DP. Facebook. Woman. Lying. Need I go on?

[SnotRagWoman]

Sorry for the namechange but I frequent certain sections of mn and don't want this to follow me around for the next few months! So basically a few weeks ago DP lets on that an old school friend had added him to his facebook friends list. I wasn't really that interested but smiled and nodded in the right places and forgot about it! Then by accident I saw that they'd been private messaging. Never got to see the content, just a hotmail message saying "you have a new private message from ** on facebook" etc. I didn't think too much of it but wondered why he never mentioned that they'd been chatting. Still, I let it go.
Then we got into a conversation when I thought I'd slip it in "so, hows things with **?" He pretended to not know what I was on about so I said "the girl you were chatting to on facebook, the girl you knew from school, how is she?" and he replied - quite nervously "oh! her! no idea, don't care to be honest! hehe" I said "oh thought you were friends" so he said "nah I hardly know her". I said "so you've not spoken to her at all then, not by private message or anything?" and he said "nope! not at all!" in a rather OTT defensive fashion.

So by this point I know he's lying. But why? So I get into his hotmail account and read a number of private messages between them. Starting off with "hi, how are you, long time no see" etc etc and eventually getting to "so what are you upto these days?"

DP told her he was divorced (true) but did not mention me at all. He said where he was working etc but no mention of the fact that he was in a relationship, even when she pressed on the divorce thing, he STILL didn't mention me. The messages then went to things like "remember when we used to go together? remember this? remember that? etc etc.... all it needed was a "lets meet up for all times sake"!!!

So I asked him again, "did you say you hadn't spoken to that girl on facebook by private message?" he said "no, why? I told you I hardly know her".

Then one night I'd just got out of the shower and came in the living room. DP simply closed down the laptop and sat there looking wierd and unnatural.

I later checked his hotmail messages again and there was one from her saying "what happened then? you just disapeared! did I upset you asking about the divorce? hope not, sorry ... please come back " and he replied with "course you didn't upset me, silly sausage, my laptop crashed"

So he closed down the laptop quickly when I walked in the room because he was chatting to her? if its all so innocent, what's he panicking over?

I watched a few more messages back and forth and it was getting to the point I believe where they were going to suggest meeting up and he'd still not mentioned me. So I came clean, told him I knew about the messages and asked why he lied to me. He denied it all, even when faced with the evidence but eventually admitted the private messages and said he lied because he "knew I'd act like this" if I found out, even though it was innocent.

He then sent her a message telling her all about me, she sent a half hearted message back (not nearly as in depth as her previous ones) and he never replied to it.

So, how would you react in this conversation?

"He's a flirt, not a mass murderer"- bloody hell. Not a flirt, just a lying, manipulative nobber.

If you meant anything to him, he'd have mentioned you. He didn't. You don't. Given the chance, he'd have met her, you know that.

He won't change, but you can. Into someone who won't sand for him and his shite any longer. Good luck.

My reaction to your original story was "What a dickhead." As far as you know, there was nothing beyond normal catch-uppy conversation between them; there was no reason to lie about it. Then I wondered why he had lied, then, and concluded that: he expected things to go further, and he's done this before. Making it all "your fault" is a well-worn trick that's supposed to put you off expecting him to - you know, share his life with you

This one episode is enough to severely undermine anybody's trust in their partner. If they lie so doggedly to you about something pretty innocent, how can you believe them at all? Now that it turns out he's lied to you lots, over many things, it looks as though you've got yourself a right old Walter Mitty.

You can't build a marriage, a future, an old age, with a person like this.
You must be feeling really upset :( But the tears will get worse, if you stick with him. You deserve better.

As someone else said, he doesn't care enough, if he was proud of you and cared he would not be writing you out of his life. He's also a coward, who finally told her when severely challenged by you. He then doesn't reply to her, where's Mr Caring Mate of friend with cancer all of a sudden?

WWIFN says she never asked if he was in a relationship - I understood that he swerved the question as she had asked him and he said he was divorced. No blame should be put on this woman. She'd probably have been happy to meet you both and been a friend of the couple, he avoided that as he liked the idea of a flirtation on the side.

Then there is all the lying.

Get rid, life is too short to be in a relationship that doesn't enhance your life.

Sorry Eurostar, I don't buy that. If I got chatting to someone on Facebook (not that I'd go near it), they said they were divorced and the messages got progressively friendlier, I'd be asking direct questions about whether that person was in a relationship now. Just because someone is divorced doesn't mean they are not in a relationship. Unless he changed his status (unlikely it seems) then this woman would have been able to see that he was in a relationship too.

Yes, it was this bloke's responsibility to tell her, but given that I would rather chew my own leg off than get involved with an attached person, I'd never let myself off the hook by waiting to be told.

Blimey, WWIFN, I wouldn't think of that! If somebody says they're divorced I assume they're unattached - just as I mean when I tick the 'divorced' box on the Council Tax forms.

If I were still at the "do you remember when" stage of a message conversation with a long-lost pal, it wouldn't enter my mind to cross-examine them on their current relationship status.

fyi, relationship status isn't mandatory on facebook. The only people I know who use it are very young.

I gather it had progressed from the "do you remember..." stage and got to the "please come back!" stage, which implies that this really isn't a friendly exchange between old school pals. I imagine that at this point, neither of the protagonists thought they were simply catching up on old times.....

If I was in that situation, I don't think i would ask outright 'are you in a relationship' because if you do that it implies that you are definitely interested in them in that way, not very subtle. i guess I would assume, if they said 'I am divorced' that they meant they were single. If you weren't uyou would say 'I got divorced, now I am with x partner'

what happened then? you just disapeared! did I upset you asking about the divorce? hope not, sorry ... please come back

She asked him about his divorce and assumed he was upset about it. She's an innocent enough party, WWIFN, please don't ask all women to police the relationships of all men they encounter.

The very much married man in this story, though, sounds like a wanker of some considerable wankiness.

married attached, sorry

Actually, I feel really sorry for this woman and no doubt she's feeling pretty angry about being put in this position, especially when she's in a vulnerable place anyway.

I agree that during the flirting stage of these things, asking direct questions might have caused her to reveal her hand, but the trouble with flirtations like this (especially cyber relationships) is that they ramp up very quickly, as this one appears to have done.

What tends to happen then is that it becomes an addiction and if the participants haven't asked questions or disclosed relationships earlier on, before that addiction took hold, it becomes far more difficult to step away.

I've also seen so many people get into relationships with married or attached people and claim ignorance, when there were in fact a myriad of clues that they chose to ignore.

However, as always, the real villain of the piece is the attached person, especially in this thread.

Grace is right. What a cheeky sod.

Hang on! I've just got back in touch with an old colleague - he popped up on LinkedIn. In 2 short messages I've told him I loved him, am really happy to have got back in touch and a bit of blah about my life now. He's told me about his work, who he's in touch with from those days, and we've done a few remembers. I assume he's still married to his very lovely wife but haven't asked. I likewise assume he wouldn't even mention this to her, let alone lie about it. It's just not a big deal.

Everything's a matter of quality and degree.

The girl in OP's story doesn't know she's in "this position". There's actually no evidence that she was looking for an affair. She doesn't require sympathy, surely?

Yes I do feel sorry for her Grace. She's in a bad place, I suspect she might have been enjoying this new flirtation, then she got a message from the man belatedly telling her that he was in a relationship, she replied and he blanked her. I think that's pretty shitty behaviour, especially as she'd told him she was ill. But if I were in her position now, I'd chalk it up to experience and learn that if I ever got into an exchange like this again, I'd ask a few more direct questions.

And FWIW, if an old business colleague of my H's told him she loved him in an E mail, he certainly would show it to me, as I would if the situations were reversed! But, to make it clear, I wouldn't have any expectation that she should suggest that he did, because that's his call to make.

... but I also love you, WWIFN

Grace I was going to say something very similar to your post at 02:07:15

The lying is the stinker for me too, especially about money

I have been married to liars, had children with different liars. Been put into total debt by around £50k over 5 years by a liar who then went on to marry another woman and lie his way enough to gain another approximate £50k from her...he has always blamed me for it, she now knows I wasn't the one lying or exaggerating and he's still trying to get around her to weedle his way back into her life.
Ds's father swore on his daughters life that it wasn't make up I found on my pillow, in MY house.
Dd's father lied to me for 4 years. I asked him outright if he'd been faithful to me...'yes, totally.' I confronted him about the blond hair I kept finding, the covert use of his mobile, the sudden change of plans with me, the having to rush out to see his other, much older (by 29.5 years) Dd (read OW). He even lied when I caught him red handed with OW who also knew nothing about me and our Dd by saying that he'd tried to end it with her so many times (but still chose her)...They can't stop once they start. You are, IMHO well rid of him. Don't lose anymore self respect. He's an arse and does not deserve you.

RE: relationship status - The only people I know who use it are very young

Have to totally disagree with this. Everyone I know has it filled out on one way or another. If its left blank its alarm bells straight away.

All it takes is "misunderstood" man + flirty young sexpot + Facebook = MESS.

I would like to just re-write this statement.

All it takes is "faithless man."

End of, the rest are just props to their own drama.

Agree with others here, lying is a big no no for me. Once I went out with a guy who would lie about really ridiculous things, would tell my parents we'd been to the theatre if we'd been to the cinema, would invent stories about things we'd done if we just had a quiet day kicking about the house etc. Think in his case it was face-saving stuff but it's still lying and I still hate it. And yes, when he split up with me for "no reason" it turned out the "friend" was more than that all along as I'd suspected!

I'm sure not all petty liars are cheats, but I just can't stand all the little lies and never knowing the real person.

OP, you need to leave and move on.

God, get rid. Apart from anything else he was planning to take advantage of some poor woman with cancer - just what she needed at that point in her life!

He lies to you, acts inappropriately with another woman, then says you are the one in the wrong when you have the temerity to object? He sounds a real peach.

Life is too short for that sort of crap.

Habitual liars (in relationships) drain the fucking life out of people.

Get rid of him NOW.

Have a great Christmas and a fantastic New Year.

leave leave leave leave leave leave leave!!

Its all him, its not you.

What's gaslighting?