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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

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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

Relationships

Saw DP getting touchy feely with colleague

447 replies

petalpotter · 15/12/2015 19:50

Just after some advice really, will try and keep it simple.

Been with DP for 6 yrs, both mid 30's.

He has a close female colleague. They are not in the same team, but I am assuming they were/are stakeholders. He has never seen her outside of work, it's purely a working hours relationship. They often go for coffee while in the office, maybe once a fortnight.

DP is leaving his workplace and he invited this colleague to his goodbye do. I work in the same area and by chance ended up going to the same pub they were at.

To put it bluntly his hands were all over her. Back, waist, bum, legs. I could also hear him tell her how attractive she was.

I left 5mins after seeing this. I confronted him when he got home. He admitted getting very touchy feely with her, but has sworn nothing has happened pre this date.

I believe him, but wow, this hurts. We are planning children/marriage soon (though not engaged), but it has me thinking whether I am enough for him and whether he is still on the lookout for something better.

Would I be unreasonable to leave him because of what he has done?

OP posts:

Report

Toffeelatteplease · 15/12/2015 22:25

It's really hard to leave when the financial fallout will leave you suffering.

However I can promise you you will feel worse if you stay. You will be wondering about your price and how cheaply you can be bought. He will also know that as well and basically will have free rein to behave as badly as he wants knowing you can't afford to go anywhere.

I'm sorry really harsh. But I've stayed in situation I should have left partly because financially leaving was ruinous. You really won't feel good

TheSquashyHatofMrGnosspelius · 15/12/2015 22:30

What are the chances of his only doing this when you are watching? His mates are bound to back him up OP. Seriously this is the norm for him. Chances are she is his regular squeeze but she was embarrassed by the PDA which is why she looked a bit chilly towards him. The mathematics of this alone would make me LTB.

JoyceDivision · 15/12/2015 22:33

You deserve better.

You are young, so please don't be thinkig you have invested too much time in your relationship to leave, you haven't. In your lifespan, it's no time at all.

If he will behave like this when you are with him, how is behaving when you're not there?

If he behaves like this when you aren't busy with dcs and the general strain they can put on you, how will hebehave if you were to have dcs?

petalpotter · 15/12/2015 22:34

Messaging colleagues as I have worked with them once upon a time...

OP posts:

petalpotter · 15/12/2015 22:36

All evidence points towards nothing else having happened previously, but he definitely has a thing for her.

OP posts:

petalpotter · 15/12/2015 22:37

I can't sleep. I am numb.

OP posts:

BathtimeFunkster · 15/12/2015 22:41

All evidence points towards nothing else having happened previously

The evidence of your own two eyes points towards him openly feeling her up in front of people you both know.

That's more than enough to know that you would be crazy to make yourself vulnerable to him by getting pregnant.

This is how he treats you in the best of times.

Secondtimeround75 · 15/12/2015 22:57

Just a few word to sympathise,
This must be so hard

It is a grey area of deceit
Not cheating but not ok either
I sympathise with you op
To leave seems so extreme
To stay is accepting the behaviour

I think you should make plans to go away for a few days and have a proper think. You are in shock now and can't process any of this. Re read these replies and think long and hard.

You are the one who has to live with the choice either way.
Good luck

Twinklestein · 15/12/2015 22:59

It sounds to me like it's reciprocated, I wouldn't accept that kind of behaviour from a colleague if there wasn't invested in some way.

Tbh I would indulge that kind of behaviour with work colleagues full stop let alone one who wasn't single.

Twinklestein · 15/12/2015 23:00

I not there ^

petalpotter · 15/12/2015 23:02

Thank you for all the kind messages and words of wisdom.

Right now I am just in shock. Never expected this. Always thought he was one of the good guys.

OP posts:

BathtimeFunkster · 15/12/2015 23:02

It's not "extreme" to dump a boyfriend who goes out feeling other women's bottoms.

The best situation is that it is reciprocated. If they aren't already fucking/working up to it, he's a sex pest, who grabs arses regardless of how welcome it might be.

nocoolnamesleft · 15/12/2015 23:07

He is trying to insinuate he just had a cheeky feel of her bum.

So his defence is that he was only committing sexual assault?!?!! Bloody hell.

Joysmum · 15/12/2015 23:10

So he's minimising rather than saying how wrong he was, apologising and begging for forgiveness

Garlick · 15/12/2015 23:10

Oh, petal, poor you. It must have felt like a kick in the guts :(

Please listen carefully. This has nothing to do with whether you're "enough for him and whether he is still on the lookout for something better".

What he was doing was leching, trying it on, pushing the boundaries ... being a sex pest, basically. Even if he's one of the good guys in many other respects: he's a misogynist. You've uncovered a propensity to use women for his ego. That's it.

You're a woman. You deserve partners who respect you and other women, all of the time.

Don't shoot the woman in the pub - it sounds like she was trying uncomfortably to defuse the situation. Most of us have probably been there; it takes a lot of years to grow the balls to tell an amorous work friend to get the fuck off you, especially in a group!

Take it steady. Ducks in a line, and so forth. But free yourself of the man who hurt you while embarrassing another woman.

petalpotter · 15/12/2015 23:13

He is lining her up as a potential GF

Just seen an email saying he could cope with her being a potential drama queen (smiley face/wink emoticon).

FFS

OP posts:

Secondtimeround75 · 15/12/2015 23:15

The op is in shock & in need of understanding as she goes through the process. Let her take it at her own pace. Ye will scare her off with the aggressive replies!
Where is your compassion?

The person who is deserving of the anger isn't posing here!

roundaboutthetown · 15/12/2015 23:25

He groped a work colleague's backside. He's repulsive. No amount of drunkenness excuses that. The email is hardly surprising, considering. I'm sorry, OP.

TurnipCake · 15/12/2015 23:28

Was this email before the groping?

Either way OP, he's a twat and you deserve much better x

petalpotter · 15/12/2015 23:32

Before

Thanks all. I am ok. Much clearer now. I do feel stupid. This has probably been brewing for months, maybe even 3 years.....

OP posts:

Illyillyilly · 15/12/2015 23:32

Life is way way way too short to spend with a loser like him.

Get rid. Move on, he's a twat, he's done it once and it'll happen again, and you will spend your whole life waiting for that moment. And it'll be so SO much harder when you're married and have children. Get out now and find one of the many decent men that are out there. He sounds like a horrible creep.

Joysmum · 15/12/2015 23:37

So glad you found that email, best to have more so it wasn't just the 'drunken groping' the apologists would have you believe.

It's not nice understatement of the year but at least you can be more sure of your judgement.

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AnchorDownDeepBreath · 15/12/2015 23:38

I'm so sorry, OP. I think you knew from the look, to be honest and that's why it hurt so much, but that won't make it any easier.

Do look after yourself.

MacFox · 15/12/2015 23:38

I think his behaviour was more than just wannabe-cheating, imo, he was very careless, he clearly didn't care that he was letting everybody see how attracted he was to her. He did it in full view of you, and colleagues, and your mum! FGS, how humiliating for you. I'd find that absolute lack of respect for my dignity just as hard to forgive as the drunken groping and testing the waters. And then of course there's the issue that if he feels that way about somebody before you've even had children, spare yourself the agony of having a baby with him and wondering who he's with, if he wants to be with you etc.....

summerainbow · 15/12/2015 23:39

Have you seen what dr fox was charged with.
Your DP sexual assaulted a woman in front of you and work mates .
I would contacting the women concerned and you saw your DP assaulted and does she want a witness when she goes to police.

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