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

What's the Aibu?

Of course you are not BU to be angry and concerned at discovering he's a liar.

He's probably still at it just no longer on that particular device

Relationships is prob a better board Op.

You looked for a reason.

He's a liar

Personally he'd be out of my home

Hate deceivers

Goodness Broussard what is your problem? Why are you so hell bent on making her feel worse and foolish? How mean when she just wants a little support. They were clearly boyfriend and girlfriend he had asked her to be exclusive and they were moving in together! As for moving in "after 5 mins" that timeframe of 6 months may seem short to you but me and my now husband moved in after about that and 8 years and 2 kids have now passed so it doesn't always end badly!

You really shouldn't be in aibu. Blimey are you touchy or what? You're only so pissed off at my comment because you know the truth of it.

Well my husband didn't cheat on me when we first got together, or he wouldn't be my husband. He also never ignored me, or he wouldn't be my husband (that should've been your first flag btw).
I'd throw this one back op. He's not worth it.

Op please ignore all the rude comments on here, they are so unnecessary and unhelpful. If you need support we are here.

I have been in a situation in the past where I loved and trusted the man I was with so so much. I found out he was still on an online dating site (not one that was established until after we met), and he lied so convincingly to my face that his friends did it to him as a joke that I believed him. Almost two years later I found out the full extent of his cheating and my life fell apart completely. So do really consider what your next moves are. I would love for this just to be teething problems at the beginning of a relationship but more often than not it is him showing his true colours. If someone isn't treating you at the same high level you are treating them, can you respect or be happy with them?

Good luck with moving forward and stay strong tomorrow when confronting him. Again, if he continues to lie, what does that say about him and his respect for you? Trust your gut, if I had I would have saved myself so much heartache.

@Broussard go away please. Your smug attitude is boring and rude. Go and get some sleep..

@Broussard - why? Go to something nice and stop bullying others in need of support

I think there’s a germ of a valid comment in there, actually, Broussard, although you were a bit terse.

And patronisingly telling someone to get some sleep just because you disagree with them, is rude. Bugger off.

I do feel for you, OP, but your language is quite telling ‘I’m a nice girl . . . I’m a good woman . . . I don’t nag . . . I have seen him as my protector’. Maybe be a bit less nice next time? Learn from this that possibly six months - with significant periods of him being away and incommunicado within that - isn’t enough to cast someone in the role of your protector. Protect yourself.

I completely understand your annoyance. You have fallen for a man who is not the man you thought. I think other comments are right, you've jumped in far too quickly and been taken advantage of. You say that you decided to move in together in November.
You saw each other only at weekends in July and August, so that's a max of eight dates. He was away for most of October. He asked about moving in in November. That's actually extremely quick seeing as you've not been living in each other's pockets during that time. I think it's actually quite reasonable that he still looked on the site in the early days. Maybe he wasn't too sure of you? You do actually come across as quite clingy actually, being willing to move in after such a short time.
And why are you doing his work now whilst he's out getting drunk with his friends? I thinks he's taking advantage of you and he's probably not as into you are you are to him.
Oh, and being super rude and very aggressive to other posters just because you don't like what they say is a very bad quality to have. It makes it sound like yo only came on here for a bit of pity, not some actual advice.

OP, just a feeling here but does he pay rent and contribute equally to the household expenses etc.? Even though you say you both gave up your former lodgings to move in together ina new place, something about your phrasing maybe where you say he moved in with you plus the fact you say he gave up work and now "works from home" scream layabout cocklodger who sees you as a meal ticket.

He sounds like a terrible boyfriend and you should end it.

Don't carry on seeing someone who breaks your trust like this op.

LTB
You can do better

Some people might be able to wright off 'early' cheating but to me, that is when you're most into someone and if you're still/already sniffing around then you aren't really into your new partner and are still looking for 'better' OP. He also sounds immature getting his friend to phone you

You had been together for a few months and he was still messaging other girls - that is not an overlap. He was obviously playing the field. You say he hasn't used the dating website since he moved in with you, but he could be texting or using a phone app. He has deceived you. I wouldn't send any more texts today, even if he replies. Don't be the first to text tomorrow either because you need to see if he cares enough to reach out to you. If he's really worried that he's lost you and is desperate to make genuine amends, then he will text or ring you with an apology. If he isn't desperate to reach out to you and his apology isn't sincere (and is full of excuses) then you need to get rid.

Sorry OP. What a shitbag.
I could forgive a small overlap in the first few weeks but this goes way beyond that. I also strongly suspect that the reason it stops there is because he's likely switched to another platform. I'd be utterly shocked if he's not still doing it. Sorry, I know that's shit to hear.
You've done nothing wrong, you just got excited about a new relationship, we've all done that.
I think you'd be crazy to even entertain listening to him though, there's nothing to salvage here. Pack up, move out and don't look back. Agree with previous posters re the 'working from home's too. If it hasn't already, I'd bet it'll quickly descend into sitting around in his pants doing fuck all. Don't walk, run!

@Broussard appears to take pleasure in being particularly goady and unpleasant from the couple of threads I've seen. Just ignore.

It's no consolation whatsoever but I think OLD is quite addictive. If he's been on it for a while and is used to getting a lot of attention through it - not meeting people but just messages then it is quite hard to come down from that. Maybe not 6 months worth but I honestly think it is a factor.

It would be incredibly hard to trust him again, I think you'd always have that nagging doubt.

It sounds like he didn’t see you guys as being in a proper relationship until the end of November when you decided to move in. I can understand why. It sounds like you were much more invested than him at that point, despite his words.

He is a shit OP.
From what you have said it doesn’t seem like he had the same level of respect for the relationship as you did in the beginning. It’s up to you to decide if you can now forgive him.
Lying to you will not have done him any favours but maybe that will be because he is drunk.

I do have to agree with Broussard though, that moving in after 6 months isn’t really that long to know a person. I’m not saying that this situation is your fault as you moved so quickly (it is definitely him) but where you stand at the moment is that you have moved in with someone who has potentially cheated on your for 1/3 of your relationship.

I haven’t used a dating website (I am a dinosaur, probably wouldn’t be able to use one) but are you able to message these people to see if he did meet up with them?

A bit of overlap is not necessarily a catastrophe. But this goes beyond 'a bit'.

Lying about it is what cheaters do. Lying also suggests he'll do it again. Because he doesn't respect you.

I would probably give him a chance to be honest. He was keeping his options open at first (which totally agree is hurtful) but when you have been single for a while, this is kind of how your mentality is set. He has been committed to you for the past 9 months and his feelings have probably grown a good deal stronger during that time. I would sit him down tomorrow and tell him you are hurt that he was active on the site when you were becoming serious and make it very clear that now that you live together he should close any OLD sites down completely and that there won’t be another chance if you find out anything like this again. But providing he is a good partner now and you feel he is really into you and you are happy, I would forgive the mistakes he made at the beginning personally.

Hugs
He is a total shit and you are right to be hurt/angry/frustrated.
His response was also massively inadequate and another massive red flag.

I met now my boyfriend on a similar timeline (3-4 months before you) and would be devastated if this were me.
I would have to break up with him though as everything would have been a lie.

I know Broussard is being goady and on one hand when “you know, you know” but it is a bit of a compressed timeline and he moved in quite quickly. it may be worth reflecting on whether you/he fast fwded or rushed into things and consider this in future relationships.

Good luck and be kind to yourself for the next few weeks

What is the point in berating OP for letting him move in too soon? What's done is done. Focus on the now and then learn from it.

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....

Does this mean you do everything in the house? If you still want to be with him (and I wouldn't) I would stop that now. And you say you're not confrontational as if that's a good thing. Nothing wrong with confronting him or anyone else i.e. being assertive. Whenever I see this on MN i just think the woman lets the man get away with anything and calls him out on nothing.

I don't see the problem if he's not been on the site since moving in together? But if you are so untrusting that you have to snoop then time for the relationship to end I'm on.