Seeking opinions

[doingwhaticann]

Hi everyone :)

I 35(m) have been in a relationship of 6.5 years with my current fiance 33(f).

I would like to state that I love her to pieces and do as much as I can physically and emotionally for her. In general she also does the same back.

Last weekend an incident occured where she checked my instagram and saw I had reacted to a girls story with a flame emoji. Context here, I know the girl old colleage and we have stayed in touch loosley on big life events. For example when we got engaged she messaged saying congrats, when she was pregnant and gave birth, when her dad died and her dog I engaged her. All via the story posts and all very much just friendly. She has had a bf (dad of her now kid) longer than I have know her.

Anyway, last week she posted a selfie and caption saying off to christmas thing with the fam. I just kind of had a quick thought of like nice photo and what a nice day, knowing that her kid and man would be next to her in the car as its a fam day out. This wasn't a a response for attention or because I thought she was attractive.

I tried to explain this to my partner but she just will not believe it and I did say and do accept the optics look bad and apologised. Further, I have other friends/people I know both male ans female that I respond to stories to. Just like I see a female friend crushing her fitness journey, so responsed saying crushing it or good progress 💪. Then I message one saying happy bday (who is a mutal friend) and male wise I have mates doing awesome things like there own business or martial arts so I respond.

Anyway, she says she looks at my phone all the time and has seen similiar before but let it slide. I don't recall sending loads of story responses but if I do its just like friendly and everyone knows im with my partner, as I post her more than anyone lol.

So as part of her response to me she has started digging out my childhood as it quite tough (bad step parents). She also flies off the handle as well in general and is very difficult to have a normal conversation with. It never used to be this way and she has for several months been under alot of work stress.

I really want to make sure I can re assure her that its nothing. I have deleted essentially all people I was following and showed her but she wanted to check my phone and saw a DM from a male friend and he fancies a certain celeb so to entertain him I just replied "i reckon she likes eye contact" as I know it gets him. So I bantered with him and she was hurt by that but I never meant any hurt either. I apologised of course but also feel like all mens messages or group chats at some point have banter in as there is always a lad we know like that.

So I guess I am just typing this part as therapy as I feel terrible but also as a call for help, as I want to make sure she knows there is no one else and never was.

So opinions welcome...

Yeah on reflection it was just a poor decision, a thoughtless one as well. I can't even remember pressing it thats how quick it would of been in response but yeah it was the wrong selection clearly.

From your explanation, your contact with your friend sounds totally innocent. however the fire emoji was probably not the best choice. I trust my DP, I really do, and I don't check his phone at all.

However, if I happened to see a flame emoji sent to a woman he didn't know well, not accompanied by a cheery message, then I wouldn't mention it, but I wouldn't like the tone, being honest.

That said for balance, how happy are you in general and able to express your feelings and needs? It was pretty far below the belt bringing up your unhappy childhood like that.

Also why does she check your phone, do you check hers? What for?

It isn't normal in my experience to dig deep into partner's chat with friends and make it about you, becoming upset about their jokes.

Who did you delete, actual friends, acquaintances and ex colleagues or random insta people?

Look, I know you don't want to end things with her but you say she flies off the handle, is hard to communicate with and wants to monitor your conversations. What are the positives of this relationship and the things you enjoy together?

Hey,

I understand and appreciate that it is obviously a bad look, despite it not being bad in regards to intent.

Er no I don't check her phone, it was a boundary she set very early on. I don't know why she checks mine, she said she has seen I message girls but if I do interact it is typically like a friendly message of encouragement or congrats. Again though I don't message a tonne of girls, I have men I engaged with more often. So I don't know if she is expecting to find something, but she wont as there isnt (except this flame emoji) ever there that could be misinterpreted.

Well I wasn't a big fan of her bringing childhood stuff up either. That is stuff you trust very few with and expect them not to weaponise it, so that is disappointing.

Last night when she trawled through my messages she found one with an old manager of mine, he is about 12 years older than me. He sends me reels and I ignore them 9/10 because they are pervy. However he sent one of a celebrities story and I replied saying she is fit with wavy hair. He made another comment about her sexually and I just said haha, I think she likes eye contact. This was said tongue in cheek as my old manager has a soft spot for that and I was just teasing. Anyhow, she wasnt happy about that either, but I didnt say anything vulgar.

I deleted mainly people I knew from university and ex colleagues. There was some general pages as well, while I was at it.

Your last point is valid, but it is only this year she has really seemed to develop an short fuse and is much less tolerant of people. I can attribute it to our living situation (living with my sibling) as it frustrates her. However, we are paying off a wedding and at the moment can't move until April 2025. We moved here in 2021 when she was in uni to have less of a financial burden.

She was mad at me because I had credit card debt of around £6,000n(never missed a payment etc and was planning to clear it with my inheritance from house sale) some of which was her engagment ring but alot of it stemmed from enabling both of our lives while she studied. Althought, she insists we went 50/50 on everything. Despite her student income being less than a third of my income at the time. So I know thats pissed her off when she found out.

Beside that I think she just finds her work stressful (I do to as I work in corporate) and is annoyed at where we are because she compares our life to others. Which is crazy because we have a top 5-7% income and we are literally on the cusp of finally getting our own place and married, yet she feels we are behind.

So I am hoping as time goes she returns to the calm and very loving and caring person she was up until the last few months.

Sorry for the rant.

As for insecurity due to me I am not sure. I tell her everyday how stunning she is, I am always sexually attracted to her, like always. I never leave her doubting how pretty she is because shes so hot to me.

Are all your compliments about how hot you find her, how pretty she is, how she looks? How else do you compliment her?
If she feels like the only things you like about her are related to how sexy she is, anything that makes her feel less attractive in herself (like eczema flare ups) could cause her to feel insecure about your relationship too. It can also feel quite devaluing - as though who she is as a person, the things that make her interesting, and the things that should make her in particular special to you, are less important than her appearance.

Do you think finding out you had £6000 of credit card debt she didn't know about may have contributed to her having some trust issues with you?

She knew I had credit card debt, I had told her in the past. I told her again in October when we were going through our finances. She hates anything to do with credit (when I have it) but she has her own small amounts of it. She just panics about it where I am more pragmatic imo.

Well I didn't think it was required to go into all the ways I compliment her. She is my fiance, I am engaged, I proposed to her because she amazing qualities both phyiscal and non physical. I tell her how she makes me laugh, how she is really doing well in her career despite the challenges. I could go on and in all honesty she is very complimentary to me as well. We frequently are each others hype person.

Addition to my first post.

This incident happened on 22/12. We were ok and she was ok with me 23/12 and throughout the christmas week we were fine, I went to see her on the 27/12 and fine. We got home yesterday and she walked into her wedding dress box in a place that she thought was cold and damp. So she went mad at me called me a bunch of things and said I dont think of her, if I didnt I would send a flame emoji. I told her id only moved it to that location the day I left to go see her and I knew it would be ok. Turns out the box and dress was absolutley fine. I also told her i think about her all the time

So after blowing up at me she then starts turning the narrative back to the flame emoji. I tried to revisit the wedding dress box thing later and ahe said "do you want another arguement, if not not leave it" I was just going to say to her I think given the wedding dress was fine, I dont think that blow up and the verbal onslaught was required. Anyway, I didnt as she was about to blow her lid and belittle me and the efforts I make.

So yeah we were originally fine I thought but clearly not...

Ok, two parts to this reply.
The first regarding compliments. You sound like my dp, he always tells me how sexy I am, how much he loves me and our sex life is excellent. However, there are ways he behaves at times that don’t make me FEEL loved. This can make me doubt his lovely words at times and makes me insecure. I would prefer to see that love in actions sometimes.

However, I recognise that this is because we love in different ways, try to tell myself that he doesnt do these on purpose to upset me, and I go away and address my insecurity and try and fix it for myself rather than making it his issue to fix.

I come from an abusive background and I know a proportion of our issues are caused by the damage from that.

As Atilla quite rightly says (and she is very, very emotionally intelligent on these issues) thats not my partners issue to fix, its for me to address. I do think sometimes his behaviour ISNT that of someone who loves another and wants to make them feel safe, and thats something we need to address together.

It sounds like You and your dp both need to take a bit of space, look hard at your interactions and try to be honest with yourselves about your accountability in the relationship. She seems very angry, which indicates hurt, but she’s also seemingly pushing that anger onto you, which isnt great, or fair, especially if shes not letting you know why.

That said If my DP was like this with me, for a while BUT after a lot of good years in the relationship, I would do some introspection, and try to have a few good conversations or counselling before walking away.

I think your DP needs to look at which parts of this are her, AND safely, gently and respectfully raise any she has with you so you can face them together.

The second part though is this.

her reply to you when you tried to raise the subject again. I tried to revisit the wedding dress box thing later and ahe said "do you want another arguement, if not not leave it"
This isnt someone trying to resolve an issue. This is someone who wants to shut you down…and I would find that hard to stomach.

relationships can be so bloody hard, and rough patches can be protracted when times are stressful, but you should be working as a team, or it just doesnt work.

Sorry, thats not hugely articulate, its late and im overtired.

I could not bear to be monitored like that. I think partners have a right to look at your social media and if they don't like what they see to dump you. I don't think they have the right to look at your social media on your phone without your knowledge or permission. I would lose something of myself if I gave my phone to my boyfriend and knew he was going through it, scrutinising it. If he did it without my knowledge or permission I would dump him immediately.

Dump her. No one needs to live like this. Do you want to be walking on eggshells for the rest of you life?

Life is too short for this. Time to throw this one back and start the new year afresh.

I think you need to wise up on what emojis mean and how they can be construed, because you sound a bit clueless for a 35yo. I'm 60 and even I know the flame emoji means hot.

Although it's ok to be reassuring your fiancée, you should not be doing things you don't want to in order to appease her, such as deleting contacts. She should not be routinely going through your phone and reading your texts either. That's quite controlling. Would she allow you to police her phone like that?

Couldn't help noticing you wrote "my current fiancée", and thought it an odd phrase. Why not "my fiancée". Are you thinking of having a future fiancée?Having read your full post you should not rush in to marriage until you get the trust issues resolved in your relationship.

Edited to add: only saw your other post about the wedding dress after posting this. If the wedding is soon then please think carefully. Your fiancée is showing you how she behaves when stressed. It's not acceptable and she needs to understand this.

Mumsnet double standards. She's hyper-vigilant and monitors your personal and social media interactions. Youre getting to the point you must explain why you're communicating with friends.
People are allowed friends male and female, people are also allowed to be friends with exes. It is called being human, social interaction is completely normal.
I don't like LTB but she must investigate why she's like this otherwise you won't last. Untamed jealousy is poison.