Long story short, my dp of 9 years and 2 dc together, has a colleague (ex client) that is pretty obsessed with him for years now. She looks for any reason to gossip about him etc. and she talks about him behind his back to other colleagues/people in their workplace.
my dp was chatting to a client laughing about the situation, so to prove a point he told his client to create a fake ‘gossip’ about him and tell this lady (the obsessed colleague) but not tell him what the fake gossip is. He said it will 100% come back to him and he will then tell his client what it is she had told this lady as a rumour. All like a game, to prove that this colleague is obsessed with him and how she will spread the gossip and it will come back to him. (Hope that makes sense?!)
this evening dp was laughing and told me about it. The ‘gossip’ that the client had told his colleague was that my dp had got another woman pregnant. He said he saw the texts between the client and colleague and the colleague was so interested to know all the details and find out all the gossip. He also said it’s spread around a group of members where he works now so they have all heard.
he has found this very amusing and lighthearted, as it was all a joke to prove his point about this colleague. Fair enough. However I don’t find it funny and my blood is boiling.
first of all, I find the entire situation childish and at our age why would they play silly games like that? The part that’s bothered me the most is that the client he told to create this ‘gossip’ either must not be aware about me (in terms of us being in a long term committed relationship) as I can’t imagine why she would have come up with a rumour like that if she knew. I mean - of all the silly little rumours she could have said for gossip why would she say he’s got another woman pregnant if she knew he’s got a partner? OR, she just doesn’t care and just being immature without me in mind.
I think it’s quite hurtful to me and very disrespectful. It may have been a silly game for them but rumours like that could split a family apart. Dp does not see it as serious like that though and said it’s not disrespectful because it’s not actually true. Regardless, clearly these members at his work don’t know it’s not true and are having a field day with this gossip trying to find out more - that is embarrassing for me! Fair enough I don’t know these people and never see them, but a lot of them ‘know of’ me.
on top of that, he didn’t have any intention of actually telling me this. He just decided to tell me as he was laughing about it and found it funny. Now imagine he didn’t tell me, and I somehow heard this rumour that he got another woman pregnant. I would have believed it!
I’ve told him it’s upset me and he quickly said sorry but it’s was more to ‘brush me off’ and shut me up rather than actually meaning it. When I tried to explain how it’s wrong what he’s done he told me he doesn’t care… now I know for a fact 100% he would go bonkers if this was the other way around and I found it ‘funny’ to have a rumour be already as a joke about me getting pregnant by another man etc.
am I overreacting or being unreasonable?