Sensible perspective please

[jugglingmonkey]

I'm going to sound like a fruit loop I'm sure, but please bear with me and let me have your honest opinions - all will be greatly appreciated.

History: DH and I together almost three years, young DS 15 months. DH much older, whirlwind romance turned good.

Situation: I cannot get it out of my head that DH has a bit of an infatuation on someone at his work (she has actually recently left his office). A few trivial but odd incidents left me thinking this, a gut feel if you like.

I explained this to DH more than once. I explained how his odd behaviour was making me feel, and he assured me they just got on well, but that she was 'pig ugly' and just a great friend. Anyway, I've since clocked this girl and she is far from ugly.

A bit of a final straw came late last year when DH lied to me about who he'd been out with after work, said it was just the boys but then I saw a message on his phone from her saying she was on her way (albeit with another male colleague). I got rather upset, he understood, and said that as she was leaving, it was the last to do with the matter. He'd not told me that she'd been in the pub because 'You'd get upset'.

Tonight, he's come home and announced that he's going out with her and a mutual friend next week. All recollection of our previous conversations about this have been forgotten it seems. WTF?? I want to trust him, and I really do. He says he thought it was done and dusted, that it was ok now... Could he really forget everything we talked about just a few months ago?

RO I surmise you are a cast iron idiot - you are easily the most annoying poster I have ever read so stick that in your ickle pipe and smoke it .....

Imperialblether
You have come barging in causing a fight on another woman's thread. Don't you think that's selfish? Unsupportive? What's your rationale for this?

Don't think I am fighting. Just disagreeing. It is OK to do that.

What's my rationale?

I have been (long time ago) at the receiving end of completely irrational / controlling behaviour. A boyfriend at university who turned into a complete scary nutcase if I went out for a drink with a mixed group of friends. Not healthy or pleasant.

More recently, we have good friends who were married - where the suspicion and doubt from one of them completely ate into the relationship and destroyed trust. Snooping, checking phones, hacking into emails, following to work, all the rest of it. In the end it actually became a self-fulfilling prophecy when the OH decided - "Sod this for a game of soldiers" and actually did the very thing they had been wrongly suspected of for many years.

Of course spidey-senses could be 100% right.

But too often I have seeen suspicion in a relationship grow and metastasize like a tumour that just destroys what was (and could have been) a good thing.

I am just putting forward an alternative opinion. I am completely willing to accept that I might be wrong. AnyBadword seems to be 100% certain and know exactly what the man (she has never met) is fantasising about.

I am just asking how?

Jumboots your opinion means a lot to me. It really does.

RO, then why didn't you just post your own experiences in the first place ? That is all any of us can do...no more, no less.

In order to contribute to a thread, it is neither desirable, helpful nor the done thing to

1. sing songs on a thread where the op is obviously having a shit time

2. constantly bang on about another contributor's posts in order to make some rather obscure point

RoseitattheSeata
As I said, still new here but have spotted the tendency to accuse people who disagree as likely to be a 'he'. I feel it is my DUTY to reassure you.

Re the singing a song. I actually like the lyrics of that song. It's not illegal to use someone else's words - even if they happen to be a song.

I've been reading and posting (and namechanging) here for enough years now to have heard many threads start like this and experienced wise old coves like AF and Cog kindly cut to the chase and give OP the distilled essence of years of experience.
It sounds blunt and new keen posters leap in to express shock at their insensitivity. But the OP has come for exactly this advice, whether it is what they want to hear or not.

A little humility on the part of new posters would make this place happier. And maybe learn to love our sweary ways! or join Netmums...

Actually I used that very lyric "Don't let a good thing die" on another thread, where the OP was feeling insecure and she was actually grateful. It happened to lift the mood of what had been a tirade of people saying LTB and calling her partner everything under the sun. As you say OP has not been here for a while. My wish for her and her DS is that they work things out - for each other and the 15 month old DS. I am just intrigued as to why so many here seem to think the only solution is to think the very worst (based on very limited information).

Gosh you went to university - clever old you RO - I never would have guessed!

As you are so into song, how about "Oh Lord, it hard to be humble..."?

Jumbooats & BuzzardBird
Are you attacking another poster instead of helping OP?

Remember it's not the done thing

I think you will find, I can do what the fuck I like. HTH?

I am just intrigued as to why so many here seem to think the only solution is to think the very worst (based on very limited information).

I'll take this as a question worth answering.

There are two absolute requirements:

1. The OP has felt distinctly uneasy about the situation for more than one day (ie, not likely to be PMT or migraine-related, etc.)
2. The OP avers she hasn't had "trust issues" in all of her relationships (ie, not likely to be mental-health-related.)

Further questions will be asked to establish:

1. Whether the current relationship began in similar circumstances (for a glimpse of the partner's behaviour patterns.)
2. Whether the partner has displayed 'mentionitis' for a period of time (tends to indicate obsessive thinking.)
3. Whether the mentionitis stopped suddenly (known to coincide with a deepening relationship; the partner has started to deceive.)
4. Whether the partner responds angrily or accusingly to the OP's concerns (tends to show he's prioritising his friendship over compassion for his partner.)
5. Whether the partner seems to have been withdrawing from the home relationship in various ways (this happens if he's creating excuses - to his mind - for any future infidelity.)

There are whole books about this. A particularly good one is Not Just Friends by Shirley Glass.

I'd like to extend a welcome to our many newcomers on the Relationships board, and hope they will settle in quite quickly.

Topofthecliff

But you would accept that it might be possible for people to have alternative views? Otherwise the relationship board should be replaced with AnyBadword just receiving requests to her private messages and dispensing advice one to one or setting up as a relationship advisor with an agony column.
I read the talk guidelines and assumed the tone here was supposed to be forum for diverse opinions.

BuzzardBird you're sounding a wee bit mean.

if the forum is for diverse opinions, then why do you keep trying to shut me down ?

Rationaloptimist - PLEASE stop fucking around with AnyFucker's username. It's as irritating as a prissy aunt speaking in euphemisms. If you dislike writing the word 'fucker' you can just call her AF, as everyone else does.

Evening all,

Any chance we can get this thread back on track? The poor OP seems to have left anyway (and who can blame her?)

Is think AF has a stalker

Ration has mentioned her in every post

GallicIsCharlie
Thank you. Isn't there a possibility that a checklist like that sets your expectations and creates your own reality. A person starts to look for and find what they expect?

You have the cheek to call me mean when you have been calling me bizarre names? Acolyte? You need to have a word with yourself RO.

AnyBadword I have been trying to open you up! I am genuinely interested on how you know for sure what OP's DH is fantasising about. But you haven't responded.

I don't think any rules have been broken? In terms of the essence of OP's thread I think it has mainly been about deciding what you want to lead with in a relationship. Trust or suspicion. I don't think it's binary but rather a movement along a continuum.

I feel a bit sorry for the OP

Asking for advice and then having the thread massively derailed

Very selfish

For the love of god, rational, would you just shut the fuck up?

imperial

I am with you