If a cheating partner has offered for you to look at their phone, have you ever done it?

[saturdaycoffee]

Couldn’t find a succinct title for this.

I have been together with my partner for a year. I recently found out that when we got together, he was also seeing someone else. We briefly split up about it, but got back together, and he said that he understood why I would find it difficult to trust him again, and offered for me to look through his phone whenever I wanted, so I could reassure myself he wasn’t texting anyone he shouldn’t be.

Fast forward a few months, and I feel really uneasy. He is on WhatsApp/FB messenger almost all the time. Whenever I go online to text him, he is already online, and not texting me. I realise this sounds a bit paranoid, but if he hadn’t lied to me in the past I don’t think I’d feel so worried about it.

Do I ask to look at his phone, given that he had offered that as an option in the past? And how do I even ask to do that? I know he had offered it, but I am worried that if I ask he will think I still don’t trust him at all. I’m working on it, and he knows that. But it’s really hard.

I think I've just reached the point of the straw that broke the camel's back.

He is away this week doing some volunteer work with a charity he helps out with. Part of the week involves camping, and a text conversation today led him to tell me that when he was married, he had sex in a tent full of people with someone other than his wife, on a course similar to the one he is doing now.

I just feel completely sick. I knew he cheated on his wife. I have chosen to put that in a box of "his past stuff". But FFS, why the hell tell me about it now? And why tell me the details? There's not a shred of remorse. It almost sounded boastful.

I am never going to be able to trust this guy. And it's not because of me. It's because he has a past full of stuff like this, and despite his assurances that he's left all that behind, I can't unknow the stuff I know, and I can't help think that it'll happen all over again. It was only a year ago that he got together with me, whilst still with his ex. Hardly a teenage mistake. He's in his mid 40's.

I have switched my phone off. I don't want to talk to him. I don't want to feel like this any more. I don't want to feel this anxiety. I don't want to feel these crushing lows. I don't want to feel sick thinking about what he's done in the past, or what he might do in the future.

He can (and does) promise me the world, but that's not enough when so much of the time I feel like this.

He probably promised his wife and his ex the world, too.

Boasting to you about betraying his wife by having risky sex in a tent full of people? Despicable.

He probably promised his wife and his ex the world, too.

Yep.

Boasting to you about betraying his wife by having risky sex in a tent full of people? Despicable.

Yep.

ah Saturday, I'm so sorry, I know how hard it is when you want to believe they're good people, but his moral compass seems non existent, the boasting about it would be enough for me too. Sorry you're going through this, but hopefully once you've done it you'll realise how much relief you feel not having to live life wondering and worrying x

This has just triggered off all of my anxiety all over again. I can’t deal with it any more. I just feel detached, and numb, and like I don’t care, because that’s the only way I can cope. I hate feeling like this. There’s no point, any more. I can’t imagine ever not worrying about what he’s doing and who he is with etc.

I’ve now got all the excuses of why he did it, why he said it, he didn’t mean it in the way that it came across etc etc.

"There’s no point, any more. I can’t imagine ever not worrying about what he’s doing and who he is with etc."

This is it - you had to reach the point you have in order to leave. You know that horrible ache in your stomach when you think he has lied / is with someone he promised he wouldn't see / makes you think you're mad etc? That gut punch feeling and constant anxiety?

You won't have it any more!!! I'm excited for you to have reached this point - it feels beyond shit now but it will feel beyond great in the long run.

Ps he sounds like an absolute dick - you're well rid.

I'm feeling so shit about all this today.

I'm feeling as though it's all my issue. "If only I could get over this and trust him..."

Why am I blaming myself for this???

It's rubbish, I guess your feeling like it because you still don't have proof he's done anything whilst being with you (apart from at the start). Only you can decide when you've reached your own breaking point, but for what it's worth I think none of this is doing you any good, and you'd be trying the trust the untrustable.

I think it’s reminding me of when I was with ExH. I took 5 years to leave him. And he still throws back at me “you didn’t try hard enough”. That’s what I feel here. It’s my fault it’s not going to work out, because I haven’t worked or tried hard enough to get over my anxiety/worry.