Hello all. After some advice as I don't know if I am too damaged for a relationship, or if my boyfriend really is a bit iffy.
My husband killed himself in January after an affair (and some other problems). We had been splitting up for a while when it happened and I decided to take the plunge with online dating after 6 months.
I met a bloke I really liked quite fast and he was lovely and we had a great time. I know it all sounds a bit fast but after a month or two he said he was in love with me and we met each other's children and have had a lovely time (please don't judge on the meeting children thing; I'm a total novice at this and because I'm a lone parent and it's just me entirely (I have three young ones), it was much easier to see each other with our respective kids and he is great with mine and clearly a good dad with his son).
Anyway, we have had a few ups and downs already and some of this is him and some of it is me overreacting (I definitely have suicidal/unfaithful husband baggage).
But, a while back he said he was going to meet up with a woman he had met online a few years ago who had gotten back in touch. He said he had told her he was loved up with me but was going to have dinner with her as friends. My worry was they had never been friends as such; from what I could make out it was a short lived romance that she ended. I said I wasn't comfortable and so he said he wouldnt go.
This weekend we went away together and he mentioned she had been in touch again and was it alright if he met up with her? I said no not really, as she is an ex tinder shag, not a mate and how would he feel in reverse? He said he wouldn't feel great and agreed he shouldn't go.
I was a bit pissed off as I'd already said I wasn't comfortable with this, which he claimed not to remember. Anyway, over the course of the next day it came out (I probed, I admit) that he had gotten in touch with her to arrange to meet up when we had briefly split 6 weeks ago (my instigation when I overreacted about something), in a fit of pique. He said he was been hurt and angry I had dumped him and he got in touch with her to make himself feel better. We then sorted things out but unbeknownst to me, the 'date' was still kind of on the table but hadn't actually happened yet. He gave an inconsistent story about the text chat with her around this (first off he said she had gotten in touch with him, then admitted he had instigated it, then said she had chased down a day and he had avoided it, then he said he had chased it). He maintains though that once we had sorted out our issues and I had undumped him, it became 'just mates' again.
The killer was that I asked to see these messages and...he had deleted them. Because he said 'he felt ashamed.' I said there is only one reason people delete texts. Because they are incriminating.
He has said he will try and retrieve them and I have told him he needs to either do this or I want to see screen shots, which he will need to ask her for. It's not like me at all but we have the potential to get quite serious and I don't want to make a mistake.
Am I mad? This is a bit too soon for me isn't it. Thing is, he is very attentive and sweet. Never gives me reason usually to doubt him on this stuff. I don't know if he's a lying arse or I'm just up to my eyeballs in issues. He maintains there was no intent once we'd gotten back together (the split lasted 48 hours) and that the point is, he told me about the date before it happened.
Sorry if I sound like a teenager. It's been a funny year.