To think I should walk away after this?

[Ariesnight]

Hi all.
Regular user but name changed. I just want to get this off my chest.

Been seeing current partner since September 2021. Long story short in the early days of dating he said he works with another female manager (he’s also a manager) who kept calling him etc and it started feeling over familiar so he cut off contact with her other than essential communication. This was before we got together but just came up in conversation once. I’ll come back to this shortly.

Moving on to the present day…I had my appendix removed via keyhole surgery two weeks ago. They said when they were operating they saw inflammation and scarring around my Fallopian tubes and ovaries and it looked like Pelvic Inflammatory Disease, most commonly caused by an STD, and to get my partner to get tested.

I asked him to message his previous sexual partner which he has always proclaimed was in Dec 2020 and no one else since and he was going to get tested. When we got together last year he said the same story… last sexual partner was dec 2020 etc etc.
A few days after my surgery when I asked if he had booked to get himself tested he said yes and then i had a gut feeling to just ask if he was sure he hadn’t slept with anyone else because it’s important they know to check themselves and he said ‘oh there was another one in July 2021 which to be honest I forgot about’. How an earth do you just forget you slept with someone? Red flag.

So…I’m in the wrong on this next bit and I’ll accept that. So I have shamelessly checked his phone to be sure he has messaged these people as he weirdly lied about the other person. He has messaged them. But the July person he mentioned - they have months worth of communication with intimate messages etc way before July so there’s no way he would’ve forgotten her, he just chose not to be honest for some bizarre reason. Secondly, whilst I was on there, he has messaged the female manager two weeks ago saying ‘happy new year, I feel we haven’t spoke in ages, how’re you doing?xx’ whilst I was in hospital. She never replied.

I just now feel like it was him initiating the contact with her when he made her out to be pursuing him?! I find it so odd.

Of course prior to our relationship he can do what he wants but I don’t understand why he’s lied about things when he didn’t need to. It doesn’t bode well for the future.

He’s good to me in many ways but I feel I can never trust him now. I’m wrong for looking at his phone but I’m glad I did because my gut was right I knew he was lying about things for whatever reason.

Bump

Have you asked him why he lied?

No I wouldn't want want anything to do with him after that. Messaging someone else while you were in hospital after telling you he'd had to cut contact because she was pursuing him?! Not a chance. Get well soon.

Oh and the lying... No!!! You deserve much better, especially after being unwell.

I haven’t asked him yet. But I’m going to. I was putting it off because it just makes me uncomfortable to have this conversation. And I know he might down play it and say we weren’t together so why does it matter etc. I just can’t stand white lies. Especially when there is no logical reason for him to have told these lies.
I’m going to confront him about it but I won’t be able to move past this. I worry when people tell small lies they are more likely to tell bigger ones.

I think you are probably not compatible.
You are on some high alert now and every little thing will be suspicious to you.
It’s an early relationship, so cut your losses and move on.

But in general - it’s completely normal to forget specific dates. Especially when something wasn’t particular serious or long.
Personally - I often remember the season, for example remember traveling to place X in a spring in last couple of years. But as to the year - I’d often have to check in a calendar.

Last few years of covid seem particularly jumbled. Have to make a particular mental effort to pin point dates of this or that being before/after 1st/2nd/3rd… lockdown..

Yes that’s how I feel. I do feel as though I will be on high alert. Because the other person he ‘forgot about’ was only two months before we got together and they’d been messaging and meeting for months by the looks of the messages so to me it does seem really unlikely that a person would just forget that after just two months had passed.
The reason I find it so strange is that I’ve never asked who he’s been with etc I have no interest and of course it’s not my business to ask invasive questions so he’s never been cornered by me or pressured in to lying. It’s just voluntary white lies which I find strange and perhaps he’s trying to come across in the best light but I have been burned before by this sort of thing so for me I feel as though it’s not even worth the hassle.

I'd guess he was keeping his options open with the forgotten one. Why lie otherwise? It makes no sense

But you don't have to have it out with him. It's pointless - he's not made the grade and rightly so. Deal with it however is easiest for you, you have no obligation to justify yourself to a liar. Or anyone, really, beyond 'This isn't working for me and I don't want to not be honest with you, it's time for us to move on.'

Do you think he messaged other manager as a way in to ask her to get tested?

Id agree with what snug said

He could well have been messaging about the test. In which case that would be another lie as she has a partner who she has been with for years and that’s why he shut down their over familiar conversations because he didn’t want to get involved with her in that way…..apparently.

If you know you can't get over this and you're definitely going to split up, I wouldn't bother with the conversation because what's to be gained from it? Are you going to believe whatever he says? I'd stop at telling him it's over. If he insists on knowing why, I'd say you've caught him out in some lies which is a deal breaker for you and you don't want to discuss it further. Any discussion is only going to turn into a row, why do that to yourself?

OP - in your place i’s stop and not try to let it snowball, which you already started doing.
There is absolutely no reason to start suspecting him of trying it on with his fellow manger.
Your trust issues are going into overdrive here. You don’t know him well enough yet, and your history of broken trust with others aren’t helping.

For a more robust person - an omission of some past sexual history won’t be an issue. I certainly never fully disclosed to people I dated. And especially people I just started dating. If felt too much like forced to be oversharing that I wasn’t ready for.
And any more recent experiences may have generated questions, issues or insecurities on the other party side. So, while lies on that are perfectly normal and acceptable.

But it triggered you - so just leave and do some healing.

It's not white lies either, the purpose of those is to spare your feelings, these lies have had the opposite effect. They're just lies, not "white lies" with kindness behind them.

oh boy, I'd put my health first. You need to not be re-infected and you cannot trust him not to lie.

Even if it might not be as bad as it seems, and it looks bad, just focus on recovery. I know key hole surgery is not a major big deal and I don't mean to imply you're debilitated here but I'd have got a big shock in your shoes. I would be so turned off it'd be easy to end it.

By the way, he's a liar. And they don't like being exposed.

So if you do try and have it out with him, he will absolutely make out you're the bad one for going through his phone. Anything to try and deflect from his lies.

I do consider myself a robust person but I just have boundaries regarding unnecessary deception. It’s bizarre to me. He tells me all the time how comfortable he feels with me and that he knows he could tell my anything without any worry of what I would think - so why lie?
Yeah I think that I’m just going to swerve this one and not over explain. It’s pointless and may seem petty or small to him but it’s big to me.

The trust has gone

Will you ever be able to trust him again? Once the trust has gone it’s gone, there will always be a nagging doubt at the bank of our mind

Your mind not out mind!

OMFG I give up!!

There will be a reason why this previous relationship will not show him in a good light. That’s why he hid it. With my STBXH, I’ve just discovered a similar situation. A previous relationship before we met that he never mentioned, that got to the “I love you” stage. I met him six months after his wife died, which was considered by his friends and family as very soon (I would now agree). So to have fitted someone else in before me definitely doesn’t cover him in glory. The question is, do you want to know and/or do you care?