Please please help … messages to another woman

[alwaysleftoutt]

Please help me in spiralling.

I’m in a relationship with someone I’d thought I’d spend the rest of my life with. He proposed to me a year ago. I’ve embraced his kids and his problematic ex and I’ve struggled with insecurity issues from this. I don’t know what to think anymore

My partner has always been vocal about how much he hates cheating. Says it’s abhorrent and if there’s someone else you like you should just end the relationship. His dad had a whole other family with another woman behind his mums back and tore the family apart. I’ve always trusted him 100%.

Last few weeks my minds been screaming at me “he’s cheating”. It came out of nowhere until I noticed he’d followed a random (very pretty) girl on Instagram. Insecurity got the better of me and I asked who she was. He said she was his little sisters friend and he knew her briefly as they’d grown up in the same area when younger. Told myself I was being insecure and moved on.

The thought kept coming but I tried to ignore it. The other day I noticed her story at the top of his instagram page whilst he was showing me reels, again I asked, and he said “oh yeah me and Tina (not real name) are a thing”.

Today again he’s showing me stuff on instagram. He clicks on his messages and I see her name. I asked to see his phone, he grabbed it back off me but eventually gave me it and said I could read it.

They’ve been messaging for 2 weeks ish. Catching up about life. She started it sending him a picture of them from when they were younger (she’s not his little sisters age like he told me). Then she said she’s just ended a 10 year relationship and rediscovering life. Talking about a “group reunion” with the friendship group.

I asked him why he’d told me she was his sisters friend, he said they were in a friendship group but she was younger so assumed he was his sisters age (his sister is 12 years younger than him wtf).

The messages go on and he talks about his kids and his time in the army but there’s zero mention of me.

I asked why? He said “it didn’t come up” and “she can see pictures of you on my page anyway”

She most recently sent voice notes on Friday but he didn’t reply. In them she’s talking about how she nearly came by our city for a trip with her sister and she should have just come because a “reunion is needed”.

I lost my mind and said he was massaging his and her egos and it’s not what people in committed relationships do. This is the man who constantly says men and women can’t be friends as they always end up sleeping together.

He said he didn’t think it was weird but said he did think it got weird when she sent voice notes so didn’t reply.

I asked why I wasn’t mentioned. He said well she’d just told me she’d ended a 10 year relationship so it didn’t feel “kind” to “rub in her face our happiness”

He threw his phones at the wall, grabbed my wrist to get his phone, broke the fan and threw it at the wall leaving a dint.

Am I reading too much into this - is it my insecurity? I would never have expected this from him, I really wouldn’t. I just don’t know what to do.

Agreed.

The messaging could easily be a relationship ending reason.
Then he grabbed your wrist physically @alwaysleftoutt and threw and broke other possessions?

Get away from him and stop all contact.

You do know what to do.

Question is, will you do it?

He's being crafty and deceitful, getting into a conversation with another recently available woman who he has some sort of history with, and lying about it.

And he has been violent.

You KNOW what to do.

You threw up - could be the stress but is there any possibility you could be pregnant?

I don't think this bodes well, sorry. The lying, the secrecy. He's actively hiding YOU from her and he's hiding things from you, knowing you wouldn't like what he's doing. Plus the violence! He's showing you his true colour imo.

100% this @alwaysleftoutt this is not a good relationship, never mind the other baggage.

So you're a nanny with a fanny and now he's being violent? Run.

You are stressed and sick and can't sleep and your mind is racing and you are desperately trying to make sense of it all.

This is because on some level your body knows you are not safe with this man.

The turmoil is because your mind is trying to convince you it's alright, when your body knows you need to leave him.

Please don't marry or have children with this man, you'll be setting yourself up for a lifetime of misery.

He behaving inappropriately messaging another woman, that's one thing.

But throwing a temper tantrum and grabbing you is a massive red flag, this is how he reacts in times of stress, be warned.

Girl...run

This man has shown you who he is. Don't waste more of your precious life on him. It's hard when you're invested, especially with kids but you deserve better than this.

Make an exit strategy now.

He’s put his hands on you, broke stuff and damaged a wall. Take the messages out of it and think about that. Now he’s put his hands on you once, he’ll do it again. He’ll say it was your fault because it couldn’t possibly be him, he isn’t that kind of man, he was provoked, he was angry and not thinking straight, etc.

Get out. He is not the man you want to believe he is.

You are there because he needs a housekeeper and childminder. He has no respect for you as a partner. Please leave this awful situation.

Problematic ex, eh? Did he tell you she was tapped or a crazymaker or such a thing, by any chance?

Your instinct was absolutely spot on before you had any evidence. Then the evidence came up.

Your instinct about someone breaking stuff and damaging walls is even more spot on because there was nothing visual when you had a gut feeling before, and now the symptoms are right there in a dent on your wall and a room with no fan in a heatwave.

A cliche, but if this was a friend of yours or your sister telling you this story about someone else, what would you say to them?

He threw his phones at the wall, grabbed my wrist to get his phone, broke the fan and threw it at the wall leaving a dint.

Am I reading too much into this

OP, what has he been doing to you to make you ask this question right after you describe this incident, even apart from the dishonest messaging?

I think you know you cannot stay with this man.

This and other things people come out with to try and throw you off the scent!

A boyfriend once told me he loathed long hair - a completely random remark not even remotely related to the conversation we were having or any conversation we'd ever had. The way he just came out with it was so odd my intuition kicked in and tho I didn't dig, I didn't forget. It was soon confirmed that he was indeed shagging the barmaid in our local who (surprise surprise) had very long hair.

I wonder why you feel insecure, and it's getting worse? I wonder if this is his doing? It can happen very subtly at first, eroding confidence.

Anyway, he doesn't sound healthy anymore. Throwing things is a twattish move, not to mention grabbing your wrist. If he is making you unhappy, you don't have to stay and put up with it. Whatever you do, please don't let him drag you down.

Even if he were innocent, this is why he would be my ex:

"He threw his phones at the wall, grabbed my wrist to get his phone, broke the fan and threw it at the wall leaving a dint"

Trust your gut. I understand the doubts given you state insecurity is an issue you're contending with.

However you said this thought that he's cheated came out of nowhere and kept repeating. It wasn't prompted by him paying a bit too much attention to another woman whilst in your company - which is the kind of thing that provokes insecurity.

That is your intuition speaking. You've picked up cues from him that something is going on and while you may not be aware of those cues on a conscious level, on a subconscious level you are acutely aware.

How I know something is my intuition talking to me is exactly what you describe: the thought arrives in my mind fully formed as a statement. Not a question. Not a niggling doubt. No thought process has been involved in reaching a conclusion. Just boom, and there it is. A statement.

Many people dismiss intuition as woowoo but it isn't some supernatural gift. All manner of things will prompt it into subconscious processing, for example the way we respond to pheromones without being consciously aware of them. Could be pheromones responsible here - they change when we're in the first throes of love. Or there could be any number of other cues in his body language and behaviour if he's becoming preoccupied with someone else, which again you might not consciously notice but your intuition will.

As others have rightly said, his violence towards you is the reason you absolutely must leave. But these lingering doubts you're having about whether you're at fault: no, you're not. When intuition speaks out of the blue like that please always pay attention to it. Always trust your gut.

another voice saying you are not the problem.

Regardless of wether his communications with her after all his statements about men and women in relationships not being friends etc he breached that and choose violence because your questioning pissed him off.

this time it was his phone and grabbing you. It’s escalating already. Another year or two he’ll be having the same shady conversations with other women and it won’t be your wrist he’ll be grabbing. He’ll be shoving. Slapping. Etc. etc.

Start making plans.

I think all women dating a man with a "problematic/batshit/crazy ex" need to accept there is a high probability the man was the cause.

He has been telling you want to
hear from years probably. End the engagement

You threw up - could be the stress but is there any possibility you could be pregnant?

A good man would be reassuring you. The violent reaction and name calling are a massive red flag too. Sorry but this really isn’t good.

Jesus, you need to forget about the messages now.

Whatever issue you raised, however “unreasonable” you were (you weren’t) - you could have shat on his toothbrush for all I care, HIS BEHAVIOUR IS NOT OK. You need to run as far away as possible from this situation before he hurts you really badly.

Please look up Trudi Burgess. Behaviour like this crept up on her too, until her partner snapped her neck :(

I did it. I left. I’m in a hotel.

Feel like the lack of sleep made me focus on the wrong things. I am full of bruises today. Went to work on no sleep and got sent home. Told my colleague. It’s real now isn’t it. I’ve been denying it for months.

Well done. That was a very big step. Tell your friends and family - they will want to support you.

💐