I have been with my fiancée for two years and he proposed after just six months. The first year of our relationship was wonderful. I’d been through a terrible break up with an ex who had cheated on me, and it was refreshing to be with someone who was honest, loyal and transparent about everything. He was never sneaky or deceitful, sung my praises openly to all his friends and family, was happy to tell me anything and was just totally committed, kind, caring and supportive; I couldn’t believe my luck.
A few months after we got engaged, I started to experience horrible paranoia and suspicion about the most random things. I convinced myself that he must be cheating like my ex did with no evidence of this at all. I started questioning him constantly about his romantic history, all his exes, and became suspicious of almost any woman he interacted with. I accused him of lying about all kinds of stuff, I would try and find any evidence I could that he had been unfaithful. I found nothing. In return, he helped me realise that I was suffering from anxiety and depression, probably brought on by my previous relationship. He gave me full access to his phone and all his passwords in an effort to reassure me. He would sit with me for hours on end listening to my worries and responding to them. But it almost seemed like the more he reassured me the worse I became; as though I was subconsciously determined self harm by uncovering some wrongdoing on his part.
After a few months of this he understandably started to lose his patience. He began arguing with me and telling me how angry he was that I didn’t trust him when he had been totally faithful to me.
There was one woman in particular I was paranoid about. He had been close friends with her through work for years before he met me, but nothing romantic/sexual had ever happened between them. He was open with me about their friendship from the start, she was invited to our wedding, there were no red flags such as hiding her messages/calls etc, he was totally happy for me to see what they were talking about. She is attractive and when I asked him, he said he had fancied her when they first met years ago but that it had quickly turned platonic and they had never been more than mates.
One day I asked to see his phone because I just couldn’t stop the worrying. I went into their message thread and ended up scrolling all the way back, to years before he and I had even met. I saw that during our relationship, all his messages with her had been matey and non flirtatious; he had mentioned me and our engagement a few times and there was nothing suspicious about their interaction. However, when I scrolled back to the years before we had met and at the time he was single, there was definitely some flirty banter going on. Things like joking about whether they should hook up etc - she’d tell him about her latest date and he’d say ‘date me instead’ etc - but it did appear to be in a jokey way and there was lots of other general non flirty banter; they also called each other ‘mate’ and ‘bro’ and it was clear from the messages that they never actually hooked up, but there were definitely a few flirty light hearted undertones.
I told him I had read these messages. I accepted that they all took place before I had even met him, but I asked him why he had always insisted that their relationship was entirely platonic when he had clearly flirted with her for the duration of their friendship before he met me. He dismissed it as nothing and said it was just cheeky banter that he did with a lot of people when he was single, it didn’t mean anything and he never actually wanted anything to happen with her, and nothing ever did. I can’t stop dwelling on it. Is he lying/trying to pull the wool over my eyes? He keeps telling me that it’s just my anxiety and delusion but that’s hard to accept when I have seen plainly flirtatious messages in black and white. Am I over reacting- do I have genuine reason to worry or is he right?