Should I be worried

[Overlyworried]

So DP goes to a works colleagues leaving meal/party a couple of Saturdays ago (were both early forties). Plan is for me to collect her at the end of the evening so she can drink, it's about a 15min drive from where we live. Following discussions before she leaves, I'm under the impression that the party will be finishing at 11pm, and ask her to text me near the time to confirm. She leaves at 7pm, I get a couple of texts at 9pm saying she's having fun. then nothing until 11:45pm.

I texed at 10:30pm asking if she wanted to leave at 11pm. At 11pm I text to say ok i'm on my way, I know this type of thing will overrun, so not too worried as yet. I arrive around 11:15pm and text to say waiting outside. and get no reply. I'm not sure which house in the road the party is at, she just told me the road name. 11:30pm still no reply, So by this time I'm a little annoyed she's not texted or called to let me know when I'm supposed to pick her up, and I text to say i'm heading back home, please let me know when you want collecting. I can see she's not read the text's i've sent but has received them.

I go home and shower, she's texted while i'm in shower. saying Sorry. then a text a couple of mins later saying she'll get a taxi.

I had promised to pick her up and had every intention to still do so, and her text messages were so short and abrupt, most unlike her that started me worrying. So now i'm under the impression that she will be calling a taxi company and getting picked up asap. I text to say don't get a taxi, i'll be there in 15mins, jump in car drive back to the street and text to say i'm there. No text back. So by now i'm hoping she's not already got a taxi, and I can't just sit and keep texting, so I call her - no answer, and try again, before she answers the second time by now it's 12:15am. She answers, as though she's done nothing wrong, I tell her i'm waiting outside, she says she's not ready to leave yet. I say i thought you were going to get a taxi and i did not want us to waste money getting one. She says she'll be out soon, i wait about 10mins and she appears walking down road towards me.

I'm so cross with her actions, I say to her I don't want to talk (she was drunk so I knew it would be pointless)

a few days later I try to explain how i felt, that she had not bothered to let me know when to pick her up, and that she did not even call or text me for almost 3 hours. She does not understand why i'm so upset and just says sorry.

It's not the first time it's happened, (Christmas work party at a hotel and another occasion, all in the past 7 months) I think every time she's actually been out on her own she's not bothered to stay in touch or call me to confirm pickup time, which is why I feel that once she's drunk she forgets about me. She said previously it's rude to call me when she goes out with her work colleagues so i have to text. And the reason she said she could not reply to my texts was because her phone was in her handbag under the table and it would be rude to use the phone while at table with everyone, apparently no one else there would dream of looking at their phones during this time. I also found out meal finished at 11pm, but they went away from table so she still had no access to the phone then either. So i was feeling a little unloved, well that's how I was feeling until today when I see that she's be-friended a younger single guy on facebook who was at this meal/party 2 weeks ago, who lives in the same town she works in and the party was in. My head is spinning, was she just seeing this guy after the party, was she at the party?

We've been together seriously for almost a year, i'd known her for a couple of years before that, and she's never friended any other males on facebook in that time, she has other male friends on there but not since we met. This guy at party was son of person who was leaving the company, i can tell by his surname.

I asked who he was this morning via text and she replied you've nothing to worry about. when i said i was worried she just replied sorry.

What do I do ? things have not been great since that party, I texted her this morning to say i think it best if i stay in hotel tonight. I feel so hurt that she does not care how I feel and that she does not understand why i'd be upset. I wanted to talk to her last night, but when I got back home from playing football in the evening she'd drunk a bottle of wine and I new talking again would be useless. Why would she need to drink a bottle of wine in a few hours? again i don't understand.

Waiting for you to engage with the rest of what I said.

Gaslighting doesn't work so well when everything you've said was in writing.

Original version:

I'm under the impression that the party will be finishing at 11pm, and ask her to text me near the time to confirm.

Amended version when called out on shitty abusive behaviour:

She'd said it would finish at 11pm and that's when i was to pick her up, she gave no indication that she did not want me to do this. I said i'd pick her up, that was the agreed time

Engage with what I said or take your gaslighting bullshit elsewhere.

You are only together a year and this is excessive.

You keep repeating "she said 11pm", do you tend to be rigid in your thinking? Have others said you might be inflexible?

Most of us think she was having a good time, phone in her bag and lost track of time but you are jumping to other conclusions..that is not healthy.

Maybe you would benefit from CBT to help readjust your thought patterns.

I do think its also control more than love, what was your childhood like?

I'd have got rid of you for all that.

Controlling and paranoid. And jealous.

The unholy trinity.

No thanks

No, I think your DP is right. Nothing worse than having to check in every 5 minutes. When you're out at a party or whatever, that last thing you want to do is be on the phone answering texts.

Let her go out and find her own way home.

Facebook - my friends are full of work colleagues, young, old, male, female and the numbers always go up after a social.

Just relax.

I'm under the impression that the party will be finishing at 11pm, and ask her to text me near the time to confirm

So you and she did NOT agree that she should be collected at 11 pm.

You decided that because you were 'under the impression' that she'd be ready at 11 pm that you'd collect her then

You should controlling, clingy and needy , OP.

As far as I can see your DP has done nothing wrong. She's had fun and made a new fb friend.

Do you think she wants to leave you because she wants to be with this new friend? Maybe she is thinking of leaving you because you're too needy?

You are wayyyy out of line OP. If you want your relationship to continue I suggest you back off...the 11pm thing was unfortunate but after that why were you pestering her with texts and phone calls and then turning up? Picking apart her evening (meal finished at 11pm, why didn't she look at her phone then), and feeling unloved because she is out having fun without you is borderline creepy!! Also, monitoring who she is friends with on Facebook and going through who has liked her pictures?! You sound like a teenage girl...please apologise and maybe speak to someone about why you feel a need to be so controlling.

What gruffalina said.

Why on earth were you even pushing to pick her up? That's what taxis are for.

Normal situation with a grilfriend is: she goes out, she doesn't text/call/message you at all while out, she gets a cab home when she wants, meanwhile you are doing something else entirely that is unrelated to her. Try that instead.

Do stay in a hotel tonight. She needs space to think about how wrong your behaviour is.

I've not experienced working in an office with lots of people.

Then you should have been guided by your DPs actions and not done what YOU thought was right. As you had no clue

Gruffalina72, I'd asked her before she left what time she wanted me to pick her up. She said the party was due to finish at 11pm. that was the conversation. so no, she never said pick me up at 11pm. But I thought, and obviously wrongly, that was when she wanted picking up.
She said afterwords that she should have texted to say don't pick me up at 11pm, and that she'd forgotten what the time was. I new the meal finished at 11pm as she told me.

Bold:Then you should have been guided by your DPs actions and not done what YOU thought was right. As you had no clue

That's a fair point.

OK i did not realise that it was rude to call/text when out with work friends.

It's rude with any kind of friends or fellow humans. But you know that.

When I go to the pub for an evening with my friends I would always reply to her

And this is the same as expecting her to remain in constant contact, being put out that she'll only text not call while she's out with other people, and turning up outside twice to enforce her leaving time, how?

You can't manipulate us the way you manipulate her.

How old are you both?

40s

I think every time she's actually been out on her own she's not bothered to stay in touch.

She is going out for a few hours, why would she need to keep in touch?

I did not used to contact DH at all when I was out until I had a child and then it was a quick text to ask if DD was OK. This is entirely for my benefit (unless there was a disaster he would say fine). If she was away for 24 hours a quick text would be nice but not essential.

We'd agreed that I'd pick her up at 11pm

so no, she never said pick me up at 11pm.

Pick a version, mate.

When do you plan to respond to the point made repeatedly here that you are abusing her?

Jesus Christ you sound about 15

Op I won't lay into you like pp have, I'll try be as gentle as possible as I think you have serious insecurity issues. Your dp has done NOTHING wrong here, she is entitled to have nights out with whomever she likes and not have to check her phone every few mins for messages from you, she said she'd take a taxi and you should have left it from there on. You need to apologize to her about the whole thing and not threaten her with leaving, it's wrong and it is manipulative and won't achieve anything.
Back to your insecurities, firstly you need to examine your relationship, has your dp ever behaved in an untrustworthy way? Ie, cheated, flirted, lied to you? Etc? If so then this is possibly the reason you are acting so insecure and controlling. However I suspect she hasn't and really that your problems lie with your own self esteem. Do you have your own friends? Social life? I think you need to seriously recognize that this is a problem with you and you need therapy to work through the reasons why you are acting so unreasonable and controlling, because as pp have said you will ruin this relationship and any future ones if you can't get your own issues fixed.

I think we both like to be aware of what the other is doing, we've both been cheated on in the past. We normally have a very close relationship, texting and calling each other all throughout the day. But that's now stopped.

Your reactions indicate either you have been cheated on previously or you've cheated on others so you are looking for signs (they aren't there from what you've said) or that you are used to controlling what your partner does.

Perfectly normal not to text on a night out. Perfectly normal to get a taxi home (spending her own money as she sees fit).

Lots of red flags. DH and I never text each other when we go out separately, other than possibly one to see how the DCs have been or send a silly photo or something. But it's is not expected nor is it a given it will happen.

If you had genuinely agreed to collect her at a set time then she has messed you around and owes you an apology. From your subsequent posts though, I don't think that's what happened. It sounds like she thought she could message you when she wanted a lift (no specified time), and when she thought she'd get a cab instead which would have been easier all round, instead of going to bed like a normal person you insisted on going back out. You are trying to convince yourself you were white knighting but I think it was more you were miffed that she was having a good time without you. As for stalking her FB page - how embarrassing. You're in your 40s!
You need to relax the control. The more you try and stifle her, the more she'll pull away - quite rightly. You are adults, she has given you no reason not to trust her. Chill out.

If it's all perfectly normal, then the answer to my initial questions is no, I have nothing to worry about. thank you all for listening to me. I will tell my DP I now understand that.

What do I do ? ... I wanted to talk to her last night, but when I got back home from playing football in the evening she'd drunk a bottle of wine and I new talking again would be useless. Why would she need to drink a bottle of wine in a few hours? again i don't understand.

You are scary levels of controlling. Your poor DP.

She has done NOTHING wrong.

She can drink a bottle of wine if she feels like it.

You seem to do whatever you bloody well want! But how dare she have wine or not be glued to her phone to you when out with others.

So In answer to your question of what do you do?

Apologise to her for being such a controlling abusive partner.

Send her a link to this thread. She might be interested in some of the responses 💅