Talk me down, or just talk to me, please. Nonstop mentionitis around other woman he's just met... then she's texting him first thing in the morning

[mentionitisfeckingwithmyheaditis]

Aaaaaaaaagh. I'll try to be brief. (Name changed.)

Long distance relationship. Travelled to meet him. He was going for drinks with friend and his gf. Other women turned up. He got pretty drunk, was a bit late to meet me. Okay. Not a problem.

Then for the next 36 hours, he didn't stop mentioning this one woman, what she was wearing, some joke she told, where she was from blah blah blah. Honestly, I wasn't particularly bothered. But after 36 hours, after he'd told me some more detail about what she was wearing, he gets a message from her.

I'm, like, excuse me. This is shit. Obviously, they've exchanged numbers, obviously she's keen. He's apologetic, says he understands why I'm upset (erm, I'm raging). Says he won't reply.

We move on. (Well, he moves on.) I'm going round in circles. He didn't make any pretence that it was friendly or that I was being unreasonable. Which is perhaps good. But I'm thinking, wtf are you doing swapping numbers with a woman while I'm sitting waiting for you. I can't get it out of my head. I mean, how fucking blatant can you get.

I can't really see there's any point reigniting the conversation with him. And I also can't believe that if they were both that keen on each other that he won't just pursue her anyway. Because if he was prepared to swap numbers then he's not going to just go, oh, gf was unhappy I'll turn this hot new prospect down now.

Aaaaaaaagh. I wish the fuck I didn't know any of this.

A few ppl have asked now but I can't see any reply - how long have you been together?

Definitely sounds like he fell for her

Do you know his friend whom he'd met for the drink with his g/f?
Are you known to his friends?
Could his friend have invited his g/f friend along to make a foursome, not knowing that you're in a relationship?

Omg that’s absolutely gross.
He actually swopped numbers with her!?
Yeah that would be the end for me.
What an arrogant prick he is.

You are not still at his home, are you.

I would be back in my home by now.

Sorry, I should've answered. Two years or so.

We're back in our respective homes now.

I don't want to police him. He's allowed to be enthusiastic (smitten, maybe not) about other people, including women. It's the brazeness of the messaging that's broken me (well, I'm not broken, but ...), along with his admission (without saying as much) that yes, he was out of order.

what’s the plan with your long distance element? Is it long distance forever, or do you have an agreed plan about one of you moving at some point and when is that?

Because what’s the point doing the long distance thing if you don’t trust him? Which now you don’t. (I assume. Most people wouldn’t.)

They know about me, and he talked about me when he was there. I don't know them. The smitten-inducing woman wasn't there in an "innocent" double-date capacity.

Obviously, the reality of me mattered not one fuck to him at some point (many points) in the evening, so there was no reason for it to matter to her, or to any of them.

I’m so sorry, you must be absolutely heartbroken.
But don’t let him treat you like this, you’re worth so much more.
There is no scenario that makes swopping numbers with another woman ok.
But you know this, or you wouldn’t have posted.
How would he react if you gave another man YOUR number?

That's what he says, he wouldn't like it if it was the other way round. Which makes it worse somehow, because he's saying, yes, I did something absolutely shitty.

And I agree, there's no situation in which number swapping like this is okay. He knows that. He's said as much.

Bloody idiot.

He fell for her all right. So freaking much, he couldn't help running his mouth off to me about her. Madness. He's usually smarter than that. Which means he fell hard. And, what, thinks of me as some kind of friend who would like to hear all about his new crush? 😭

It’s quite sweet - he’s into her.

You're burying your head in the sand. If he does this when he's about to meet up with you, he does do much more when you're not there.

You're turning a blind eye, but you'd be very naive to think he's not entertaining other women when you're not around.

This seems like a DADT relationship for you. That's don't ask, don't tell.

You know he's with others but don't want to hear about it and would rather be in blissful ignorance.

You're right. I don't want to know. But I honestly never thought he'd do this.

I feel totally wrong footed. And stupidly like I just want to rewind so I can look him in the eye and tell him not to fuck everything up by behaving like an idiot.

Oh dear OP. You need to be with someone who feels about you like you do about him. No love story has this in it.

I’d dump him and move on.

@mentionitisfeckingwithmyheaditis, you are diminishing yourself by ostriching. You must face the truth that you haven’t been in an equal relationship based on mutual respect and fidelity.

You made the effort, but in the time it took you to travel there, your ‘Partner’ became so enchanted with this OW that he made you wait and then spewed details about her throughout your 36 hour visit. He humiliated you in public and then rubbed his shiny new connection in your face in private.

Saying that he is an ‘idiot’ and ‘stupid’ infantilizes him and negates his agency. He chose to hugely disrespect you and trash your relationship. I agree with @SandyY2K that he has done similar previously, you just weren’t on the scene to witness it. He is a cake eater who laps up attention from other women.

I wouldn’t be moving forward with a guy with such poor boundaries and self-serving entitlement.

Why haven’t you broken up with him yet? Have some standards and dignity.

He wants you to end it. He can’t be bothered to even do that properly

I'm pretty sure he doesn't want to lose me.

OK but what do you actually want now?

He’s already fucked it up. He’s treated you like shit. Surely you’re not going to stay with him?

I think he wants you to dump him OP. I’m not sure it’s true that he doesn’t want to lose you (although if he can convince you to accept his shot behaviour he’ll carry on having his cake and eating it behind your back) he just doesn’t want to be the bad guy who dumps you.

Please, please find your self worth and self respect.

I don’t get this at all. You keep saying he’s an idiot for apologising, for telling you. Like he’s done something a bit daft, rather than essentially admitting he was lining up another woman for a shag.

I’ll bet he’s enormously confused about why you haven’t dumped him yet. Your hanging around wanting to turn back time so you didn’t have to know about all this tells him it’s totally fine by you if he cheats and to treats you with zero respect.

Why did you trust him so much? It’s shitty enough that he turned up late and drunk when you had travelled to see him. Was this normal behaviour for him?

Don’t be a doormat. End this relationship. It’s not what you want.

I think he wants me to dump him too. And is probably wondering why I haven't.

I don't get it either. It's so shitty. And not how he usually is.

But yes he lined another woman up. And let me know that he had. He can be sorry genuinely for having done it, but he did. In front of people who know about me and that I might have expected to meet one day.

I trusted him because that's always been the deal, my choice. And I honestly thought he was better than this kind of shabby behaviour. Clearly not. And it's true he's not done it because he's an idiot. He's done it because he wanted to. And chose to.

I'm pretty fucking devasted.

So have you dumped him yet?

It's really bad behaviour. But somehow it feels like he didn't see you as a long term relationship. It's a bit odd that after two years he hadn't introduced you to his friends. You could have gone to the bar and met his friends any time.

The one good thing is that this has happened before you did anything serious like move to be closer to him.

I wouldn't even bother officially breaking things off. I would just stop any contact. He already knows why.