled due to work at the last minute, I text him in a very grown up manner to say, ‘I appreciate you’re busy down there but...when we met, you said we’d be seeing each other every weekend. It’s been three weeks since I saw you and I have to tell you that I’m not looking for a long distance relationship. So...if this is the way your work has developed, it isn’t an issue...I just need to know’. His response was for me to please hang in there! Had I had known he was playing the field, I would have dumped his bot and perhaps enjoyed myself again too!

AIBU to be upset over this?

I called him tonight and his response was (he was drunk)

1. I DIDN’T MEET ANYONE! (Well...that’s OK then - NOT!)
2. I can’t remember accessing the site
3. my mates might have borrowed my laptop and used it (!)

He then got his mate on the phone to me to tell me how much he loves me and how much he speaks about me all the time 🙄

I have counted ten+ dates when he used that site...ignoring my texts but happily engaging with the women on the site! Surely...he must remember accessing that site so much.

Also a bit concerned that...there were nights that he ignored my texts and went quiet.....no doubt he hooked up with someone.

No idea how to handle this. But I’m bloody annoyed.

I guess one solution is for me to just accept it was still early days and that since he’s moved here and in with me, there has been no contact.........but something is sitting uneasy with me.

Sigh.

Anyone have any ideas? Thank you xx

May I ask what anyone else would do in my shoes? Xx

Sorry 2) is 2017 not 2018!

He has repeatedly cheated on you and you have the evidence right in front of you...

The only question you have to ask yourself is, if you forgive him will you ever be able to trust him again because it wasn't a one off if he met up with 10+ girls..what's to stop him doing it again?

I'm afraid that if it was me I'd finish it as that amount of unfaithfulness would make me lose all trust in him,

A foundation built on lies is no foundation at all. How can you trust him going forwards?

Thank you so much to you both.
I’m sat here going from severe guilt for me snooping on him (I know I shouldn’t have done it and fear this makes me look bad).....but then I’m like, ‘well it’s a good job I did!!’
He has always been very keen to secure the relationship and to be exclusive from the very early days. But...
If he wasn’t interested in seriously meeting those women....why would he take the time to change his profile to reflect the postcode he was staying in and then go and deliberately search for women?
There’s a bit on the site where you can view ‘women I made contact with’.
It’s all on there...the dates...pages and pages of girls.
I am really upset and angry at this.
:-(

Op take screenshots of it all on your phone because he will delete it all the moment he has a chance and then try and spin you a story of how he got hacked or how the site shows that on everyone's account or how a friend used his account etc....

If you were dating someone you didn't meet online and found out the guy cheated with 10+ girls in your town or village would you stay with him?..I bet you wouldn't...this is the same thing..

He doesn't respect you , if he did he wouldn't have cheated even once, and he has done it multiple times..

And if you have had a sexual relationship with him you should get tested in case he has caught anything and passed it on..

Op dump him or you will forever wonder who is he is with each time he is not home because now you know what he is capable of...

And have you noticed the answers he gave you were all excuses to get out of it...he hasn't admitted it, even though you have proof, and he hasn't apologised because he's not sorry he cheated, he more concerned with getting you to believe lies, don't fall for it

He changed his postcode to see who was near by. Even if he didn't meet them, that's evidence enough that he wanted to find someone worth meeting. For me, this would be over. I wouldn't be able to look back on our early days with any fondness and I wouldn't be able to trust him in the future, so what is left?

I think the first month or so is forgivable. There may have been some overlaps -women he had been talking to before you. But the later ones - I wouldn't feel easy about it. The fact he has changed his profile and his postcode on the site since you decided to get serious is a worry. He should have removed himself from the site not updated it. It's not good OP.

As the previous poster said if you went ahead would you really be able to trust him fully.

Thank you so much, All xx
I greatly appreciate your opinions on this.
As hard as it is to hear.

I have taken the screen shots...I’ve got them on my phone.

He was drunk when I spoke to him tonight and behaving as if in denial.....tomorrow when he sobers up....I wonder what he’ll have to say about it? It would be better from my point of view if he was just honest about it.

I agree...very early days....some overlap...that’s fine. But....the time when I was moving out in to our own place, he’d looked up this girl and then went quiet on text to me that evening he messaged her.

The next day, I needed him (panicking because my car broke down which was a big deal as I was moving!) and he wasn’t around...I’m now thinking that is because the night before he’d messaged that girl and was still likely busy with her.

Exactly! The fact that he changed his profile to the exact area he was staying is bad.

It’s quite a scary feeling....thinking you know someone!

I wouldn’t mind but I have been such a good woman to him! Sorry don’t mean to blow my trumpet but I really am a nice girl...I take care of him so well xx I’ve been nothing but supportive and loving. I don’t nag or moan at him...I’m not confrontational ever....we hardly ever row....
What an absolute (swear word)!

You can swear on here lovely, let it all out. I know that heart thumping rush of confusion and hurt all too well. A year isn’t much in the grand scheme of things...I would chalk this relationship down as experience and end things. You have just found out that your foundations are made from rotting wood not steel. You deserve so much more.

Thank you so much xxx
Man...I have gone so angry...I’ve sent him some texts to wake up to including....he is always going to be destined for poop because he makes his own poop...and that I hate him. I honestly feel like that about him right now. The more this sinks in.....the more angry and hurt I’m getting.
To think of those messages...when he deliberately searched for those women....did he think of me?
Well of course he didn’t!
He went through pages and pages of women that he actually messaged....not just viewed....he actually went to their profile and messaged them....there are literally tens and tens of women 😡
So angry I could pop xx
Thank you so much again ❤️

Also sent him a message to tell him to stay where he is at his friends or else to go to his mothers because I need some space. Which I do...I have always seen him as such a loyal and faithful man...my protector...I loved him so much...I need to figure this out in my head.

I am so hurt :-(

OP - sorry you care going through this. Is there anyone you can call to come over or go and stay with?

That's what you get from using dating sites.

Don't overthink this. It's an overlap at the start. He's not been on since Nov last year. Your obviously doing something right. Good luck.

KC thank you xx I will likely pick this up with my sister tomorrow...she’s good at this stuff.

Jupiter9 I do think that is uncalled for. I am not deserving of this treatment in any way.

this is why you don't move in with someone you've known or 5 minutes.

Broussard we had been together for 6 months when we moved in. This is a short time, I know. However, in my eyes and everyone else’s, we were serious. We have continued to be with each other since...happily. Well....I thought so anyway!! God knows what else he’s got stashed away.....

yes but you didn't see him for a month at a time! You moved in together like 5 mins after he stopped working away. You hardly knew him, a fact which is now becoming obvious to you.

Broussard. Would you kindly remove yourself from this thread? I appreciate that 6 months is a short time to know someone before moving in....but I didn’t come here asking to be lectured about this or for the ‘blame’ to be put on me (you’re suggesting that this situation is my fault for moving in with him. It isn’t. I haven’t done anything to deserve this behaviour and I am deserving of better).
I joined this thread to ask members if they thought I was being unreasonable or not to be annoyed at my boyfriend’s behaviour. I don’t need a lecture.
Thank you for your contribution.

To clarify - we saw each other every week apart from the month of October. Now please go away 😂

Ps thank you so much for the supportive messages. I discovered this quite late at night...and didn’t have anyone to turn to. Thank you for being with me 🙏🏽 I will try and get some sleep now!

Ps if anyone else has any thoughts as to whether or not I am being reasonable or not...I would be so interested in hearing from you. Thank you so much again xx

Um, no, that isn't how aibu works. How rude of you!

The context is important. Having your boyfriend cheat on you is not good. But was he really your boyfriend is pretty relevant.

Take a look at your first message to me. Was that a question to determine whether or not he was my boyfriend? No. Was it a question for you to understand the context? No.
You haven’t conducted yourself in anyway to establish the facts...take a look at your statements above.
I tell you what...I think you’re a nasty piece of work. I think you derive pleasure out of other people’s misery and wish to enhance it. You probably don’t have much else going on in your life. As you can imagine, I’m not feeling my best right now and the last thing I need is the likes of you victim blaming.
Thank you to the others who have helped me. I think I’d rather get my support elsewhere!