New boyfriend is having female holiday friend come to stay

[Flaxseedblueberry]

I’m embarrassed about how upset I am about this….

The situation is I’ve been seeing someone for 5 months. He’s great fun to be with and I really enjoy his company. He ticks nearly all the boxes of what I’m looking for. When we are together we get on fantastically, he’s been supportive over difficulties I have had with my ex and the sex is great. It’s been tricky coordinating diaries as we are both busy and I don’t always get the sense that he’s desperate to see me although he’s very good at keeping in text contact.

He went on a family adventure holiday for 2.5 weeks in August. He got friendly with another family - a single mum and her daughter who is the same age as his son. A couple of weeks ago he messaged to say she’d asked if she and her daughter could come to stay with him over half term (apparently he had said if she was ever in the area she should visit) and he wanted to know my thoughts before responding.

I felt totally sick at the thought but took some time to respond after getting opinions from friends who were unanimous that they wouldn’t like this either. (I needed friends views as I don’t always trust my feelings after being gaslighted by my ex for years.)

Anyway I responded and said sorry but it’s a deal breaker for me.It’s not even just that I would worry that something would go on between them, it’s also that this other woman would be getting quality time with him in a way that hasn’t come readily to me.

I think he was very surprised as he’d expected me to say I was fine with it. We had a long chat about whether we were right for each other as he feels he doesn’t always say the right things. He said he’d not given this woman an answer one way or the other and I thought/hoped it was just going to be dropped as a plan.

Then he seemed to really step up the effort and arranged a weekend away. We had an amazing time and got on so well. But as he dropped me back home I thought I should double check about the visit. Then he told me that he’d had a conversation with this woman several days prior and said she could come.

I feel absolutely devastated and since then my mood and anxiety have been awful. I’m so upset we went away and had lots of intimacy when he had already made a decision to do something I’d told him was a dealbreaker. I asked when he was planning to tell me and he said when I asked or nearer to the time. I feel like my feelings are not important to him. However I didn’t want to overreact so I’ve sat on it for the last week or so. I’ve seen him once since and I didn’t mention it and our text chats are mostly fun and lighthearted.

But I can’t sleep, I’m preoccupied with this and I feel utterly worthless. I feel if I say something he will say we are not compatible so I have to put up with this if I want the relationship to continue. He said he said yes to her as he had to be ‘true to himself’.

He has since said I could come and meet this woman but as he doesn’t want me to meet his son yet (as it’s early days which I understand, and I haven’t introduced my kids yet) I think he will backtrack on that nearer the time. I know nothing about her, not even her name let alone what she’s like, if she’s single or what she looks like. I can’t imagine meeting some bloke on holiday then arranging a visit but he tells me this is completely normal and most people do it and would be fine with it.

Sorry it’s long but I d be grateful for any advice as I don’t think I can cope with being this anxious for the next few weeks. My life is pretty difficult in a number of other ways and I just want some happiness and safety. Please be kind as I’m feeling sad and vulnerable.

You have to really value yourself.

I've been through the dating wringer so I know how hard it is to find someone attractive, who you have a connection with and can see a future with, and how hard it is to let go of that when you think you might have it.

But the best piece of advice I was ever given was: pay attention to how he makes you feel.

5 months in and he is making you feel like he is the prize, that he means more than you, and you have to spin yourself into contortions and disregard your own reasonable boundaries in order to win him. That is not the one for you. The one for you sees you as the catch and makes damn sure you know it. Your job is to learn how to like and respect yourself enough that when this one shows up, you are able to accept and embrace that kind of unequivocal love and respect, and don't run away from it thinking you must be too good for him.

You need to break up with this one because staying with him comes at the price of your own self respect, and no man is worth that. He is not the catch. You are. Back yourself, take your power. You will start to feel better. Don't play the game he is setting you up for.

OP didn't say anything about him "pretending" anything. She says she assumed it wasn't happening, then when she asked he told her it was. I thought/hoped it was just going to be dropped as a plan...I thought I should double check about the visit. Then he told me that he’d had a conversation with this woman several days prior and said she could come.

Like I said before, he was obviously surprised at the notion that his new GF thought she could control who his guests are, and I believe he took her away for the weekend in a clearly futile attempt to make her feel more secure in their relationship.

There's an awful lot of projection on this thread and I think a lot of people are far too invested in it for their own reasons. OP you can break up with him for any reason you like - you're obviously not compatible and have different expectations.

@Smineusername

That's it exactly. I totally agree.

Why ask her then? It’s weird.

He is a coward to not be upfront. She could and really should leave him but he was such a lowlife coward he didn’t even find a few vertebrae to announce his plans.

I bet he has given so many women the ick.

But yeah they are different and I agree she needs to cut bait and let him be a weak coward on someone else’s time.

I disagree. When your gf says something is a deal breaker and you go ahead and plan it anyway and don’t mention it while being very nice to your gf, you’re intentionally deceiving her.
additonally, he is happy to have a complete stranger stay in his house with his child but won’t even introduce his gf? That double standard would be me done. He can’t hold you at arms length and invite others in- your gf is supposed to be more trusted and included than strangers, even strangers you’ve hit it off with and strangers whose kids (who are also strangers) have hit it off with your child. Since you are not more trusted and included than strangers you should explain when you said deal breaker you meant dealbreaker and him going ahead with it and not telling you makes it worse not better, and that’s you out as you need a boyfriend who treats you better than he does complete strangers.

I haven't seen such a messed up theory in a long time. He took OP away for the weekend to make her feel more secure? Yet he deliberately did something he knew would be a dealbreaker (and it's not 'controlling' to say you don't agree with your boyfriend having a single woman stay over that he's only just met! That's called common sense!), and didn't tell her. If he wanted to make OP more secure, he would have been HONEST with her about it, not just not tell her. He lied to her. You don't make a woman feel more secure by inviting a single woman to stay over, when you know your partner is unhappy. Disregarding your partner's feelings won't make her 'more secure'. Lying to your partner wont make her 'more secure'.
In fact, it will have the exact opposite effect.

Making your partner more secure would be to respect your partner's feelings,
and,
be honest with her.

The player has done neither.

Right?!? I got that feeling as well.

It is a total cope in motion without any critical or logical thinking skills.

“Just ignore the facts of this low rent manipulation…. Let’s put it on her because a woman with boundaries is like…… oh wait! I Know! Controlling!… yeah that’s the ticket! Poor guy, he just want to deceive in peace and now has to deal with being found out for the truly ick inducing coward that he is….”

These types always tell on themselves. Tale as old as time…

As hard as it will be I would end this asap. It will only get worse. The fact that he's putting her before your feelings this early on into the relationship is a red flag. I would not be ok with this at all and wouldn't say it is normal!!
If you stay in the relationship now.. even if he changes his mind and stops her coming over, things will never be the same and you'll always have this situation looming over you and you'll always have something in the back of your mind questioning whether you can trust him or is he hiding something.
This guy is not worth your energy.

You told him it was a ‘deal breaker’ but he is going ahead. She’s taking him up on the offer which he made during the holiday. I would leave them to get on with it, especially as it’s not doing your mental health any good. 5 months where you haven’t spent a lot of time together and you haven’t met each others DC is not a bad time to move on, especially with everything else you have going on in your life. I don’t think you need to make a huge drama out of it though, end the relationship as amicably as possible with your dignity intact.

"Like I said before, he was obviously surprised at the notion that his new GF thought she could control who his guests are, and I believe he took her away for the weekend in a clearly futile attempt to make her feel more secure in their relationship."

Nice try. She said that if he had this woman to stay for a week, that it would be a dealbreaker for her relationship with him. That is not controlling who his guests are. It's setting HER OWN boundary around what sort of romantic relationship she wants. If a woman is ok with her steady boyfriend (and, sorry, 5 months is not "new girlfriend" territory, it's relationship territory) having other women he barely knows over to stay at his house for a week, on the pretext that it's totallyplatonic (suuuure) then that's her right. But if a woman does NOT want to be in a relationship under those conditions, that is ALSO her right. She has a right to set that boundary.

If he dislikes her boundary, then his appropriate boundary would be to say, "Well, I really want this woman to stay with me and I think you're being unreasonable so that's it then." And break up. But instead of being honest about his plans, he spent an intimate weekend with OP, despite having already told the other woman yes about staying over, and despite knowing it was a dealbreaker for OP. He lied by omission in order to elicit intimacy from OP.

His son is 14 and you still haven't met him after 5 months?! Sorry the whole thing is weird and he's not that serious. Stop wasting your time!

Exactly!

I know how it feels to be in a terrible situation and I wish I could give OP the strength just to ghost him cold turkey because he is jive.

He was deceptive while stealing intimacy from OP. I hope she ghosts him and never looks back. The manipulation game he threw out just wasn’t good enough! He doesn’t deserve anything more from her and he is dead set on having this other woman over despite the feelings he literally requested from her. … like a “nice guy” but he isn’t.

OP I hope in time you can be thankful that he is such an incredible coward (ewwww) who is devoid of any real cunning. He could have had you up against the ropes and dumbstruck for years… he could have been good enough to make you lower yourself in ways that you’d find yourself in a sunk cost fallacy dynamic.

He wasn’t. He isn’t good enough. He isn’t good enough for you.

Absolutely no way. If this is a deal breaker then the deal should be off. It all sounds like too much hard work for five months x

Be very interesting to read the text messages between them since the holiday...

It was a deal breaker before the weekend. Then he spent a romantic weekend with you, knowing that he was about to do something you had said was a deal breaker.

Isn't that a double deal breaker? He has made it worse and has been really manipulative and deceitful.

I'd call it a day and make sure he knows it's because he has tricked you.

Trust me I get where you are coming from. You say you don't want to react to your emotions. But it sounds like your emotions are in the right. Let them steer you in this case because trust me it will just a lot more in the long haul and you will look back and wish you had bit the bullet now and ate the pain. Because it will hurt a lot more later when he is selfish over and over again and then ends it on his terms further adding salt to the wounds.

I can’t believe you’re going along with this. Utterly bizarre. And you know it or you wouldn’t have posted.

You start as you mean to go on and if this is the tone you’re setting for the rest of your relationship, you’ve got difficult times ahead. Is your bar so low, you’d actually entertain all of this? With kindness… you need to find some self respect and dump this guy.

I kind of feel bad for her because it sounds like she's been brought up to have fuzzy boundaries and to constantly second guess herself which explains why she's been in abusive relationships in the past. But it's got to be worse for her kids...

I think there’s a possibility it’s completely platonic. The problem is not that he invited her, per se. Had he done so, then told you it was happening, you could have then worked out straightforwardly whether that was a dealbreaker for you.

The problem is that he was not honest about the fact that he fully intended to go ahead, pretended your opinion mattered, but now you have found out he was lying about your opinion mattering. There’s also a suspicion of manipulation, given that he took you away, knowing that he was intending to go ahead with something you’d said no to.

If, like me, you’ve been through several abusive relationships, you’ll know that abusive men always seem lovely at first, then there comes a psychological moment when you recognise something is not quite right and you have to choose whether to put up with it or put your foot down. It’s often something relatively small because he’s testing the waters.

Sorry, OP, I know you like him, but he’s telling you who he is. Listen.

I have survived abuse and I highly recommend a book called unf*ck your boundaries by Faith Harper. It helped me deprogram all the screwed up ideas I had about what a healthy relationship looked like. I promise you this isn't it. You deserve better.

Something my therapist told me was this... "If you are ever unsure if someone is treating you unfairly or you are second guessing yourself re-imagine the situation but instead replace yourself with your best friend /daughter/mother or someone else that you deeply care about with their significant other. Then ask yourself what advice would you give them? Would you want your kids to stay in this type of relationship? Would you think it is fair that they must tolerate this? Look deep within yourself because I think you know this isn't right...

how far away does this woman live ? Sounds more like a trial run to see if they could eventually share the same house, if you don't tell him to do one, what state are you going to be in when she actually arrives ?