I have just discovered something about the man i am about to marry...

[upsydaisy1974]

I have had reason to think that all is not as it seems lately and I have just checked my partners spare mobile phone and I have found that he has created an entry in the address book with my name on it and has put the contact number as the spare phone. He has been sending absolutely filthy messages to his own phone, but obviously as my name is in the address book it comes up as from me. The same messages are in the sent box and in box. He is sending them to himself. How the hell do i deal with this?

upsydaisy you have handled this brilliantly. I do think you have to stick to your guns and if he continues to refuse to be honest then you have to get out of this relationship. Hope you get this all sorted

Also want to add that I am in no camp with no experience, I'm just typing allowed what I feel.

He could be a lying bastard but he could also be just a bit of a twat been there myself

I think your fab & very strong even if you don't feel it right now.

I'll also add that I don't like the controlling tone,yes it's great to lay it all on the line but don't be aggressive or come across like you you have all the cards in your hand.

You need to tell him you are thinking of termination because of his actions and how they are making you feel.

It is not a game or about control.

Please do seek out some counselling with regards to termination too,speak to your midwife about this.

Thanks for your message Helena. I will pm you tomorrow after i have seen the midwife.

You are all being great and giving me the strength i need to get through this without losing my mind.

Thanks thingumy and yes i will be talking to mw tomorrow. I am being mindful not to come accross as either aggressive or a victim. Neither will help. Hard though not to want to kick his arse into next week

This nonsense has gone on for a few days now hasnt it . I think in your shoes i would privateley set myself a deadline , and if he hasnt resolved it by then i think i would call it quits. Actions not words and all that.

I couldnt marry someone who thinks it ok to arse around like this and see me in a state . The thing is Daisy , he knows if he continues the relationship is going to end , youve made it more than clear.

It might look to some as if you are calling the shots or that you have postponed the wedding , but in reality , hes chosen to take this course of action , he has literally forced you into verbalising it and carrying it out. He could resolve it at any time but is choosing not to.

He would rather see you in a state , postpone the wedding and possibly lose his child rather than come clean .

Yes my deadline will be considered very carefully over the next day or so. I won't put up with shit forever.

He is still maintaining that he hasn't been on sex sites, or sent the messages on his phone. He's certainly sticking to his story

Remember, all he has to do is to stick to his story, eventually you will give up and stop this nonsense about not getting married.

He's doing NOTHING to reassure you, the longer this inaction goes on, the louder the death-knell is sounding for this relationship.

I'm a little baffled. If he didn't send the messages on his phone, who did then? Do you mean that he is sticking to his story that he did send them, but they were a "gift" for you all along?

Appalled that he is still denying he was on the sex sites. Who the hell was that then, some mysterious hacker who accessed his laptop?

I don't think you are being controlling at all. He is though, by withholding the truth that will give you back your choices.

Tbh, even if he fell on his sword now and confessed that yes it was him on the sex sites and yes, the texts were meant as masturbatory aids for him and that the "trail and trap" nonsense was a pack of lies when he got frightened, the fact that he has seen you go through this agony now for days, rather than tell the truth, would end up being the deal breaker of them all.

I agree with MissySmith's post at 23:26. Along with some others, I said at the beginning of this thread that I think the man's bonkers. He's doing what I expected he would.

Daisy, I feel for your need not to throw everything away, etc, and understand your ongoing desire to make it all come right. But I don't think you can :(

When someone has warped perceptions of reality and how the world works, you can't fix them. Personally I think it's a bloody miracle your instincts made you keep poking to find out why things felt wrong. It's natural that your heart will take time to catch up with your brain - I just hope it does quickly!

HI daisy, You sound so strong and together. It took a lot of strength to postpone the wedding; so many women in your shoes would just rounded off the dodgy bits about their fiance's character, buried it, and hoped for the best.

What bothers me the most here is the fact that he's presenting himself as one person, when in fact he is another person inside. It's deceitful to make out you're someone you're not. The other thing is obviously the fact that he feels he is in a position to cast aspertions on your trust. That's quite chilling because it shows a complete lack of accountability on his part, for what he has done in the past.

Chilling's the right word, Sakura. It took me long time to get my head round what it really meant that my ex continued to lie, whilst painting me as pathologically insecure & untrusting. It is arrogant, deliberate and cruel :(

Daisy, this is the first time I've ever done a prediction. I hope you'll forgive me! ... I'm hazarding a guess that he'll offer a Grand Gesture very soon.

I'm confused, first you said he told you the phone messages were 'meant for you' as 'a bit of fun' then later that he's sticking to his story that he didn't send the text messages (or visit the no srings sex sites). Has he changed his story re the phones?

I don't know how your conversations have gone but if it were me I'd now want to get my full point across in a letter - then you can really clarify everything to him without dialogue/interruptions. People on here have pointed out so many helpful angles and questions re his behaviour pre- and post-postponement, and how it makes you feel, that you could even just use them in your letter. Does he understand how he's painting himself into a corner and how serious this is? If he can't answer, on paper or face to face, well... Anyway just a thought.

I'm not really sure what you are waiting for him to do.

You know what he's been doing; you don't know why. But it doesn't matter why.

If it was anything sensible or decent, he would have told you.

He hasn't explained anything and he's not going to. The more you say 'consider your next move, buster' the more he is thinking in a bemused manner to himself, 'what? I'm not going to confess or anything if that's what she's waiting for! Ho hum...'

and therefore he naturally presumes that you are going to KEEP waiting, because he's certainly not going to do anything. You're sticking around at the moment. He thinks you will continue to.

If he gave a JOT about you or the marriage or the baby, I mean the real him, not just the him who feels pressured to please his parents - he would have acted very differently over this. But he's behaving like a teenager caught red handed.

He WANTS it to end, he wants you to ditch him. He can't allow himself to do the right thing. He's trying desperately to escape from an imminent marriage. And he can't help himself.

I just don't understand what you're waiting for - it's so unlikely he will suddenly pull something out of the bag that explains everything in a genuine and grown up manner.

You're testing him on something when he's already failed it, patently failed, failed to answer at all, and it's like with a child when you threaten to cancel their party until you get the truth, but they know you won't cancel it whatever they do.

He thinks he has you. You're still there! Why are you still there?!

He really only cares about his own backside. What is your plan for getting rid of this jerk?

and sorry, really no offence to those who have suggested it but you don't need to express anything to him in a letter or otherwise. All you need to do is look after your own interests. Like he is doing.

It's not about trying to change him, he is beyond redemption at least until he's had several years of therapy..willingly at that...

so you see what I am trying to say? It sounds like whatever you do, or say, or write to him, it's all washing over him. He's immune to it because you are not his priority. He is seeing you as the enemy and the threat to what he needs.

this is no longer a relationship imo. I'm so sorry.

oh and sorry to go on - but the kind of man who thinks you can get married and start again, putting all this behind you, is seeing marriage as a day. Not a lifelong commitment. He sees it as a nice bit of lining paper to smooth out all the apparent cracks in his existence, forgetting that it is not a top down situation but involves two REAL people who are willing to work on things together and are starting from a position of LOVING and respecting one another.

He knows people want him to be married, so he wants the bit of paper but you are a token wife...he doesn't see you as part of that. It's just a piece of paper to him that makes him look respectable.

So he wants to get married but in totally the wrong way, minus the work, commitment or integrity. and he clearly doesn't respect you.

Well someone has to say it, OP you sound like you are playing a game of control all the way throughout this thread - in fact you sound quite glad that you have definitely 'GOT HIM' and that a lot of people agree with you about what a non-person he is now. I don't, and I think he may well be getting an impression of you that you had hidden from him too. I think its depressing that so many people have tried to drive a wedge between you and made such definite statements about his intentions and character without any of them involving his position.

Its worth reminding yourself that some of the 'advice' here comes from people who frankly don't like people being in good relationships and are often on MN fanning the tiniest thing into evidence of poor character, possible abusive character or NPD (the most fashionable mental health tag used to bully partners on this site).

Not saying he isn't embarrased about something, but if I project this 'dispute' not onto the couples I know who have had rough rides, but on the ones who are the most solid happy and trustworthy, this would sound like one of them has gone off the rails and forgotten their inherent knowledge of the person in order to pin them down on a misdemeanor they seem to have lain oall their self-esteem on 'proving' - similar to a friend of mine who was utterly convinced for a day or two that a secret she had told me had got out. She started to see every nod of a friend's head, or every silence as 'evidence' until she went ballistic at me in private. I had to tell her over and over again that I hadn't told even the mirror the secret before she eventually said 'oh my god, I worked myself so much!'. The 'truth' there was in what was being said to her by me, not her 'instincts' and no amount of 'oh yes she must have said something' from 'well-meaning' friends would have changed where the truth lies.

I also think that you are afraid of the consequences of marriage and having a baby again, and you are searching around for any lever, especially one that you can look like you aren't pulling to avoid taking a risk on having a marriage that will end in divorce again. Fear is driving you here I'm afraid. Rationalising the motivations for your fear doesn't make the effects less dramatic. A couple I know split up after she (I was friends with her husband) had a miscarriage and started behaving completely differently - it was clear to all outside the relationship that the trigger was not dealing with the emotions over the mistcarriage well - she turned it into a year long 'case' of proving there was suddenly no worth in the relationship. Her 'friends' 'helped' her too by building up that picture and a really good marriage fell apart because she point blank refused to admit the miscarriage had changed her behaviour or outlook on life and the marriage.

But Heroine, all he needs to do is come clean and explain himself. If he genuinely loves and respects her, that should be easy - if a little embarrassing maybe. So why isn't he?

Don't you think that if he was being honest about things, the OP (and the rest of us) would view him in an entirely different manner.

The talk of trails and traps and "no comment" certainly give the impression that he has been up to something else that he doesn't want to come clean about.

The only way you will get the truth out of him is to ask him to leave. There is no point telling him he is about to lose everything if he is still living with you and sleeping in your bed. He needs to feel the reality of life without you.

He is up to something and tbh even if it is all innocent, you can't live your life wondering.

FFF agree with that. Time for action - it might just clear the fog from his eyes, but if it doesn't, at least you know where you stand and can then make the decisions that you need to.

she turned it into a year long 'case' of proving there was suddenly no worth in the relationship. Her 'friends' 'helped' her too by building up that picture and a really good marriage fell apart

You might have thought it was a really good marriage but your freind clearly didnt or she,d still be in it. Its sad she felt she had to " prove" anything to anyone , the fact is she was entitled to leave if that relationship wasnt working for her . Im quite surprised you are adamant that it was a really good marriage , despite the fact you werent in it.

oh i am lost now.

So you have asked him about the texts?

It's not a really good marriage if one of the parties doesn't want to be in it Heroine

I think the text message thing, and the explanations are strange. He should just admit the truth whatever it may be.

But, the trap thing...
If my partner was constantly snooping and clearly did not trust me and we were about to be married, I would probably want to know for sure. I would be very nervous about the wedding if the relationship was lacking trust. Maybe his "trail" was something very small, like leaving something somewhere and noticing if it has been moved. Who knows. Or maybe he has done something to prove she has been snooping.

Threatening to terminate a pregnancy if the answers are not what you want to hear is pretty shocking behaviour.

I admit that the message thing is really strange, but unlike a lot of the other posters here I think you are handling this situation terribly.

Rather than asking his straight out what was going on, you dont mention the reason you became suspicious for 4 days, you hang on the one word trail without knowing what it means and you threaten to terminate the baby.

He doesnt even know that you spend loads of time on mumsnet(or that it exists) You were considering pretending to have "come accross" the messages, rather than snooping. It looks to me like the secrecy and lies in this relationship goes both ways, but possibly is more weighted to Daisys side.

sorry that this goes against what most people think, it is just my take on it.