Hi everyone,
NC for this post. I need a (gentle please) sanity check in those weird lockdown times.
Sorry it’s a novel.
I have been talking to a guy for about 2 months. Getting along great, genuinely and surprisingly a lot in common. He is separated from his long term partner for over a year, in (very....) good terms.
Probably due to the lockdown we spent more time chatting, texting, speaking etc before meeting than we would have in normal circumstances. We agreed to meet after lockdown was lifted initially when back at work/office for lunch.
We eventually went for a walk in the park the week we became allowed to have social distance walk with friends and have done so 2/3 times a week since. It was actually nice because taking away the dating/restaurant/physical contact aspect we got to know each other quite well.
A few things niggle me and I can’t work out if it’s the current context or if his ex is actually an ex before taking it further with him:
- he has his kids every weekend (explanation is the ex home schools them all week at the moment so he has them every weekend to give her a break)
- He works long hours (type of work that carried on during lockdown) and goes home late so I realised we haven’t actually spoken on the phone after he gets home. Again, he does finish late so could be or not?
- he goes very quiet at the weekend (he has the kids, it’s hectic - fine). But realised a pattern these past couple of weeks... he picks up DCs early Saturday and doesn’t mention when drops them off on Sundays. Didn’t pay too much attention to it at first but then I wonder why not call me for a chat on Sunday night
- lots of selfies from his room at bed time (alone in bed and lots of mess - boys room) - definitely not a partnered up man with a woman around
- we started to talk about spending time alone and I explained that no one comes to my house and meet DCs until relationship is solid and he is here to stay which he didn’t seem phased by. I suggested twice coming to visit him on a Friday evening at some point he changed the subject faster than you can say ‘how many sugar in your tea...’. He eventually said he has his kids from Friday night mostly (since i started speaking to him he said Saturday morning)
- had a bit of a domestic situation a few weeks ago and he was very supportive. It was quite late but I was rushed and he was home so asked to call him to be handsfree instead of texting. Suddenly he had a migraine and went to bed.
- he was driving back from work really late one night this week and was very tired so we were sending each other voice messages to make sure he wasn’t falling asleep at the wheel. All of a sudden, he started to be very pushy about videocalling to keep him company. I was in bed with no make up and said no. At that point, I had a red flag flashing in my head and insisted that I would videocall him for 5 minutes when he gets home to make sure he was ok. He must have been aback as I’m usually laidback and all of a sudden was so tired that ‘his speech was slurred’! He texted me when he got home and carried on texting lovely things for over half an hour when I ignored his messages was he not about to suddenly pass out?
- He commented his ex made his life a misery because she was jealous, constantly accusing him of cheating. He confessed to a one month after years ago nothing else since (that’s was started my suspicions then again, he didn’t have to tell me. His body language when he told me was remorseful, sad and ashamed. He said he wanted answer all my questions honestly.
- Finally he tries really hard to shift me off whatsapp towards normal texts especially when he is home.
If you made it this far, what do you think?
