Shock at lies of boyfriend

[Natmags]

Hi everyone! I'm a single mom.of 3 aged between 20.and 11 and almost a year ago I went on a date with a nice guy, we arranged a second date for the following week and a third for the week after, all going well messaging everyday sometimes chatting on the phone. During these first 3 weeks he went to berlin one weekend and had his 3 boys one weekend, each time sending me photos of what he was doing including some of his sons. Our 4th date was a day long date lots of fun, he arranged activities and an amazing restaurant and we ended up sleeping together before I usually would and we hadn't the chat about exclusivity. I discussed with friends but he seemed so lovely and into me and attentive and thoughtful and came across as very open and honest so i decided not to stress i had no reason to beleive he was anything but into me and always messaging etc. The weekend after he went to his parents with his sons...again sending me pics and in the half term week went to his friends with his boys for a Halloween party again sending me pics. We met at the weekend and slept together again and the week after we had 2 dates and he officially asked me to be his girlfriend. With my ex being difficult and jealous and the pandemic things havent been easy for us but we have never argued, he has always made me feel special and has been thoughtful, attentive kind and caring, taking me away for weekends etc. We didn't meet each others children until July to be cautious but also because of the pandemic and went to cornwall for a week in the summer without children. On this holiday we chatted about when we first met and he mentioned he had been on a date just after our first date and I said so had I. We laughed about it and carried on fine, no harm early days etc.and neither of us dated anyone after our 3rd date. When I got home I went through our old messages as I couldnr remember of my date was after the 1st or 2nd date and didnt want to seem deceptive in any way and was also a little bored! I saw he had stayed at a friends over night after our 2and date who he said was upset and went out with a friend after we slept together but didnt send a photo of who he was with as he usually would either time. I asked him about this and he admitted the friend he stayed over at was a woman he dated and had told me about ... he had met her children by their 2and date but nothing happened she was just a friend and they had decided to be friends by that point and that was all.that happened. And that he really did have just drinks with a guy from work and showed me a photo on his phone from that night of them. I decided to beleive him but then 3 weeks later we were discussing the halloween party he went to with his children and he told me it was at the same womens house he stayed over at ... I was not impressed obviously and went through the messages on my phone and realised he had been with her and her children and had been staying over when he had his children too and twice had been there alone one being the one I knew about...he had been there 3 nights in total after we slept together.

He promised he was telling the truth, said he didnt want to tell me as he realised it looked so bad and at the time I never asked what friends he was at sonhebthkught I must also be dating. He swore he never slept with her, said she had some intimacy issues and there was no spark when they had kissed, which was one of the reasons they stayed friends and he always slept on the sofa as she lived over an hour away he didnt drive home. He said the kids got along and he doesnt have friends with children the same age which is true so was convenient tonmeet together but he deeply regretted introducing them and thats why he was happy to wait /agreed when we met each others children would be over 6 months into our relationship. After lots of questions he finally admitted he was sleeping with her going with his boys to her house, sleeping in her bed and the children knew. they started dating in August , the kids met each other at the end of august and each time he was sending me images of the kids he was with her and her kids who were also in some of the photos as was her house. He also slept with her after he slept with me on 3 nights, with one being 24 hours difference .

I feel in shock and have turned to friends for advice and had mixed reactions.
Some say hes a liar, he promised he was telling the truth repeatedly and he wasnt, he made up bigger exaggerated lies, I had to keep asking him to tell the truth because his story didnt make sense. He treated her terribly and was disrespectful to me, her and all the children.
Some say he wasnt in an exclusive relationship with either of us( as far as I know he said he never had the talk with her), has been faithful and a great boyfriend since so i should forgive his actions last October as it wasnt cheating..on me anyway! ).but have to work out how I feel about the lies.

We are both upset and I have said some horrible things. He has admitted he was callous and selfish and it was a mistake to go with his boys to hers at all but he was messed up from his divorce, a previous gf cheating on him.and breaking his arm and being stuck in for 3 months alone unable to drive or work and hardly able to see his boys as his ex doesnt drive..he was living in a 1 bedroom flat and his mental health wasnt great so.the days out ith the children that started as more friendly developed into a sexual relationship and he never meant to hurt anyone and had no idea in october how much I would mean to him as our relationship developed and lots of other declarations of love. He said he and her weren't exclusive and he didnt end things when he should have because of the children, he bonded with her autistic son and always planned to end the relationship after the halloween party as he promised his children they would go and they were looking forward to it.and he thought it would be kinder than cancelling especially for me when he wasnt sure at the time I wasnt seeing anyone or wanted to be exclusive

What he chose to do is horrible
To me
To her
To the children
It makes me question his morals

I cant stop thinking about him having sex with me one night and her the night before.

I do accept we werent exclusive but I really thought he was a better kind of man ...I never suspected other women because he was so available...and sending pics of kids meant I never would have guessed he was basically already in a relationship and with her and with his children

He was also messaging me kiss emojis and gifs saying I was amazing and he booked a weekend for us in the malverns while at her house, all of that combined makes me feel those first few weeks I should feel so sweet about are now sour and hurtful.and he is capable of quite deep deceit
Even though I know he did not have to answer honestly about the halloween party I also think.at some point surely one of his boys may have said something so being deceptive in august when directlunasked about his relationship with her was also wrong .
I don't feel I can trust him and I'm not sure I can look at him the same way or be intimate but also miss him so much and am upset as I had started to feel this was potentially a life.long relationship we were such a good match

Has anyone any advice or experience dealing with such a horrid situation ?

You are a grown woman and your post is very teenage drama. You don't need that.

I can't offer any advice as I'm on the fence a bit.
That said, his lies have been quite deliberately misleading, I think, and makes me wonder how he's so good at it.

If you don’t feel that you can trust him then draw a line under it and move on. It is still relatively early days.

The issue you face is that you will probably always harbour resentment towards him and can you trust him again? Probably not.

Sorry to sound harsh but given what you have said and the tone of your message, I think you know that there is no way forward regardless of whether you were or weren’t exclusive at the time of his clandestine adventures.

Wishing you the best

Why would you even consider wasting more time on this twat? Give your head a wobble.

That's a good point.
Things are incredibly complicated already.
It doesn't bode well for the future.

I think the fact that the kids got dragged into all of this tells you all you need to know about this man.
Who drags their children along to a house when they're just going for a shag with a woman they're not exclusive with...and what was he doing sending pictures of his kids to you after only knowing you a matter of days.

He's clearly not a great person and if he doesn't care if his kids get mixed up in that stuff then he won't care too much about the women involved either!

I don't think being open and honest is this man's strong point. Yes it was early days, but he clearly let you believe the situation was very different to how it really was. I think this suggests he probably isn't very trustworthy. In your position I'd feel hurt and angry and would want nothing to do with him

My only advice is very simple. You don’t need to convince yourself to accept behaviours you dislike just because you didn’t know you were not exclusive.

Honesty doesn’t necessarily make things right, the amount of lying is staggering, you cannot build a relationship with someone you can’t trust. Let him go and chalk it up to experience.

Yeah I wouldn't touch him with a bargepole, especially given you had to practically force the truth out of him, and the lies were so elaborate.

In short he's a very accomplished liar.

He sounds like a bit of a musician around women, opting to 'play' them...sounds like your being played!

I really thought he was a better kind of man

He's really not, engage ick asap.

The grey area of 'were we exclusive or not' is a total red herring, It is the lying afterwards that is the real problem.
You had to continually question and drag it out of him whilst he lied to your face and promised he was being honest.
He has shown he can and will lie to you, so you have to decide is that something you can tolerate going forward.

As someone else mentioned, this all sounds like a teenager talking, not a mature woman. Surely you could have worked out this mans way of operating, and not got roped in by his crap chat.

He is a very deceitful man. He deliberately misled you and sent photos to cover his cheating. As others have said you sound teenage. Give your head a shake and end it. He is a liar and you will neve r trust him.

What is a concern is this man uses women so that he doesn't feel alone. He always has someone lined up and probadly never been truly single.

He used the other woman, lied to her and lied to you. I can't imagine she invited him into her home and bed knowing you existed. Can you imagine how he must have played her?

He is hoping you believe his excuses but at best it reveals he is a weak man who puts his needs first and then lies to cover up.

If you continue to stay with him history will repeat itself..he is a very good liar.

Maybe I’m old fashioned but I don’t get the whole exclusivity talk thing. So essentially people can sleep with whoever and however many people they want if they haven’t agreed with someone that they’re exclusive? All sounds a bit grim to me.

The thing that struck me was the fact that he said he didn’t want to end the relationship before Halloween because he didn’t want to disappoint anyone. This rang a bell for me because I have been there. Bloke who showed an interest in me but told me he couldn’t be with me until he ended things with his gf, but first he wanted to take her on holiday. [hmm[ Suffice to say I moved on, and when I started seeing someone else he reacted as if I had cheated on him. But still went on to have a relationship with the girlfriend for another five years....

It’s the classic wants to have his cake and eat it. Not sure if he wants to keep seeing one but lining up the other one just in case.

He’s probably shagging multiple other women.

Move on.

I have read before about men treating women terribly then going on to being a respectful partner. Perhaps he’s on the way to being one or maybe he’s gaslighting you. I wouldn’t be able to forgive this personally. Your story puts me in mind of what happened when I was 19. (Yes 19... because this is very teenage and a similar mentality). I told him I’d snogged someone else after our 3rd date. He was all offended and “mr morality”. Then he confessed months later he’d slept with someone several times later in the relationship after we got more serous.

He sounds like a practiced, manipulative liar.

Get shot of him. Once trust has gone...it has gone for good.

This sexually incontinent, lying liar has no integrity. Why on earth would you even consider going forward with him? The way he manipulated and used all of you is despicable.

He certainly hasn’t been a “great boyfriend,” as there has been a festering cancer of lies beneath all of the good times.

I would have lost all respect and trust. Would you advise your children to put their faith in a manipulative deceiver?

I’m in the same place my love.

Two months in and I found out that the person I was falling madly in love with was still having sex with someone else after about 5 weeks and 8/9 dates. I found out after about 8/9 weeks. I also found out that he was chatting online with someone else sexually and sharing pictures AFTER he told me that he loved me.

Fast forward 18 months and I’m really not feeling good about the relationship. Mostly due to trust. The illusion and bubble are gone and I’m left with something that doesn’t feel right and a man that can clearly lie and deceive for England! Not the man I thought I met at all.

My advice: if you don’t trust him now, you never will. There will always be a doubt regardless of how much you love him.

Hi everyone, many thanks for your replies. I did end the relationship the day I found out, which was Saturday, so this is all very new and I feel blindsided as well as confused by friends reactions that in relationships often there is something hidden at the start, people arent always completely truthful and in modern dating things can be confusing and sometimes there is overlap n the beginning and it was almost a year ago, but he has been reliable, supportive, in fact slightly obsessed with me ( yes this now worries me ).and generally wonderful since...until the lies started vomiting from his mouth to protect himself or from his perspective to not let him being a twat.in the beginning by getting himself into situation he deeply regrets nd is ashamed of because he was a little screwed up.and let his bitterness hurt her and in the process me, the 'love of his life' . Add to this I only introduced him to my older children two weeks ago when he came to help me do some D.I.Y. ( without staying over) because I have to be very careful with my children as my ex is a nightmare.
I do feel and have been gaslighted and thought I was more savvy than that! So my pride is hurt too. But I am not going to be hard on myself...if I had thought he was with another woman when he was with his children i would have some serious trust issues.

Why are you still with him *@talltreewessex?

*@Natmags you would be silly to carry on with this man.

@Natmags I feel for you.

I think I’d end it my love. It’s not easy, as you’ve been together now for over a year. But he’s an accomplished liar, how will you ever trust him again.

You can do better.

@SunshineCake I love him. He’s been punished like hell and regrets it massively.

He’s as strong as an ox, my soulmate and I guess I can’t part with him. He’ll never do it again

He’s a liar.

I also think it’s pretty shit that he was sending images of HER kids to you to use as his cover story! What gives him the right to send images of other people’s kids to women he’s also just having sex with.

He met her in August, sept and I’m guessing October ... so for 3 months... and you are only presuming they didn’t have an exclusive chat. Not that you could believe anything he says anyway.