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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

What is this message?

67 replies

HeadFeelsStrange · 14/08/2015 15:27

Please help. I feel a bit numb. What would you think if you found this on your boyfriend's phone? I just did. From him to a woman I've heard of but not met. He and I are in a long distance relationship.
'I feel a bit closer to a decision today. One thing I would like to ask is whether you have any personal thoughts on my applying because, depending on what you decide about me, you might become involved and your opinion would be very important to me! Please don't think I'm pushing you, or being presumptuous, just wanted to check in with you whether you would have personal reservations about either avenue :) If you don't feel you can answer, I quite understand.'

OP posts:
TRexingInAsda · 14/08/2015 17:24

It doesn't sound good, but you need to talk to him. Tell him you saw the message and he needs to explain what the hell's going on. If he won't, you need to get shot.

TRexingInAsda · 14/08/2015 17:27

Sorry, get shot of him - not just get shot in general!!

lavenderhoney · 14/08/2015 17:38

Why wouldn't she be able to answer? Have they slept together and she dropped him? She has been clear though- she's not interested in him.

It's quite bizarre to me to arrange your career based on a person who might not reply. She sounds like she is an interviewer tbh, and would have a say in who gets the role. The decision but doesn't make sense to me. Until you have the job, there is no real decision to make - and you are in an LDR anyway, so it doesn't really matter.

What does matter is you don't know what he is talking about, so he's not being honest about his plans or his thoughts about you.

Mutt · 14/08/2015 17:38

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

CatMilkMan · 14/08/2015 17:43

I would presume the first message was about a job and completely innocent but the update makes it different.

namechangedforachange2 · 14/08/2015 20:16

Have you confronted him op ?

Original poster
HeadFeelsStrange · 15/08/2015 08:06

It was predictably awful confronting him, I was so desperately upset and almost embarrassed for him. He says that he asked her how she felt about him. He wants to get married, he wasn't sure that I was committed enough or well matched enough to him. So he thought he'd test other waters?!? He just keeps saying 'I was curious, I was curious.' I feel so strange. We've been together for over three years. I feel as though I could just move on from this I'm so numb, stay with him.

OP posts:
Orangeisthenewbanana · 15/08/2015 08:18

Sorry OP Flowers. I think you need to ask him to leave to give you some space to process all this. I know that won't be easy as you're on holiday but that's really his problem. Agree with other posters that his message was to find out her feelings for him to help him make his decision re: job application. YOU are the only one he should have been having that conversation with, or he should have ended things with you if he had reservations. Not kept you dangling while he investigated other options.

Don't make any decisions about staying with him right now. If he has done this once, in all likelihood he will do it again. Sorry to say, but she might not even be the first Sad

lavenderhoney · 15/08/2015 08:23

I feel sorry for you op, because to my mind he has been thinking this for a while and was sorting out leaving you ( new job, new gf) so he could drop the bomb on you and push off to his new life without a backward glance.

Only you found out, and he has been honest now- he doesn't think you're the one. So tell him to bugger off instantly and call a friend for a chat. At least it was only three years not ten of this bullshit.

i don't see how you can get through this and stay, and why would you? You're already in an LDR. Sounds like it's not enough for either of you, tbh, and by that I mean drop him and find someone closer to home.

RattusRattus · 15/08/2015 08:25

Sorry? He wants to marry you but wanted to see if he was sure about you by trying someone else out first? SERIOUSLY???

Also: "he wasn't sure that I was committed enough" = blaming you.

Total loser. LTB.

Original poster
HeadFeelsStrange · 15/08/2015 08:27

He keeps saying that nothing physical has happened, nothing remotely like it. That I haven't been very nice to him, that he thought I wanted to leave him

OP posts:
Original poster
HeadFeelsStrange · 15/08/2015 08:30

He's seeming rationalise it all and I feel lost

OP posts:
LiquidAshTree · 15/08/2015 08:31

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

TeresaGiudicesForehead · 15/08/2015 08:32

So effectively it's your fault for him "testing the waters"?

lavenderhoney · 15/08/2015 08:34

Well, you're on holiday so I guess it's hard to manage. But not impossible.

Push off out for the day alone, don't call him or reply to any messages from him. You only have his say about this woman, and he is now panicking because his plans are screwed.

What is he doing going on hols with you? What a tosser. He should leave and allow you to find someone else. And it's not your fault. He'll be wanting sex next and expecting an all star performance to make him forgive you. Tell him to fuck off.

TeresaGiudicesForehead · 15/08/2015 08:35

What does your gut tell you? take your "behaviour" out of it. What does his behaviour show you. He lacks commitment to your relationship, he's hedging his bets, he's trying to organise an alternative relationship for when he leaves, he's mentally cheated on you and had she said yes he would have left, he's now rationalising it all with his "need" to get married and your treatment of him.
He sounds like a bit of a shit.

Do you have financial commitments together?

Penfold007 · 15/08/2015 08:35

OP you've already shared that you haven't been very nice to him, he admits he thought you wanted to leave him. The relationship is over evidenced by your snooping on his phone and his sounding out another woman. I'm not excusing his behaviour or blaming you.

TheoriginalLEM · 15/08/2015 08:37

in all honesty, the first email didn't sound dodgy at all, more of a colleagues valued opinion. However the reply is damning :(

Original poster
HeadFeelsStrange · 15/08/2015 08:38

I shouldn't have looked I know

OP posts:
TheoriginalLEM · 15/08/2015 08:40

The op hasn't shared that she wasn't nice to him, the DP has accused her of that. He sounds like an entitled arse - its always the partner's fault isn't it? "i wasn't sure you were commited, you weren't being nice to me" so i tried to get with another woman, she wasn't interested so hey, lucky you, i'll stay.

FUCK THAT, WITH KNOBS ON

TheoriginalLEM · 15/08/2015 08:41

bugger that, it sounds like you have saved yoruself a lot of future heartache. ~What was he going to do, every time you had a falling out, "test the waters" elsewhere?

patienceisvirtuous · 15/08/2015 08:41

Definite deal breaker. He just tried to shit on you from a great height and the only reason he didn't was because she rejected him - otherwise he would have dropped you like a hot stone.

Treat him with the contempt he deserves. Sorry this has happened to you x

Velociraptor · 15/08/2015 08:43

Unfortunately it sounds to me like the relationship has run its course. He has physically left, in that you have not seen him for 6 months, now he is exploring possible relationships with other women. I think it is time to let this one go.

Only1scoop · 15/08/2015 08:44

Well if you weren't being very nice to him he's a big boy I'm sure....could he not have finished things with you before hedging his bets with this OW?

He will use the 'weren't being very nice to me' twaddle to try and blame you for this.

And he's deleted the evidence of the messages. How convenient.

sanityforlunch · 15/08/2015 08:44

So what if she said yes? What if she changes her mind? You're dumped then.

I know it's hard but I don't see how you can stay with him. Now you know you're second best.