Am i crazy?

[curvychick]

My dp started a new job last April in a managerial position. Last summer i started to feel a bit funny regarding one of his younger female employees, nothing concrete at all just a gut feeling.....Since then there have been several incidents that have rung big alarm bells but i have had no hard evidence and i guess in isolation they could be innocent but all togeher i am now really worried....I am not sure how best to put it all down so i guess i shall just do bulllet points

1.I arrived at his work unannounced heavily pregnant with dc4, he was very reluctant to give me a hug (hadnt seen him since the day before), we were outside at this point so not infront of staff, and he looked over his shoulder towards where she was standing

2.He picked me up from hospital after birth of dc4 and called work on the way home, he spoke to this girl and was pretty over familiar, and refered to her as 'darlin'

3.I knew he was giving one of the lads from work a lift home but he didnt mention that he was also giving this girl a lift too-he let slip something and when i questioned him he said about it.

$.After incident 3 i asked him why he didnt tell me he was giving her a lift home (admittedly i was rather post pregnancy hormonal) and implied that there was something inappropriate goin on-he went MENTAL .Oh and a few days after this incident he came home and said that she wasnt right for the company and he was keeping an eye on things with a view to 'managing her out'

4.Soemtimes he gets in up to 2 hrs after finishing work with vague reasons as to why (not always on the night he gives her a lift but frequently)

5.Whenever i go into work this girl blatantly ignores us but when i took dc4, in at his request, she gushed over her, and TOTALLY ignored me, like i wasnt even there.

6.He has pics of the work crimbo do on his phone which she just happens to be in all of them. theya are not of her but she is in them all IYKWIM

7.He has been stroppy and withdrawn, parcticualr unkind to ds1 (who has special needs) and blames in on work

I got a suggestive picture message of his bum cheeks this morning which he hasnt done since we first got together with some text underneather about how he was missing me today. The wording on it didnt sound right and something meade me check the rota to see if this girl was in today....she isnt

They dont look good do they? Or have i just totally lost it? I'm sat here feeling sick and shaking.........things have been really iffy since christmas when he proposed and i dont know whether i am just looking for trouble because i am paranoid and insecure or if he is doing what i think he is.

Have been checking his phone now and then but nothing dodgy-although i know he would delete.....
Dont know what to do

Curvy, I don't mind you asking at all. She once told me that she actually thought that the affair would fizzle out naturally. It didn't, but I guess that she didn't want to make any decision when she didn't have to. Like you say she was having her cake...

I agree that you don't want to find yourself going to unusual lengths to catch him out (though, I was guilty of this a few times). I think WWIFN's suggestions about talking this out might be the best course of action at first.

Also, let me just restate - you aren't losing the plot, your reactions are normal. There may indeed be nothing to your suspicions, but that wouldn't invalidate them based upon the events that have happened.

WWIFN, that first paragraph of yours is sooooo true.

I got instructions from exH to take baby DC5 to his work so all the colleagues could oooh and aaaah. Took baby and all the others down on a school afternoon, and parked (major effort) and schlepped them all plus baby and baby stuff to the office, and noticed a very funny look passing between two of the colleagues -- it was the first intimation I had that something was amiss, and I was completely right in my perception of that look and what it meant.

Turned out the colleagues knew something I didn't about my exH and the things he was getting up to on his computer, people he was chatting with online and arrangements he was making with them, and what a complete fool I felt when I eventually found out the truth (he never admitted anything).

It really is the deception that is the hardest to bear, and the hardest to forgive is that he made a fool of me in front of a lot of other people. OK, they didn't think much of him in the end, but I was the one made a fool of.

Trust your gut. I would go to relate and tell him you want to know the truth, you can handle it, but being made a fool of is not ok. Everything WWIFN says makes so much sense.

Hi all, well over the last few weeks we have got on brilliantly. Really open, honest, no late hometimes, unaccounted for time, and most importantly, i was feeling like he was being honest. He had a week off and we spent alot of family time together and things have been better than they had for a very long time

However...... Friday night he came home from work saying he needed to do a stock take after his shop shut, so on Monday he would be working 8am-5pm, popping to his mums for tea and then going back into work 6pm-3am the following morning. The next day he casually drops into conversation that this woman in question will be there too as well as his assistant manager.

Instant alarm bells ring, and so i went online and checked his rota and suprise suprise looks like its only dp and this woman going to be there. Instead of festering about it all day, i drove straight over to his work to ask him about it. As i walked in she was walking out of the store, him right behind her. She blanked me. To me it looked very much like they were going on their break together. He was pretty suprised to see me.

I told him i was really upset that he would arrange a lte night stock take with her, when he knows my feelings and concerns and just because we have had a great few weeks, doesnt mean i have just forgotten about why my suspicions were raised in the first place.

He did all of the usual reassurances, told me there was nothing going on how much he loved me, us, the kids etc and that he wouldnt fuck it all up.......He also said he would get someone else to do it instead of her. He hasnt changed the rota. He still maintains his assistnat manager will be there.....i dont believe him though.

We couldnt get to relate due to no-one to have dc, but tbh, he wouldnt tell the truth anyway. To my mind it would be a waste of effort and pointless.

I just dont know what to do any more. I want to put my foot right down and TELL him he is not to work with her and that if he does decide to, he will be coming home to locked doors and bin bags on the door step, but what if i am just mental....turning up at his work unannounced, crying, ranting and laying down the law about who he can and cant work with......
I am driving myself insane with all of this.

Please wise mumsnetters, wtf should i do?

Can he actually get somebody else to work with him rather than her? If so, and he still chooses her to work alone with him through the night - that shows a massive amount of disrespect for you, your feelings, and actually, your relationship.

Please trust your gut instinct. It's there for a reason, and will often tell you much more than something dodgy on his phone.

my guess is he thinks he won you over in the last few weeks and is pulling a fast one.

Why does this assistant blank you constantly--have you asked him.

It is totally inappropriate -giving your concerns--for him to have rostered her to work with him, He is taking the piss out of you. Is ths assitant manager who is also supposed to be working on the rota???

I would be tempted to ask him to get it changed and if he doesn't repect your wishes alarm bells would be ringing loudly and his bags would be packed on the doorstep on his return.

No the assistant manager isnt on the rota

He has 9 other members of staff who he could ask........

He offered to change the rota so it wasnt her working.....he hasnt.....

I really am the niggest mug arent i?

biggest doh

No havent asked about the blanking off me and dc by this woman.......

You're not a mug, he is a selfish twat (sorry!)

Tell him he either starts showing you and your relationship some respect, or he'll be sleeping in Isle 5 from now on

Lol, have just txt him to ask him if he has swapped her with another assistant......

You are right, he does think he won me over after after the last few weeks of lovelyness, he is showing me a blatant lack of respect and if his fucking stock take is more important than us......Well thats his choice but i'll be dropping his bags round to his mums tomorrow so they are there when he goes between shifts.......

To my mind, i am thinking that as he has been home bang in time these last few weeks, he hasnt been getting enough time with her, so has engineered this 'stock take' for some uninterupted 'them' time......does that sound feesible or am i over dramatising this all?

No curvy you are not over dramatising--you are thinking clearly.
Show him you are no mug and are not willing to be made a fool of....
But how will you know who he does the stock take with? Do you have any means of snooping checking

Nearly a month ago you wrote
'..a few days after this incident he came home and said that she wasnt right for the company and he was keeping an eye on things with a view to 'managing her out'..'

and yet here she is in a most trusted position -stocktaking alone with the manager.

Pack those bags.

He just rung me. Very bad tempered. He said he couldnt get anyone else..... I told him he was showing a blantant lack of respect for my feelings and for our relationship. He said if it bothered me that much he'd sort it and then hung up......

I wont know who he does it with...unless i load the 4dc up and do a 4omile round trip at 11 o clock....this he knows. I have no way of knowing.

It doesn't sound right to me curvychick. It sounds like his reactions to your insecurity have been very reassuring and plausible, but his actions speak differently.

Things I would be most worried about are:

1. Her blanking you (big alarm bells)

1. His changing attitude to her - ie wanting to get rid of her a few months back (guilty reaction to initial flirtation maybe? Trying to get rid of temptation?) but now apparently taking his breaks with her, giving her lifts, hanging round together at christmas do, calling her 'darlin' (I'm guessing he doesn't do this with all women he knows or you wouldn't have mentioned it) doing stock check with her etc. What's changed?

1. The fact that he can get home on time now but never had a satisfactory explanation for being regularly 2 hrs late.

I don't think you are over dramatising this at all. You need to talk again.

Are you currently planning a wedding together? Does he seem excited / involved in that?

Smacks of guily conscience... SrStan makes a very vailid point about your DP's obvious change in opinion of "her" suitability for employment hummmm

awaiting developments...

you are doing well keep it up show him you are no fool.

I havent brought the wedding up much lately, just seems like a big fucking joke tbh.

I cant marry him when i am thinking he is knocking off his sales assistant can i?

He has brought it up a few times, made a big fuss of valntines day, Fiance card for me etc but not really any enthusiasm on either part atm.

maybe the proposal was just a smoke screen? Or maybe he does love me but just wants to keep fucking her? Who knows? Sure as shit he wont tell me any kind of truth.....

Or maybe i have just been shat on so many times, i look for trouble where there is none and i am sabotaging my own happiness?

I well know that feeling of going slightly insane, of being stuck at home with the DC and not being able to check, of being made to deel like you are slightly mad If I am honest I think for a while I did go slightly mad My DD1 said the other day out of the blue, I remember when you chased dad in his car down this road , god and I did, he drove me mad completely and utterley mad and then made out like it was all my fault

Trust your instincts, we women tend to have good ones, mine was right every single bloody time, not sure how you go about dealing with it though

Macdoodle, thats how i feel. I do feel mad. One minute totally miserable, paranoid insecure, the next like everything is rosy and its all in my head....

I dont know what to do. It seems so irrational to throw our relationship away on an unfounded suspicion but i cant go on like this.....fgs i drove to his work yesterday, unannounced and ranted and cried at him in the car park. That said he must know from that how much it is bothering me and yet still hasnt done anything to waylay my worries other than trotting out the same old lines.......

How does one find the courage to make a break? How will i tell the kids, my folks. God, what a mess.

What an arsehole.

The fact he put the phone down on me after getting cross, and then not bothering to call back speaks volumes as well i think.....

Macdoodle, how did you find out? If you dont mind me asking?

He just txt me 'have sorted it''not that i should have to'

I replied 'good, you shouldnt have arranged a late night with her anyway. Its not just me, her boyfriend wasnt happy about your little arrangements either was he?Maybe he is a pyscho too?'

I too am another vote for go with your instincts.

It is horrible feeling like you are, I really feel for you. Do you feel like you need proof? Does he get bills for his phone you can check?

No its a pay as you go. He knows i am REALLY suspicious, he told me i was like CSI yesterday

Surely from a managerial point of view it's not a good idea to arrange to be on your own at night with a female employee? If she were to make allegations of any kind against him, he wouldn't have a leg to stand on.

And is it normal for stock-taking to take so long? I would've thought that a place with that much stock would either:

(a) have an automated/computerised system

or

(b) have a lot more employees helping out.

According to him, its a stock take, to ensure all is correct before the official stock takers come in and do an audit or some such.

He said originally assistant manager would be there throughout, then that assistant manager would be there till midnightish, but its not on the rota at all for assistant manager to be there, in fact he is down to work the early shift the next day......