My partner has been amazing ever since I met her. She's smart, funny and appeared to be honest and respectful. She promised she would never cheat or lie and during a recent conversation she told me how much she respects me. However...
Easter Sunday i'm at home with a bit of a cold. I've bought an Easter egg for my partner's daugher and my partner is aware I have it. My partner texts me to say she feels like a bad girlfriend because she hadn't been to see me or look after me while i'd been sick. I message back and say i'd be happy to see her but she replies back saying she needs to do housework and look after her dogs. I understand she has a busy life so think no more of it. A couple of hours later a friend of mine rings to see if I fancy going around for a coffee so I agree and ring my partner to let her know that i'm heading over to his house (just in case she was going to turn up and surprise me). She doesn't answer her phone so I grab the Easter egg and decide that as I have to drive passed my partner's house to get to my friend's house, i'll stop by with the Easter egg. As I get onto my partner's road she rings me back and I can hear she's out somewhere so I ask her where she is to which she replies "I'm out". I say "Oh, where are you?", to which she replies, "I've decided to nip out". I'm wondering whether I should park up and wait or if she's going to be out for ages but it also feels like she's trying to avoid telling me where she is. At this point i'm now driving past her house and can see her car parked outside. I ask, "Where are you" and she replies "I'm at the (named) pub, can I ring you back later". I agree and hang up as I know the pub is nowhere near walking distance to her house so someone has been to pick her up which means she's going to be out for a while. At this point, i'm expecting her to text me at some point and tell me she was out with one of the lads from work who she's good friends with. Instead she texts me kicking off for checking up on her. She doesn't tell me who she's with and over the next few hours she's so angry with me. Her reaction is so bizarre that I know there's clearly something going on that she thinks will upset me. The next day she texts me and tells me that she met up with an ex but that she was never physically anywhere near him and that she was sat the other side and end of a long pub bench. She tells me that it was a very last minute thing and that they met at the pub. I tell her that I know that's not true because i'd seen her car outside her house. I asked her why she arranged to meet her ex behind my back on a day we should have been together with her daughter and she said she felt she had to be respectful to her ex and wanted to meet him to tell him that she was in a relationship with me!!! She's been in other relationships since this ex so this just struck me as bizarre.
We met up a bit later on and she tells me that after she rang me from the pub she got upset and went home, however, by some unbelievable crazy timing her daughter walks in and without prompting asks if I know that they were at the pub for ages yesterday with the (named) ex and then went to McDonalds. During our conversation a few issues were brought up and she tells me she will now make it clear that we are in a relationship to everyone...something she'd told me she'd already done. All my friends, family and colleagues know! She told me she can't change her WhatsApp photo to a photo of me and her as it will upset the ex she met up with, this became another talking point. She hasn't been with him for years!! She told me she would arrange to meet with him again so she can tell him we're together and I was gobsmacked that she was suggesting this again. I said it has nothing to do with him but if she felt she had to tell him then she could always just text him. She told me she would ring him instead but he would be very angry!
I'm so upset because I trusted her. I trusted her to do right by me and it just doesn't feel that way. I feel disrespected. I feel like rather than us being a family on Easter Sunday, she instead was a family with her ex. She's apologised, said she gets it and said that she knows she'll need to rebuild the trust and will make more of an effort as my girlfriend. She told me she'd change her WhatsApp photo to a photo of me and her (which she hasn't done) and that she would ring me every night before we go to sleep which I find quite nice as I do miss her when she's not around. She's not done that either.
There have been other issues with exes e.g. we're on a date and she sends photos of where we are to a different ex because it's where he always used to take her. Another ex has got upset because she doesn't call him every day anymore. Then there was a lad in a pub garden but that's a different story!
I don't want any grand gestures, I just want to go back to knowing that when she tells me she's doing ABC, she's actually doing ABC. I want to trust that she respects me enough to do right by me. The trust has been broken and I don't know if it can be repaired. Does anyone have any advice?