Help end medical misogyny. Sign our petition.

Help end medical misogyny.
Sign our petition.

Sign the petition

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

AIBU to think my fiance overreacted by getting a younger woman's number because I double booked by accident, and threw my belongings about?

1000 replies

Sunglasses1979 · 01/06/2026 12:52

I am trying to work out whether I am being unfair or whether my fiancé genuinely overreacts to situations.
I was spending a long weekend with him and we had plans for Monday. Friday to Sunday eve were lovely and we did sightseeing etc. then went to his and were planning to stay there for a few nights.

However, I realised I had accidentally double-booked the Monday because my adult DD had arranged for me to meet her new boyfriend and his father over lunch. It was important to her and had been organised for a while. DD has is ND and has severe MH issues; this is the first "normal" relationship she has had and it's a huge deal for her.

I told my fiancé on Sunday afternoon that I would go to the lunch for a few hours and then come back afterwards so we could still spend the Monday evening together and the following days.

He was furious. He said I was choosing other people over him and repeatedly referred to my daughter's boyfriend and his father as "strange men". He seemed particularly upset that I would be spending time with another man, even though it was DD's BF's dad not just a random stranger.

After I had told him I had double booked and would need to go for a few hours we were arguing about it non-stop for hours. I was crying at one point and I kept saying I was sorry, it was human error, not deliberate. After all this arguing I was tired and wanted to stay in, but at around 11pm he insisted we go out. While we were out he deliberately started talking to a much younger woman, introduced himself to her, claimed he got her Instagram and then repeatedly talked about how he was meeting her for dinner the next day. His argument was that if I was going for lunch with strange men the next day, then why couldn't he meet up with a new person too? Even though it was not the same at all, obviously. The young woman must have been about 20 and we are both in our 40's so it just felt really weird and "off".

The argument continued after we got back to his for most of the night and I got very little sleep. The next morning I had to get an extremely expensive Uber to make sure I did not let my daughter down and miss the lunch. He had said not to come back to his after lunch but then called me when I was in the Uber and asked me to come back to his after all.

The lunch itself was lovely. Afterwards, I travelled back to his. However, when I arrived we had another argument. During it, he picked up my bags and threw them across the room in anger, they went everywhere as he threw them so hard.

He later continued to use the lunch as an example of me not caring about him enough and prioritising other people over our relationship, and how I like "strange men".

From my point of view, I attended an important family event for a few hours and still made the effort to return afterwards. From his point of view, I had disrespected him and chosen other people over him.

When I told him how much the Uber cost he took offence because I have never gotten an Uber to his even if I am running late; he said he didn't realise I have money in this way.

When I went back to his after the lunch I had to get a standing room only train in the middle of the heatwave; I don't like public transport at the best of times and he kept asking when I arrived what did I want to do; meet his friends in the pub or go straight to his. I said I don't care and was almost in tears as I was finding the journey so stressful. I didn't realise but he had me on loud speaker so all his friends heard me when I said "I don't care" and now he's saying his friends all think I am horrible and rude to him. When it was taken out of context and they didn't know we had been arguing all night and that he'd got a much younger woman's contact details the night before.

Am I missing something or was he overreacting?

OP posts:
Forty85 · 01/06/2026 18:38

Just end the relationship for goodness sake.

Sunglasses1979 · 01/06/2026 18:39

AMurderofMurderingCrows · 01/06/2026 17:52

I appreciate that but when you're in the thick of it you don't always listen.

Having a hundred women tell her that her fiance is abusive might be a bit of a shock.

It is a bit of a shock, yes. But then on the other hand I'd not have posted if I had not been thinking that this is not right, on some level. I am reading all the posts and am grateful for all the replies.
It is different to having your friends and family say they don't like someone because with friends and family they can be protective of you and less impartial?

OP posts:
JellybeanQueen0105 · 01/06/2026 18:39

I’ve been through an abusive marriage and sometimes I think we don’t value ourselves in the way that we should.

A psychologist once said to me, if your daughter or your friend came to you and told you the things that you are telling us now, what would your advice to them be? You’d probably be horrified and want to help them to leave. You wouldn’t let them put up with it. So you need to take your own advice and not put up with this. This man is abusive and I’d bet my last penny that he will progress onto violence towards you if you continue.

Talk to the people that you are close to and can trust, accept their help and support and leave this sad excuse of a man.

Mackerelfillets · 01/06/2026 18:39

Its a fuckerty bye-bye from me.

Clarabell77 · 01/06/2026 18:40

I really hope you are breaking up with this nutter - but wanted to add when you do please be careful.

notapizzaeater · 01/06/2026 18:40

Bin him, if he’s that attractive to the other girls he won’t be alone for long. He’s not treating you with any respect at all

Tunnocks34 · 01/06/2026 18:41

I would leave him.

He sounds like a right arsehole.

RonaldMcDonaldTrump · 01/06/2026 18:44

So what are you going to do OP? You know you can't stay with someone like this, don't you? Think what you would tell your daughter to do in this situation

SalmonAndHorseradish · 01/06/2026 18:46

You aren't a fool for letting it get this far - abusers dial up the abuse slowly so you often don't realise how bad things have become until someone else points it out to you - but you'd be a fool to stay any longer. No question you are in an abusive relationship, he sounds awful. Whatever difficult times he has had in his past, they do not even begin to excuse his behaviour.

Imagine if your daughter told you her boyfriend was behaving the way yours is, thowing away presents, ripping up her property, trying to control who she could and couldn't see. What would your advice be to her? Take that advice yourself OP and get as far away from this awful man as you can. However difficult leaving is, it will not be as bad as staying with him.

Morrisons26 · 01/06/2026 18:47

OP, that's not love. That's anger, control and danger.

Leave while you still can.

WhereAreWeNow · 01/06/2026 18:49

I'm sorry OP. I think you already know you can't stay with this man. The anger, jealousy, rage, throwing your belongings, trying to guilt trip you out of seeing your DD, trying to make you jealous with another woman... These are all red flags.

hypnovic · 01/06/2026 18:49

Ffs RUN

Daftypants · 01/06/2026 18:50

I started reading and thought what a big passive aggressive man baby he is .
Read more and realised he’s an abusive prick .
leave + do not go back

XMissPlacedX · 01/06/2026 18:50

He didn’t get her number, it was fake. He is abusive, it will get worse you know it will. Leave him x

Littlemisssunshine1982 · 01/06/2026 18:51

Sunglasses1979 · 01/06/2026 18:39

It is a bit of a shock, yes. But then on the other hand I'd not have posted if I had not been thinking that this is not right, on some level. I am reading all the posts and am grateful for all the replies.
It is different to having your friends and family say they don't like someone because with friends and family they can be protective of you and less impartial?

What do you plan to do now? Stay with him or leave? Please don’t think you can have a talk with him and he’ll see the error of his ways, he may be nice for a while but he will go back to being his natural self and that might be after you’ve actually married him

ChocolateAddictAlways · 01/06/2026 18:53

Run. Run like the wind. This is a profoundly abusive man.

Thepeopleversuswork · 01/06/2026 18:55

Sunglasses1979 · 01/06/2026 18:39

It is a bit of a shock, yes. But then on the other hand I'd not have posted if I had not been thinking that this is not right, on some level. I am reading all the posts and am grateful for all the replies.
It is different to having your friends and family say they don't like someone because with friends and family they can be protective of you and less impartial?

I do understand from personal experience that when you are in an abusive relationship it can be very difficult to see it for what it is. I was in a relationship like this (not quite as bad) and for a long time I rationalised that the abuse and drama was “love”. If your self esteem is low its very seductive.

But I have rarely seen a thread with such a consensus. You have 20+ pages of people all speaking with the same voice here.

This man is at best an insecure narcissist and at worst a thoroughly dangerous one who could harm you or others close to you. I have read a lot of threads involving men being abusive and few have chilled me more than this.

I plead with you to leave him. For your daughter’s sake if not for yours.

LT1233 · 01/06/2026 18:56

Yellow card for the reaction to you telling him about your double booking.
Red card and sending off for the chatting someone up. Everything after that is irrelevant because you should've walked away immediately at the red card offence before he'd even "swapped numbers".
Sorry for the end of your relationship, but it's very much for the best xx

TheGreatDownandOut · 01/06/2026 18:57

Sunglasses1979 · 01/06/2026 18:39

It is a bit of a shock, yes. But then on the other hand I'd not have posted if I had not been thinking that this is not right, on some level. I am reading all the posts and am grateful for all the replies.
It is different to having your friends and family say they don't like someone because with friends and family they can be protective of you and less impartial?

I left mine after starting a thread on MN years ago. It snapped me back to reality and I never regretted leaving, not once.

Jellox · 01/06/2026 19:00

but due to the way my friends dislike him and siblings as well, we have ended up in a weird little cocoon where it is just the two of us

This is a great example of when posters start a thread saying my daughter is in a relationship with someone who is controlling/a bully/ abusive etc and the majority of the replies tell the parent to not get involved too much or speak too negatively - because all it does it push them closer towards the man.

Its like someone telling you can’t do something and so it makes you want to do it more.

It is a psychological thing and you’re not intentionally doing it but I do think it’s amazing that you recognise that you feel it’s you two vs the rest of the world.
Most people don’t ever recognise that.

But what you need to do now is take everyone out of the equation.
You’re not a failure for ending things and thinking ‘they were right all along’ or thinking they’re going to say ‘we told you so’.

The only person who is losing right now is you because of your stubbornness to not quit on something.

Forget everyone else exists.
If you had a magic wand and could change your life what changes would you make.

sunhat100 · 01/06/2026 19:01
Red Flags Reaction GIF by Kamie Crawford

LTB

CorvusPurpureus · 01/06/2026 19:01

You said the young women in the bar looked at you with pity.

Well, yes, because you’re a woman around their mums’ ages in a student bar at midnight, who looks thoroughly miserable & cowed by the bloke she’s with.

& then this sleazy middle aged geezer starts trying to hit on them.

Absolutely they’ll have felt awful for you.

& it’s quite clear he didn’t have a dinner date lined up with one of them, ffs, or he wouldn’t have been calling you on speaker from the pub with his mates.

He’s pathetic & disgusting.

& pathetic, disgusting men can become seriously dangerous when they realise you’ve seen them clearly.

You need to LTB, but…carefully. Talk to your family & friends. It sounds like they’ve very much got his measure & will be delighted to support you.

Sunglasses1979 · 01/06/2026 19:04

BrokenWing · 01/06/2026 18:25

I was going to have a meal with a strange man I didn't know.

This language is very odd when dinning out with your dd's boyfriend and parent, it is the kind of language you hear in countries where woman are oppressed and abused.

I would be very worried about this mans mindset, and if it will escalate once you are "his" wife.

Hopefully this thread is the start of you realising you need to leave before this man hurts you, whether physically or mentally.

He is from a culture which is a lot more conservative than here with regards to women's rights and has an extremely high level of women being killed every year and most of the time they get away with it.

It is like I am his possession especially since we got engaged.

OP posts:
SoggyTissue · 01/06/2026 19:04

He sounds absolutely awful. I really, REALLY hope you end things. This will only get worse.

PorcupineOnline · 01/06/2026 19:05

This guy has so many red flags you could make bunting!!! He sounds very much like my ex. I ignored the signs and he went on to be incredibly controlling and manipulative. Run for the hills! He's shown you his true colours and sees nothing wrong with his behaviour!

Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.

This thread is not accepting new messages.
Swipe left for the next trending thread