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

You did what now 😳.
Your behaviour sounds menacing and I wouldn't tolerate any of this at all.

Your first post made me wonder if you'd been cheated on or was paranoid and controlling, but this 😳?

Whichever it is, just be single and get some help. For yourself and the next person you'll be with.

@JanetCompost

I understand completely where you are. I know you need answers. I know you have to know you're not crazy. The damage done to you has sent you well past seeing the bigger picture and what he's turned you in too.

All I can tell you is that he's a liar. This many inconsistencies don't happen in normal relationships, whether friendship, or romantic, when there is nothing to cover up.

What he's lying about, who knows. But take a moment, you've worked out that he is lying about his Christmas night out. Was he cheating? Gambling? Secret child? Even something criminal? Who knows. But he lied about his whereabouts, to his romantic partner. You know that much.

Your brain is doubling back on itself with what you are telling it cannot be true, being processed alongside his gaslighting "truth" plus a good measure that you are deranged and paranoid. This is really quite dangerous for your mental health.

You need to satisfy your brain. You need to know you aren't mad, for your own sanity, and ability to trust yourself again.

Phone the pub. Speak to a woman. Be honest. Tell her you suspect your partner of having an affair and it's consuming you. Tell her about the plates and ask if she has them. Jeez, endless women have phoned a hotel to "catch" their husband mid affair. Even turned up trying to catch them. So who gives a shit, you're phoning the pub. If she gives you the information you need to prove he was lying, then it doesn't matter finding out the lie.

Sending love, and strength. You will get through this and at some point you will find what you need to know you aren't mad. He's made you this way. From personal experience, I almost didn't care what he'd done, my peace came with the irrefutable evidence that he'd done it, and I wasn't some broken "stalking nutjob". I was right, and sane, and true, and genuine all along.

You've got this x

Yikes, I hope someone who knows OP's partner sees this and realises who's involved. So they can tell him, and he can escape!

OP - end the relationship and get into therapy. You are stalking this man, your partner. If DH was questioning me and plotting my whereabouts I would go to the police

Janet, I don't mean this unkindly, but you are abusing your partner and you need to stop. Now.

If you are being honest that this man has done nothing wrong other than these three occasions when you have analysed his movements/actions bizarrely and intrusively, and found what you claim are inconsistencies, then it is you who is in the wrong, wholeheartedly. It is not normal to do this to another person - it's insanely controlling, stalking behaviour.

I have been on the receiving end of this kind of abuse and it's horrendous, it does extreme harm to your mental health. And yes, I did end up lying about my actions and whereabouts sometimes, not because I was cheating, but just out of extreme resentment that my actions were being subjected to this degrading level of scrutiny, and a desire for normal human freedoms.

And yes I have been lied to and cheated on as well, and while that is not nice, it doesn't even begin to justify this kind of dehumanising behaviour.

I am going to assume you are doing it because you are unwell, not because you are a malicious cruel person. But the impact on your partner will be cruel and damaging, regardless.

You need to seek immediate help. And not be in a relationship currently if you are unable to restrain yourself from this sort of conduct.

And what you feel for him isn't love, or at least not a healthy version (though you may believe it is). It's paranoid obsession and a form of ownership.

Sorry folks I think this whole thread has got to be a charade!

I agree. Even if he was cheating or hiding things - this behaviour is inexcusable. If you believe that this isn’t the right person for you then leave. You should not subject someone to investigations, interrogations and diagrams and certainly not offering to pay a stranger on the internet to visit the venue to try and further disprove anything. Even if OP was being cheated on, her behaviour right now is not only problematic but a serious sign of MH issues. The people here saying this is completely normal are bonkers.

I sorry I’m not sure how much of this I believe. You seem to be very intense in your trying to catch him out. This isn’t normal or healthy. Before the Christmas incident were you always like this? Have you been like this about other boyfriends? You have several choices:

1. Go to this pub yourself and show a picture say you would like this dish as a friend had it and it was apparently so good you wanted to try it
2. Speak to him but would you believe what he says? I doubt it as you are so far down the rabbit hole at this point
3. Trust him (which I don’t think you can do given your obsession with catching him out)
4. Hire a private detective (again if he is innocent would you believe it and never start up this behaviour)
5. Walk away

This is an extremely irresponsible post. The OP needs help, not justification for her highly erratic behaviour, which presumably you haven't even read

Phoning a pub is crazy. Ok.

Best to just continue questioning if anything around you is real, and that you must be the problem.

You have no idea what he's done to her to get her in this state. None. And she can't see it because she's in it.

Me? I spent 5 years being abused by a narcissist. Faking where he was. Making me think my own mind couldn't be trusted. Took me to the doctors to get medication for my "mental issues."

Until the day I phoned the airport and claimed I needed a receipt for my work expenses, for my airport car parking. They found my registration and forwarded the details to me. I'd arrived on the Friday and left on the Sunday apparently.

He'd lied that he was "up North" for a wedding, and when I called it was an international ring tone. I called back immediately and it went straight to voicemail. He blocked my number until Sunday evening. Came home, "what the fuck is wrong with you, trying to hassle me when all I want to do is have one weekend at my mates wedding, of course I blocked you, you control freak. International ring tone? I've heard it all now, you've actually gone mad. You need a doctor."

It took me two years to pluck up the courage to phone the airport. Actually I phoned 3. Heathrow first. Gatwick second. It was the third, Stansted, that he flew from. A quick getaway with whatever he was sticking his dick in that month.

And just like that, it was done. I wasn't mad. I didn't need fucking tablets. I told him. His response? How dare the airport give out that information. He would be making a complaint to the highest level.

I threw him out that night. Looking back I can't believe how much I endured and how serious it was. It took two years and all my strength to phone the airport. And I truly believe it saved my life.

Phone the fucking pub.

I had a friend who ended up getting sectioned, who was displaying similar behaviour to the OP, so it's at least plausible. He became paranoid, then came up with absurd theories as a result of the paranoia and then found 'evidence' that proved the theories were correct. For example, he started believing that Stephen Fry was following him, then found some pizza in a place where it wasn't meant to be, and that was the proof that he needed that Stephen Fry was following him, as Fry must have put it there. No amount of logic could convince him otherwise.

What the OP needs is help - not people advising her to phone a pub to find out if her theory about plates is true even though it makes no sense and has already been proven by other posters to be incorrect anyway.

That was your experience - I and others have our own experiences. So you think OP is being rational by plotting a timeline of whether her partner could have been where he said in London?

My DH is going to Germany with friends next week -
I won’t be checking his photos to check he is where he said he is.

Those plates, glasses and that pear and nut dish come from the Windmill in Clapham.

East Enders Drums

It wouldn't even be that, the equivalent would be you demanding he send you a picture of every single new location he is in, then putting all the pictures on a map of Germany, printing that map out and writing out the times he sent you the pictures on the pictures on the print out, along with 'this proves it was impossible that he spent more than three and a half hours in his hotel' next to the map, and then scanning that in and posting it to strangers on the internet so they can confirm to you that this is proof that he's lying and not that nothing you've done makes any sense

Both dishes, glassware and cutlery.

But yes, I agree that for your own mental health, you need to get out of this relationship and seek some advice on your wellbeing.

😂

So your experience is that you've never experienced anything like this. Super. What a help.

I was told I needed help. I didn't need help. I was in a state of mental torture at the hands of a terrible human being. No one believed me. I was "crazy" and he was just lovely, even standing by me through all of my "issues," what a guy.

Noone remotely clocked on that I didn't have these "issues" before he was on the scene. Just what a lovely man he was. And how I was not well. Funnily enough, I haven't had these issues since either, it's like they went away. What a riddle, eh.

You don't get it until you've been in it. You don't realise it when you're in it. And it really doesn't help to be told you're crazy. It's your brain trying to help you prove that you can believe what all your senses are showing you. It's horrible.

@Didimumwell done! Can’t believe you spotted that.

OP hope this gives you the proof you feel you need for once & for all

😱 wow.

Absolutely fantastic advice (and one of the best responses I’ve ever seen on MN)

Any update on this @JanetCompost ?