Is my partner lying to me and potentially cheating?

[JanetCompost]

So this is an odd one, but I think my partner has been cheating lately. Every time he tells me a story it's flawed and makes no sense.

There are many stories but the most recent one I'll start with. He claims he went out for food with a work colleague at The Railway pub in Streatham.

He showed me a photo, nothing suspicious here. Then I checked the menu, the dish he is eating isn't even from the Railway menu, and the table is different in the photos.

Also the plates don't match social media.

I know this is petty but I have many more examples, I'm wondering if I'm losing my mind here. Signed up for second thoughts as I don't know where to turn

I think that the relationship must be really toxic if you've resorted to this. So toxic that the truth is irrelevant.

I know I'll go into our relationship more in the future and I understand what you're saying but mostly right now I just want some investigation assistance as pathetic and petty as it is, just to solve this single issue and see if this is a lie.

What made you think to check the menu?

It could be that he had a special, they changed the menus and decor, or anything really. There is no way of us knowing without some background, and then we could only speculate based on what you tell us about him and his usual behaviour.

What I know without a doubt is that a relationship is not worth continuing if yo'uve got to this point.

If you get the sense on a regular basis that he is misleading you then that's clearly a bad thing. If you want to know for sure I don't think you can trust social media - the only way to be sure would be to go there yourself soon - pubs have refurbs, menus change.

To be honest not all the tables might be ridged in the pub and he might be eating the special? Bar menu not restaurant? An event menu?
Most importantly, apart from stories you can’t confirm, why do you suspect cheating? That’s the bigger conversation here.

I really don't think you should be revealing such specific information about the location where he was supposed to be.

Giving away the name, location and posting photos comes over as advertising the place actually.

It started with me asking where he went to eat but he wouldn't tell me and danced around the subject so I got suspicious then he told me and I checked the menu.

I asked what the bottom dish was and he said it's a delicious pecan nut dish, but this is odd way to describe what is obviously a cheese and veg style dish. Upon further inspecting I noticed it's not even pecan nuts its walnuts. So I checked the menu

See this is where you start to sound like the problematic partner. This isn't normal or healthy behaviour.

So you think he’s on a date with someone else?

I’ve always been of the opinion that you either trust someone or you don’t. Owning the trust sits with you not them. So if you don’t trust them then don’t be in a relationship with them. It doesn’t matter whether they are cheating or not if you’ve got no trust, that part is secondary

Odd way to live, if you don't mind.
I would never resort (and didn't) to go to such lengths for a man, whatever the situation.

That's a bit unfair to op, she asked a simple question and her dp wouldn't answer.
It's obvious there's issues in their relationship and it's probably not the first time the op has suspected her dp of lying.
Having someone lie to you and gaslight you is very destabilising, and I can see why the op wants something true to grab hold of.

Op have you looked on the restaurant's socials? Restaurants can have different plates for different types of food so the type of plate in itself isn't enough to prove lying.

It is suspicious that the food doesn't seem to match the menu, although again there could be a specials menu that changes weekly.

The Railway Pub in Streatham has daily specials. But I don't think that this is going to solve your relationship issues, Op

I think we both know it wasnt a casual question and Ive never said the OP hasn't been driven to behave in these ways. Either way, it is time for this to end.

@OneNattyReader you may be right, it might absolutely be that, but trying to re-establish what your reality is with concrete proof like this, is pretty normal when you’ve been gaslit. It’s a very strong urge to switch off confusion and leads you to do stuff you know isn’t great, but when your source of relational safety seems unreliable, fear and insecurity take over and you look elsewhere to re establish your own reality.
Being gaslit is so disorienting that you need to know and be able to check the truth and that you’re not losing the plot.
OP might be insecure in the relationship and checking up on him in an unhealthy way, absolutely. However, her partner avoiding answering her questions and feeding her stories she can’t make sense of is worrying and destabilising.
There’s nothing wrong in asking “Did you have a good evening? Where’d you go?” to your partner after a night out and honest people would just say “Great thanks, went to The Dog and Duck” without even thinking about it. If he couldn’t or didn’t want to divulge the name of the pub he’d been to, I’d say that’s odd. Most people might say “Yeah, we went to X” after being asked if they’d had a good time voluntarily without being asked.
Whatever is going on, either an insecure OP checking up on a trustworthy partner, or an untrustworthy partner gaslighting OP, it’s got to stop.

Interesting. Can’t make out that dish either, looks delicious and more fancy than fish n chips, pub grub. Looks fancy restaurant to me. Are there other examples of sleuthing missions you go on because you feel you’re being lied to? Can you give another example?

Yes because someone is being abused. At least one person. So the best thing to do is end the relationship. Reflection about fault etc can occur afterwards.

I am not sure why the OP is getting a hard time tbh.

He wouldn’t tell her where he went for dinner and danced around the subject before coming up with a name. Why is it a difficult question to answer?

OP, can you give us more examples of his suspicious behaviour?

It isn't. People usually do that because they're lying (bad thing) or because they fear telling the truth due to the repercussions from their partner (also bad thing).

Oh give over

I agree. Let's face it, I am sure many of us do a little detective work about things over the internet.

Well said.

I had a friend like this, her boyfriend gaslit her so much that she ended up resorting to this sort of behaviour (checking menus). And yes he was cheating, I fully believe that his behaviour ended up driving her to this type of behaviour as she was normally such a levelheaded person.

I have been married for decades. DH and I probably do approx 2/3 socialising separately, including meals out, drinks out, events out and staying in hotels. Occasionally, we send the odd photo of a really nice meal or hotel room to the person at home with a tongue in cheek ‘must suck to be you 😝’ message. I’ve never once had the urge to Google restaurant menu’s/decor or similarly for hotel rooms or anything else. If you get to that, then it’s over, it’s utterly pointless continuing the relationship so just best to end it rather than continuing this silly super sleuth shit.