AIBU here...or is this not acceptable?

[cantsleepatall]

DP and I split up for four months but we are in the process of getting back together. He's the one pushing for the reconciliation and he says he wants to marry me.

The problem is that he is hiding that we are getting back together from his friends and family. I am away with him now for a few days and I heard him lying to a mate on the phone saying he was away having some "alone time". He has confided in no one that this is happening whereas I have told all my friends and family that we are giving it another go, but he seems to want to hide it from all of his.

The straw that broke the camel's back is that he just announced in bed that he is spending his 40th with his parents instead of me (we'd already previously agreed loosely to go away together just the two of us) and that really just broke my heart. He only gets one 40th in his lifetime and I feel really upset that he would rather miss spending it with me than be honest with his parents about our status.

We were in a serious three year relationship and before the split we lived together so I do feel like I should be quite an important person in his life. The split was caused due to unreasonable behavior on his part that he has now taken steps to correct. I feel like I have bent over backwards to renew my trust in him and give this another go and it is really pissing me off that he is behaving this way.

I don't think he is embarrassed of me (his friends were all gutted when we split), but I do think he is embarrassed that friends and family went through a lot of anguish over our split an he thinks it makes more sense to hide it from them for a few more months until we are both completely sure that we want to be permanently back together.

To me it seems unreasonable that he wants me to sneak around behind people's backs at our age (38 and 39) and it feels bloody ridiculous and also makes me feel like he has no confidence in us.

AIBU or does he have a point that it is better to wait until we are sure?

Also, AIBU to expect him to spend his 40th with me instead of his parents? It seems like a once in a lifetime occasion and if he wants to marry would it not follow that we spend such a momentous occasion together?

We had a good relationship and the reason for our split has been dealt with now and I do love him and want it to work. I am not sure if I should let this go or not.

Please tell me if I am out of order. It's always been a bugbear of mine that he seems to put everyone else's needs before mine. He's a bit of a people pleaser and I often feel a bit hard done by because he tries so hard to please everyone else that I come last.

Ok - either he's got something else going on and is hedging his bets/ keeping you on the back burner until he decides he wants to commit to a reconciliation or the other party makes her mind up for him. Yes you get kicked to the kerb - no he wants to reconcile.
Or
He's told a lot of lies / embellishments about why you broke up and is doing this to avoid difficult questions about why if you were so bad is he reconciling with you, or uis trying to save face.

Hmm, that wouldn't work for me. It's a significant occasion. If you are or are to be again his significant other, you should be there

I think you should tell mutual friends what you want, he doesn't want to tell them you're back together but you don't have to lie too.

If it's always been a problem that he puts others needs before yours, it would seem that this is one behaviour that he has no intention of changing.

Don't let yourself be put last, you are worth more than that. Find someone else who will put you first or be single and put yourself first. It doesn't sound like this man ever will.

Oh, and on the 40th Birthday thing YANBU.

I don't know whether this is relevant at all, but it might be. It's going to be cathartic in any case. Wise readers will ignore the next two paragraphs of ramble and cut to the end.

If passive aggression were an Olympic sport my ex would have been a shoo-in for a gold medal. He would behave in an unacceptable fashion, I would tell him it was unacceptable, he would appear to "get it" and the behaviour would stop, but in a very little while some other kind of behaviour would pop up and he would carry on with it, like a naughty toddler kicking the seat, until I noticed and put a stop to that one as well. Eventually, after a lot of years, I realised we would never get to a point where we would be comfortable together, as he would always start doing something else annoying. Whether he did it on purpose is something I shall never know for certain.

That makes me sound like someone who was always nit-picking, who would never let the poor man be himself, but I can only assure you I did let an awful lot of things pass. I'd object to, for example, him calling me a bitch, being too drunk to pick me up from a work trip (and too drunk to explain it on the phone too, one of the DC had to tell me he wasn't coming when I rang back to see why he hadn't turned up yet), leaving an ever-increasing pile of filthy socks on the floor (not his filthy underpants - he wore those in bed - that's one of the points I never won)... I'd be all persuasive and explain why this would not do and he would agree, and then he'd wear my best trainers out in the garden and get them caked with mud, or somehow drop to sleep and forget to pick me up even without the benefit of alcohol, or say something shockingly rude to one of my relatives, or have a major go at me and/or sulk for days about something he thought I had said. There was always something kind of wrong going on, but if I picked him up on all of them I would spend our entire lives squabbling about minor points. (Well I thought they were minor. In hindsight these days I wouldn't put up with a single one of 'em.)

So my point is... what was my point again?... ah yes: if your, er, whatever he is - boyfriend? ex-boyfriend? fiancé? - used to do something you couldn't put up with which he doesn't do any more, that may not mean you won. It may mean he is brewing another behaviour which you would find equally if not more unacceptable. This keeping you under wraps certainly doesn't sound like a positive thing, and I rather agree with pp who suggested he is seeing what you will put up with for the immense privilege of staying with His Cockiness. I further think that if you put your foot down and said "we are out of this closet or we are over", he may agree to go public, but in a very little while something else odd but not overtly unreasonable will start niggling at you, something you can't quite put your finger on, and you'll come back here and say "AIBU to have a problem with..." You could be doing this dance for years. Don't waste a quarter of a century on it like I did.

Fuck that was long

Are you reluctant to answer why you split and why you got back together or am I just impatient?

Sorry Offred for the slow response, I was awake till very late and have only been up for a little while.

Thanks for all the responses and letting me know you didn't think I was being unreasonable.

We split because he was drinking too much. Not every day, but binging to the point where he was having accidents or collapsing and I had told him that it had to stop or I would leave because it was making me feel worried for his safety. At the time he kept apologising but then did it the next time we went out and it got to the stage where I didn't want to go out or have people for dinner. He had a lot of warnings and kept at it for almost a year.

After I left, for the first two weeks he drunk himself into oblivion but now a drink hasn't passed his lips for two months and he went to counselling for it so this is what I meant when I said he was working on the problem that caused the split. It just took him a while / a shock to understand he had a problem with the bottle.

No, I don't think he was honest with friends and family over why I left (embarrassed???) and maybe it is hard now to be honest with them all because he was not really honest to start with.

I can't say for certain there is no one else, maybe there is, but I don't think this is the case. We live in a small village and I am fairly aware of his movements and he seems to be home every day and every night alone. We also have mutual friends who contact me and let me know his movements.

If there is someone else it is a secret from family and friends too so I would doubt that is the reason behind all this.

Yes, he has always been subtly manipulative like this. It's hard to explain because if you tell him something upsets you he cries, kisses you, apologises and you come away feeling sort of guilty but then he doesn't seem to actually stop doing it.

I think I have been sort of manipulated into the "oh he's such a good person" story that I forget that his actions are sometimes less than loving even when his words are.

I did have it out with him this morning on the strength of the support on this thread and he said he will ring family and friends today and be honest, but he didn't respond to the 40th birthday thing. I think as far as he is concerned his parents have made plans and it's a done deal.

I do think the relationship has a lot going for it. We have so many good things about us that I would like to make it work but I think what I actually do is let him get away with things other women would not put up with.

I hate this about myself. I don't know why I do it but I suppose as soon as I start to argue with him he just looks so forlorn and upset that I end up backing down.

He was not honest with his friends and family about the reasons you split - he probably made it out to be your "fault" - and doesn't want you to find out about this.

He doesn't want to spend his 40th with you because he wants to get trashed and doesn't want you to know about it.

This guy is an immature twat and you should just move on from him. It all sounds so exhausting.

Impatient then! (Hungover )

He's a weak man who chooses to tell lies to make him feel more comfortable with his weakness rather than dealing with it.

Weak people like this are also very selfish.

I think you should break up. You can do better.

He has told everyone a pack of lies over your breakup in order to paint himself in a better light.
You can do better than this. Sober or not, he's still an arse.

To be honest it sounds as though you did well to escape the first time round.

So he is a recovering alcoholic. Good for him to get this far, but it sounds as though he needs a lot more time to build an independent life.

He tells lies, including a lot of lying by omission.

He is manipulative, and uses guilt trips to get what he wants.

He appears to be ashamed of his relationship with you and is not willing to accommodate your wishes.

What exactly are you getting out of this ?

Yes sorry it seemed I wasn't answering, I was just asleep. My last long relationship was with someone who was loud and a bit of a bully who shouted a lot and sometimes got physically aggressive, not violent but he intimidated me physically and I felt a bit scared of him. He was pretty horrible to me in an obvious way. I think this might be why I find it a bit hard to see bad behavior when it is a bit more subtle in nature and I am not sure if it's me expecting too much or not. Sorry if I don't reply to any more posts till much later, I won't be ignoring I am just going out for the day and I will read them all and will use them to grow a pair of balls and stand up for myself a bit.

Inertia he is a recovering alcoholic and it's been quite hard for me to admit that's the case because I was telling myself for a long time that he was just a big drinker. I do think I lie even to myself about this, but even when he wasn't on a bender he'd put away a bottle of wine every night and that's nor normal is it? On the night that preceded me walking out, he drank 3 pints, 3 bottles of red wine, a bunch of shots of limoncello and then he collapsed into the washing line and fell into the greenhouse in the garden and hurt himself on the glass. We had a couple over for dinner and we had just met them and I was so frightened because of all the blood that I had to get tablets off the doctor afterwards to calm down. He did put me through a lot, but these binges happened every few months rather than every week and the rest of the time he as great (I sound like an abused wife now, don't I?). I am happy that he is getting help and sorting it but everyone is right that he's being selfish and manipulative. I do think everyone felt sorry for him when I walked out because he was such a mess and I didn't advertise why I had gone. I think he does need to come clean with everyone about his problem for himself as much as me. I will talk to him much more strongly later and feel the courage to explain the behaviour is not acceptable now I feel more confident that IANBU

OP why are you even considering staying with him?

Apart from the lying, you describing him as subtly manipulative and his not talking about his 40th are raising a very highbrow...

Thanks Quietly, what you said about how he handled the split probably fits with what went on if I had to take a guess from knowing him. You might be right about me putting too much importance on the 40th but I am sentimental about special occasions and I feel like if I am giving him another chance then he should be putting effort in to prioritise me over other people. I don't think the word alcoholic has been used. We've said "drinking problem" but TBH I am not sure what an alcoholic really is and I always just saw him as someone who liked a drink too much. Might be naive with what I am dealing with but we are taking reconciliation slowly and he has been seeing a counsellor about it.

Logg1e I know it doesn't sound good I but it he didn't always drink too much it was only the last year and leaving him was hard to do because I really love him and love being with him. I left him because it made me sad to see him hurting himself.

Lweji yes he is a bit subtly manipulative but I don't always recognise it as what it is.

I still don't understand why you are even considering being in a relationship with him OP. Why are you? With him specifically?

He's hiding something. Concealing that you're back together, lying to his friends; that isn't about waiting to be sure, but something he's not telling you about.

Spending an important birthday with parents is telling you, loud and clear, that you don't matter very much (sorry) - but he imagines you'll stay around for another decade nonetheless

Pleasing everyone else before you is also not the sign of a people pleaser - it's someone who puts a lot of store by appearances, and considers that your needs come a long way down his list of priorities. Plus he cries and apologises but doesn't change? Yes: he is a manipulator.

Please don't marry him, OP. You really deserve much better.

My (idiot) BIL does this. He splits up with his partner, makes out out to be the devil, manipulating him, taking his money, screaming abuse at his child. His family duly agrees that she is the devil and he is the pure, abused poppet.

Six months later he's acting shifty and quiet, then suddenly they're back together (and probably have been for a few months already). And he pretends that he's not said a bad word about her and we all have to go along with it.

I'd lay money he's blackened your name all over town, and is working out now to get around it.

Why can't you celebrate his 40th with him and his parents?
What has he planned that means you can't be there?

You're right, it's not a normal amount to drink. To be honest, even if you haven't ever said that you've split up because he drinks too much, everyone will have realised if he's had many performances like the dinner party/greenhouse shenanigans. And you know what, you don't have to keep quiet- it's perfectly OK for you to tell people that you split up because in your opinion he drank too much and the consequences were becoming too serious.

You say that your previous partner was aggressive. That doesn't mean you have to settle for a lying, manipulative recovering alcoholic who hides your existence but isn't aggressive. Do you love him enough to spend a lifetime coming much lower down the pecking order than his wine, his parents, his friends? Do you love him enough to spend a lifetime being lied to and lied about? Do you want to spend a lifetime never being able to discuss issues as grown-ups, because he will make you feel awful for raising it then carry on doing what he wanted anyway? Have you considered how/whether children would ever fit into this?

You know what he's like. You know how he treats you. Yet you seem to be under the delusion that he'll change- why would he bother?

I am not sure why him specifically. I just feel happy when I am with him Loggle

Wyrdybyrd yes these are all the thoughts I was feeling when I got upset about this.

There's a bit of tension between me and his family because I left him so at this early stage it's would be a bit uncomfortable for me to go and stay with them for a weekend. Definitely not ready for that yet.

No Inertia, I'm not prepared to come below on the pecking order so this is something he needs to change if he wants a hope. I did tell him that today and he said he has to prove it with actions instead of just words.

Yes I do think having crap luck with men gave me lower standards or expectations from partners and I do think I put up with things that are not good but also if I don't complain or argue I am not sure how much of it is my fault and I want to try and start being a bit more assertive or insistent on what is okay for the future.

Your posts don't sound like someone talking about a man who makes her happy.

OP but also if I don't complain or argue I am not sure how much of it is my fault

It isn't your role to police his behaviour. You don't have to complain or argue in order to get somebody to behave kindly and respectfully. They either choose to or they choose not to.