Partner going away with attractive 22 year old girl. Is it a bit weird or am I just being jealous/insecure.

[cheeseandhamtoastie42]

Just that really! For context he’s 43, and self employed so it’s a work trip that he’s organised himself. It’s long haul and they will be away for a few weeks. She works for him at his house everyday mon-Fri, they are set up in his dining room. Desks next to eachother. We don’t live together.

The whole thing is making me feel a bit weird but I’m not sure why! I know if I try to talk to him about it it will just go round in circles and will just result in me feeling like a terrible person/jealous insecure girlfriend. He sees the trip as essential to the business, I don’t want to be accused of being unsupportive as I do support him massively.

just wondered how others would potentially feel about this situation? Am I being an absolute areshole girlfriend?

Listen to your gut feeling op. It’s one rule for you and one for him. What are you getting out of this. He could have asked you to go? It’s a bit odd to have a business with employees from his house. He was pushy with you in the beginning to move in. Now he is spending a lot of time with the 22year old. I think you know op and it’s not just about the trip.

In that case why do family think he's one of the good ones? lt must surely be because they don't know the half of it.

Just my mum really. She sees being single as being a failure.

1- that’s absolutely not true
2- and even if it was, can you explain how you are better with an untrustworthy man as a partner vs being in your own! Please don’t say sex or company. There are other way to get both of those that don’t rely on someone like this.

Even a "half decent" one would be better than this !

If you don't trust him and he's lied and gaslit you then why are you still with him?

Dump him and find someone you do trust. My ex used to be the wonderful man to others, who questioned why we split up. He was a nasty, vile, abusive, bully to me, every so often he let his nice guy mask slip and people were so taken aback.

You deserve someone who makes you feel good not someone who makes you feel constantly on edge.

Hes very good with grand gestures and making himself look fantastic to others. When I have questioned some of his behaviour with friends/family I get told he’s ’one of the good ones’

That doesn't actually answer the question.

I am absolutely crap at accepting that my feelings might be valid and end up chastising myself for feeling like that.

This does.

So what do you think you should do?

Walk away. Focus on you.

Or if you enjoy when you with him then just treat him and see him as a person for sex sonetimes and compartmentalise as he does and accept he is seeing other people including his employee.

He is not fit for a proper relationship with you.
If yoy want that then look elsewhere. Or enjoy some time being single and date yourself

From what you’ve said, you’re his nest egg. He’s found you, done enough to convince you you’re “his”, and deposited you in a low-risk bank so he can draw on you later when he’s no longer able to con other people and himself enough to go abroad frequently and hang out with young women who have yet to learn the joy of refusing to indulge older men.

This isn’t any kind of healthy relationship and if it continues, the example your children will see will be their mother settling for something terrible rather than a life of her own.

It may seem like “all the good men are taken”, but circumstances change for everyone and no man is far, far better than one who treats you like an idiot doormat.

Set some basic standards for a partner’s communication, openness and respect. He’s doesn’t meet any of them.

Well, so does mine, but she’s in her eighties, and grew up in the kind of ultra-poor, conservative rural environment where she had no education, skills or options other than marriage or emigration. She married my father very young, on the grounds that he was clean and didn’t drink. She’s not someone I’d be taking relationship advice from.

Bring single is not a failure. Have faith in yourself. Back yourself! You don't feel happy and safe with him. It's not a real partnership. He's causing you anxiety and unhappiness. Being single will be miles better than being with this dishonest, gaslighting man. Grand gestures are meaningless without day to day love, honesty and kindness. Good luck OP.

Would you not rather be single than put up with this shit though?
At least then you could date - there are some decent men out there at any age.

Hes very good with grand gestures and making himself look fantastic to others. When I have questioned some of his behaviour with friends/family I get told he’s ’one of the good ones’

Also, I've been in two relationships where the men have been described this way.

When I ended them, it turned out most people saw the truth after all and they just hadn't wanted to criticise them to me because they assumed I must have seen a different side to them 🤷🏻‍♀️

It’s his colleague I feel sorry for. Just graduated, can’t get a job and is working for a low wage next to a man double her age who wants to take a “work trip” away.

If I was her mum I’d be worried too!

Does your mum know about conmen, who move from one woman to another, draining their money? They’re full of ‘grand gestures’. She needs to watch the Tinder Swindler.

Being single, especially with dependent kids, is certainly not a failure. Why would anyone want to bring dodgy men into their kids’ lives. Or see lone parenting as ‘failing’.

If I may say so, your mum seems naive.

Very gently, you’re not your mum.

She can think being single is a failure. You can decide it is not and that bring able to live happily, single, your own house etc… is a much better way to define ‘success’.

Youre mentioning other trauma. Have you ever had counselling around those?
it can be really helpful. Not always easy (because ot forces you to look at parts of you you don’t want to look at. Or at least that has been my experience!) but eye opening and in some ways life changing too

That's an attitude that comes from a time when women needed a man for financial security. You don't. The only thing this man is going to bring in that department is insecurity and possibly ruin.

Well done for resisting his attempts to move in, that will have been part of the plan. I wonder how long until he loses his house....

I wouldn't bat an eyelid if my husband had to go on a trip with a younger female colleague. But he's not self employed, he works for a very large company. I would need to understand more about the work and the role she plays and the trip purpose to know whether I'd be uncomfortable with this.

Ha, so did mine.

God, the amount of shit I had to listen to about being 'taken on' and not giving men a reason to dump me and how I'd only live half a life on my own and how I should become more agreeable and compliant so a man would settle for me...

It's bullsbit, OP.

I'm in my 50s and being single is not a failure! It's like a superpower. I'm in a relationship now but I'd not be afraid to be single again if that happened. I've always admired the single women and single mothers I've known (i was one for a decade) because they don't give a shit what anyone else thinks, are capable, self respecting and successful and aren't sacrificing themselves on the altar of At Least I'm Not Single.

Yikes, OP. He sounds like a grade A narcissist and now I’m a bit worried for his employee!

Leave this man and stop talking to your mum about it - she hasn’t got your back. Try and get some counselling and work through your issues away from people who try to override your feelings.

FWIW, yes a lot of decent men in their 40s are taken. But some are widowed, some have relationship breakdowns that are genuinely not their fault (both rare, but do happen) and I’d rather be single than have a partner I don’t trust and who is insane by the sounds of it.

I’m assuming he has another income stream if his business is doing badly or some kind of financial shenanigans because how is he financing all these trips.

Get rid of him and don’t see being single as a failure. Your Mother is out of the ark attitude wise and a massive misogynist to think that.

That might depend if she wants to be left with no money, nowhere to stay and no plane ticket home in a far off country where she knows nobody.

If a friend came to you for advice with this situation, what would you tell them.
He is wasting your time snd energy. Give it a couple of months snd he’ll be asking to move in with you when he loses his house.
Dump and run.

hahahaha the surface area of it has moved to his brain.

I think this young woman is doing it for her CV. Travel and work experience is what she is after. It is almost impossible to get a graduate job now unless you stand out.

I think your bf is doing it for ego and eye candy. If she looked like the back of a bus he wouldn’t pay for flights and travel for her to go on these useless trips and the trips are possibly only a way of manoeuvring her in to a situation. I agree with posters that say her parents ought to be concerned. Apparently they are grateful? No, that’s what bf is telling you. Their alarm bells are ringing I’m sure, but maybe they are hoping for the best and she gets what she needs from the work experience, they also may not realise how small and non-starter his business actually is.

I see lots of people in my line of work with a business idea that is a dud. It is so common and they have the ‘if I want it and try hard enough it will work’ mentality but actually it is either a worthless semi-original idea or the opposite and there is no room due to the competition.

You say all the decent men are taken, possibly most are. If you keep him as an option until you find something better, fine but I’d be looking because you never know someone nice might become available.

Hes very good with grand gestures and making himself look fantastic to others. When I have questioned some of his behaviour with friends/family I get told he’s ’one of the good ones’

But you’re not happy - so it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks.

He could be perfect in every way for someone else, but that doesn’t meant he’s right for you.

My friend is with someone and loads of people keep telling her she’s landed on her feet - I genuinely can’t see it and think he awful.
He’s controlling, boring, thick as mince and everything has to all be about him - but her friends and family keep saying what a great guy he is and how lucky she is

(I don’t know if they genuinely think that because they don’t know what he’s truly like or they’re just being nice and not saying their true feelings).

Their opinion doesn’t matter. Only you and your feelings matter.
Being a woman and choosing to be single (when let’s face it there are thousands of single men out there to choose from) is not a sign of failure or weakness, it’s a sign of strength and success.