Demanding my phone or the relationship is over

[Thewrongsideof40]

I have been with my partner on and off for five years. He has a habit of ending the relationship or walking out and not talking to me for weeks before I try and coax him back round or he would call me names and blame me for him having to leave me, and I shouldn’t keep giving him reasons to leave.
Last year he ended the relationship because I was due to give him a lift for a day out with his mates and he never committed to the time and expected me to wait around until he decided if he was actually going. I was supposed to be going for my Sunday lunch with family which he knew and he went absolutely crazy when I said look I’m going for my dinner. Expecting him to ring and say right I’m ready can you take me as my parents live only minutes away. He left me.
we got back together after a nine month break and my male friend from school who I did have a relationship with 30 years ago but we remained friends was texting me as we have done on and off for years. My partner saw the notification and went to bed. The next day he questioned me on who it was. I have mentioned him as a friend to my partner but that wasn’t enough. He said if I didn’t show him my phone there and then he would end the relationship. Que the name calling and how I’m a charlatan and a cheat and a liar. It’s my mate and he’s married and lives nowhere near me. This time two years ago I’d found out he was texting his ex and another female friend who would ring him at night and they’d discuss her losing her husband and he was helping her. When I found out I asked to see his phone and he said if I ever looked at his phone ( I did slyly read some messages and I admitted that to him and apologised) he said he would end the relationship if I ever looked at his phone again.
Am I being controlled or is he right to demand my phone?

This is true and my sister has said the same thing. I just get drawn into a text war with him and then we sort things out and have the best time. It’s like Jekyll and Hide sadly and now I’m hearing other peoples thoughts it helping to cement what I already knew.

Helping you paint and picking you up and dropping you off are normal things a partner should do without even thinking about it. Your expectations are incredibly low

You know that 'love' is a verb, right? A 'doing' word?
You show love by acting in a loving way. None of this sounds loving. It sounds hideous. Immature and pathetic and controlling.
Do you honestly believe that you deserve no better than this?

The examples you give of good things he does...giving lifts etc....I would do that for a neighbour!

Have some self respect and end this for once and for all.

God he sounds utterly tiresome and boring. You can do so much better. As for 'picking you up and dropping you off' - wow what a Saint.

You're both enjoying the toxic relationship. Can you live without this? Then end it. Xx

He sounds horrible.
send him packing

You need to separate , get your own place and if you still insist on having a relationship with him have it on your terms in that he doesn’t live with you and you’re free to have an independent life!

@Thewrongsideof40 It’s an abusive cycle. It’s a terrible relationship and no one would want it. Why do you think you’re no better than this crap-scraped-off-the-floor experience of what should be love, companionship, mutual support, trust, respect?

Just end it. There’s nothing else to discuss or say about it. You just need to end it and move forwards.

"Meant to be" my arse. You are not a teenager, OP. Who cares if he struggles emotionally? He sounds like an absolute bastard. Do yourself a favour and dump him. Surely you are too old for this nonsense?

Good god OP, why are you doing this to yourself! Let him go and do not try and coax him back again, this behaviour is controlling and an awful way to treat your wife. The fact that as a married couple you are splitting up and getting back together so regularly just shouts that this is NOT meant to be

You seem to be content to continue with this pattern of him walking out and you trying to persuade him to come back so I'm not sure what you're hoping for from this thread. It's a toxic relationship and won't change. Show him your phone if you want, you've got nothing to hide. But it will be something else next time. It will go on and on and your poor children are presumably witnessing all this.

He does do lots of other things like take me out and pay for a holiday last year, although he has lorded that over me everytime we fall out. He put wardrobes together and sorted all the doors out in my new place. Brings up food, for me to cook but is quite demanding as if to suggest I’m doing all these things I want you to show some gratitude. I felt a shift in my thoughts about him when he demanded my phone. Which I actually gave him and let him read the messages for a few minutes before thinking hang on, he wouldn’t allow me his phone when I asked him about the girls he was texting and I had to trust him. He was furious that I questioned his ‘integrity’. And I was faithful even in the nine months we weren’t together. I see the good in him and recognise his emotional difficulties but the demanding of the phone made me see how a shift in control was happening and that things would never be the same!

He knows you are unhappy and he knows how to make you unhappy at his whim. Because that makes him feel cheerful, happy, pretty good about himself.

But, do you know what? He needs to to behave the way you do for that to work. You don’t have to play. You can walk out, (or let him walk out and change the locks behind him and throw his stuff out of the window, too), make your own life and be perfectly content and happy without him. And if he never again feels cheerful because he made you so desperately unhappy, so what? Not your problem.

I am. It’s been going on for over five years and I’m 49 and genuinely thought he was the one. But he proves me wrong on so many occasions it’s getting harder to convince myself.

We aren’t married and he has never been engaged or married or had any kids. So always been on his own. I’m the longest relationship he’s ever had! And we got together after my husband and I divorced.

Do you have your own children? If so, you're setting an awful template for them by modelling such an awful and toxic relationship but I suspect you'll stay with him.

Op read what you wrote as if you are another person I am thinking some people need to add doormat to their name

What do you love him for ? What makes YOU fall in love with him.
Nothing about him, in what you described, sounds nice or lovely.... he is just controlling you. Typical narcissistic behaviour. I know this terms is being used a lot recently. But do some research and then (hopefully) you'll see for yourself.

He is an utter knob and I have no idea whay you would keep not only taking him back but even worse BEGGING TO BE TAKEN BACK.
As for calling you a "Charlatan" does he think hes in Bridgeton or something??

Just get rid OP.
I had one of these who appeared after 20y. I thought it was meant to be.

A very small incident very early on in the reconciliation made me realise he hadn’t changed. (MO: be amazing for a week or two, then be a cunt starting arguments so he could storm off for a few days. During which he always slept with someone else).

I got rid and never looked back. It wasn’t meant to be at all. Thank fuck!

It's not love or "meant to be", it's called intermittent reinforcement

In intermittent reinforcement relationships, the abuser unpredictably awards some occasional and sudden affection. This often causes the victim to become a needy lover. The despair and anxiety caused by the emotional (or physical abuse) cause the victim to become desperate for some sign of love and affection. www.marriage.com/advice/relationship/intermittent-reinforcement-relationships/

He is doing this to control you, you need to end this relationship not only for yourself but for your DC, they are being show an awful relationship dynamic that will set them up to accept abuse in close relationships. You need to leave.

Look up "breadcrumbing". Oh, and LTB.

Anyone is "amazing" if you're allowed to discount all their shitty behaviour.

Your self esteem must be rock bottom, I just cannot imagine putting up with this. Awful.

He does sound very immature, OP - and his immature responses and manipulative behaviours from all those years ago still haven’t left him, he is still threatening to leave etc when things don’t go his way or you don’t do as you’re told. That’s abusive, it’s manipulation, and it’s no way for you to live. A lovely happy relationship, until you put a foot wrong and he pulls it all away. I wouldn’t want to walk on eggshells like that all of the time.
You are not in the wrong for not wanting to show your phone, btw. We are all entitled to our personal space and privacy, and he is entitled to trust you, or to not trust you and walk. What he isn’t entitled to do it to pressure you and emotionally blackmail and manipulate you into doing what he wants.
LTB. ASAP.

He won’t listen and just shouts. Demanding his TV back and money he spent on a takeaway and things he’s lent me

He sounds remarkably immature and childish.

Whoever asks for the money they spent on a takeaway back?