Is my partner cheating on me?

[harrierhom]

My partner and i have been together for 3 years, but has started acting oddly around me, being secretive, spliiting out ebay, paypal and shared facebook accounts (and deleting all her friends from it). This started a couple of months ago, before she started coming off anti depressants. She is currently on half a dose. Maybe that?s what?s causing it, don?t know, but last night she had a go at me in front of my son, for using facebook! And asked me why I started using it again now that she had set up her own. So I asked her why she needed to set up her own when we already had one, especially as I (still) only go on there occasionally. Then she had a another go because I had re friend requested some of her friends after she deleted everyone she knows from our original one. Her answer was that she needed her own space and a bit of privacy. That doesn?t sound like a ?couple? thing to me.

So from here it looks like I am not allowed to use facebook, and if I do I am not allowed to have her friends as my friends even though they are my friends. Again that doesn?t sound like a couple thing to me.

I also found out that she had been secretly texting a bloke for nearly 6 months, and previously arranged to meet him about a year ago.

She has also changed her passwords to some 14 character thing, when in the past we shared our passwords (she still knows all mine). That and all the above makes it look to me like she is hiding something and if I share her friends I get to see all her posts which it seems she doesn?t want me to see.

I found out last night that she has friend requested (and had acceped) an old boyfriend who in the past she texted and phoned quite regularly, I didn?t mind previously as she always said he was just her next door neighbour from a few years a go and that was who she got her old hamster from and he was only a friend. Her daughter let it slip a couple of months ago that they went out together for nearly a year and yet my partner initially denied it. So why lie?

So again its ok for her to have ex boyfriends on facebook and in her phone, to secretly text another bloke for 6 months and secretly arrange to meet him a year ago (although I did find out), yet she went bonkers when I friend requested a girl that used to live next door to me when I was a kid and last saw when I was about 15. And I did have nothing to do with her romantically or otherwise.

I dunno whats going on, we were going to set up a business tgether but she has also gone cold on that. So I am going to sort of look out for myself at the moment, and going to invest in my own business. If she doesn?t hurry up and make up her mind with the business, the money earmarked to set up will get spent on the photo stuff that I need to run my own business. She will have cut off her nose to spite her face, and tbh I am not so sure I want to invest in both of us right now. I love her to bits but this is really unsettling me, I don?t need it.

I am concerned for your sexual health. If she is shagging around to such a degree as she sounds like she is, without protection because she has been sterilised, you are being left completely exposed.

SCD - when you're pretty sure your partner - love of your life - is taking the utter piss out of you behind your back , you feel that you would do anything to find out the truth . Yes it sounds mental ... and maybe some of it is .
However what I'd say to HH is that I've been there and I remember all to well the complusion to act like a detective till all is revealed . It's an obession. But it's also very tiring and can reveal more than you bargined for . You feel like your being kicked in the guts everytime something new comes up.
Then in the end you're just tired and hurt ... and pretty useless at trying to make sense of it all and are liable to making dodgy decisions ... like stay with them :S

Look, digging around for the truth is horrible and will cause you pain, but when you are confronted by it and what it means you cant ignore it and ultimately it will help set you free and on the road to a better life.

Have been there myself and it was just what I needed to givem myself a kick up the arse and do something about it all. 2 years on I am wiser but much much happier

beanlet - i was think the same about her previous relationships. When I met her she had not long finished a 9 month relationship with a bloke who she says she found out was married with children. At this point she was sort of seeing someoneelse, amd i was just along for a bit of fun and wasnt bothered, but then she told me she had finished with him too beause she wanted to be with me, found out a month later, via him threatening to kill me, that she was till seeing him. Maybe the alarm should have started ringng then.

This has made me think that as all her stories of past relationships being finished because of other person - a)hubby - did she let him because he was a drunk gambler (told me of several affairs during that time), b) next one - she got hit around, c) the ex BF mentioned above - it wasnt right c) next - found was married, d) the killer - left for me. e)me - ???????

I am thinking now that they finished with her because the way she is with her seemingly sleeparound nature and the stories she has told me were just cover ups.

for shinycrazydimons info, i am a bloke and at the moment i feel pretty much broken.

Snorbs - thanks for the link, it practically describes my ex's treatment of me, and partially describes my current one.

don't worry, HH, I've told her off for you (Shiney's my missus - she's lovely really, but her MN alter ego can be overly harsh).

I recognise where you are - trying to deal with the realisation that you're in an abusive relationship and that you need to end it.

From personal experience, I'd recommend anti-depressants to take the egde off the lows and the anxiety (you'll feel fairly odd for the first week, but by week four you'll feel a lot more "normal"). They won't make the problems go away, but when you've been in difficult circumstances for an extended period of time, your brain chemicals change.

AD's will redress that balance so that you're better able to confront and deal with the problems you have. As you get through them, you'll soon feel strong enough to come back off them.

You'll get there, have faith.

I very much like JJD's advice. Hope you take it, HH

Those creeping realisations of the truth are awful, aren't they? Why couldn't it all have stayed like the nice dream you were having??
Yes: I suspect you're right about her past partners, unfortunately.

Try not to blame yourself - you've been conned. Try not to fix her. For now, and for some time coming, you need to focus your attention on yourself. See your doctor, eat properly, renew any friendships you may have lost, and plan your exit. Turn your good loving towards yourself.

keyloggers are fucking evil.

OP, hope you sort it out. x

Here is an update:

A couple of nights ago i decided i needed to talk to her. When I got in from work I had tea then went upstairs to get changed and she followed me up. And she said she wanted to talk. She couldn?t understand why I was so upset about the ex BF, so I told her that I didn?t have any problems with him until that Facebook 1 on 1 and said that the bloke she was secetly texting really put the wind up me, made me feel really insecure and that it had really eroded my trust in her. And when I saw that friend request I though oh no not again.

She told me she had been speaking to my mate on email and that she told him the reason she had deleted her stuff of facebook was because we had had a massive argument a few months ago, and we nearly split up.

Well I did nearly leave her back then as I had just found out about her hidden text thing, and we rowed about him and why she was hiding it, so she deleted all her friends from our account saying she didn?t need me being suspicious and not trusting her and didn?t need facebook.

I said to her do you blame me for the way I reacted. It?s hard thing to get over. So she said sorry thet were only mates chatting and that she thoght i would go barmy if i knew! Soi said hiding it and me finding out has made it worse.

Oddly her best mate came round before I got home and they went through my facebook friends on which I have just over a dozen women, (my mates 12yo daughter, 3 nieces, her sister in law, my auntie and 3 of her mates). That leaves a few she doesn?t know although she knows one from the USA as she had some long chats with her over the last couple of years despite not ever meeting her. They are 3 of my friends wives (friends on there too) and a woman I don?t know as I accepted a friend request thinking it was someone who works with and it wasn?t (or maybe it was but she has had some extensive facial surgery). And her mates answer to it all was that I had put ?all? these women on mine to see how she reacted, which is a complete crock.

Funnily enough she was trawling through facebook last night looking for old school and work mates and she friend requested loads, all blokes! So it looks more like she is testing me!

We seem to have sorted some stuff out but I am not so sure. So I am tiking next monday and tuesday off work to do a bit of detective work. Monday and tuesday are the days her kids go to their dads and she has a free afternoon from 1300 to 1900 when I get in, these are the days when she also visits her "friends".

I know you all ont agree with snooping, but I need to find out whether somethings going on or it the effects of comng off the tablets making her like this.

I know coming off prozac turned me into a right oddball.

Another update:

I dropped some wedding stuff at her brothers on the way home last night and texted her on my way there at about 1740 to let her know I would be late.

I had told her in the morning that I may pop over there but I didn?t know if they would be in. Didn?t get any response for half an hour so I rang her mobile to make sure she got the message (before she got tea ready for 6:30) and no one answered.

So I rang home and her daughter answered and told me she had forgotten her mobile (which she NEVER forgets, and that she had popped down the shops about half hour before I texted to get some tortillas. So I told her to let her mum know I had rang.

About 10 mins after that she rang me in a piss to have a go saying she got the message (which she couldn?t have as she had forgotten her phone!) and there was no need to check up on her, I can?t immediately reply to texts all the time.

I told her that I wasn?t checking up on her, I was just being courteous and wanted to make sure tea didn?t get ruined and that I didn?t know if she got the txt or not. I wasn?t expecting an immediate reply but an acknowledgement would have been nice.

So she had gone to our local Tesco, ¼ mile away in the car and had taken an hour and 10 mins to buy some tortillas.

When I got in, they had all eaten and she said you?ll have to do yourself some tea (again). I don?t expect her to cook, but she always does because of how late I get in.

Then while I was eating my tea she said you gonna put that phone socket back together then? So I told her that I was waiting for a call from BT as it was playing up and that I had forgotten tbh.

She said ?yeah well I thought as much! BT rang a couple of days ago.? So I jokingly said oh I didn?t know, you didn?t say but I cant always remember to do things. Her reply was there?s no need to be like that, I am going upstairs out of the way, so upstairs she went for an hour.

When she came down I was ironing and she spent the rest of the evening, about 2 ½ hours, on facebook chat talking to a ?new? friend, a bloke she once knew. The most she said to me after she came down stairs was ?Christ its 11:15 I?m off to bed now?.

I don?t think I have a problem with this, but as we get so little time together it would have been nice if she spoke to me a bit too. She still seems to be putting her life, friends and everything ahead of me. I don?t actually feel like part of her life, she is doing her things and bugger me.

So no real change there then. I don?t think anything I said when we spoke the other night has been taken notice of even though I actually apologised for something she had caused! God I hope it?s the tablets.

I am being stupid trying to repair this arent I.

"I don?t think I have a problem with this, but as we get so little time together it would have been nice if she spoke to me a bit too. She still seems to be putting her life, friends and everything ahead of me. I don?t actually feel like part of her life, she is doing her things and bugger me.

So no real change there then. I don?t think anything I said when we spoke the other night has been taken notice of even though I actually apologised for something she had caused! God I hope it?s the tablets. "

This is broken, HH.

Spending time, effort, emotion and money on snooping will not help you.

My ex's FB was and is similarly full of blokes, and it was clearly her either looking to make me jealous or with an eye to "better" opportunity.

Classic was when she said to me (apropos of nothing while we were sitting watching tv and during a time when we were trying again), "Why don't you send me nice texts anymore?" And then she proceded to read out two "you're so sexy and lovely and gorgeous" type texts she'd gotten from some bloke she'd met.

Such a child, and I think your (needs to be ex) girlfriend is in the same mold.

I feel for you, you know what you need to concentrate on doing, and I know you will do it. Good luck.

I've been following this thread with interest and would give the same advice as I would to a woman.

Someone's past relationships and their behaviour within them are illuminating. The first mistake was believing that she'd never be unfaithful to you because that really woud be a triumph of hope over experience. For serial adulterers - and even many one-off philanderers - the infidelity is not about their primary relationship or the person they are cheating on. It is about them.

Have a think about the people in the public eye who do this. Do you really believe they have been unlucky to have had several terrible relationships with people who consistently failed to meet their needs? Or do you think, actually this person will only have the capacity to be faithful when they run out of opportunities?

I can imagine your esteem is in tatters because of your earlier abusive relationship, but like so many people, there might be a pattern developing here about the people you let in. You might be someone with the word victim written on your forehead and therefore act like a magnet to unscrupulous abusers.

Get some private counselling and try to stop the script. But bin this woman immediately. She sounds awful. Be as kind as you can to her DCs, who don't have any choice in the life they've been exposed to, but hang on to your dignity and give her some marching orders. You will feel enormously restored in esteem terms for that one very positive act.

You know, I wish someone could call her bluff on FB and publicly say oi i know what you are doing, you are killing your other half.

I even feel like setting up a falsie and doing it myself, but would need to get her to friend accept me somehow.

I wouldn't bother, really. This isn't so much about whether she's cheating, it's more that she just isn't in the relationship. As you say yourself, she's doing her own thing and you don't feature. Whether her own thing is other blokes or shopping or extreme nail painting, she doesn't seem to be in the least bothered about you as a person. That's not exactly a basis for a healthy partnership. I doubt very much whether the pills have a lot to do with it.

Heres another insight into last night:

The first bit about the text (in the post a couple above this one) looks like she was having a guilty conscience about something. She has never, ever forgotten her phone when she goes somehere while I am in for as long as I have known her.

I caught a glimpse of what she was talking about on chat when I got her a beer. She was bragging about how good a time she had when she went to the Nurbergring race track with another ex, what a fantastic car he had and she would love to go back again.

Well I have suggested doing just that several times in the last 2 years, said my old sports car could be on the road for about £300 and that would be a fun car to do the Nurbergring in, but she just fobs it off saying its not that great an experience.

Then she told him that she is going to get a bike license because she loves men in leathers and it would be great to go away camping with other bikers! She could even do the Nurbergring then!

Well we have a tent and she tells me she hates camping.

It makes me feel like she wants to do everything, but not with me!

She knows I hate bikes and that I wouldn?t go out on one, I know (knew) too many people who have shuffled off this mortal coil due to bike accidents, including, very nearly my mum and dad when I was a kid. I wouldn?t stop her getting a license, but I would be crapping myself every time she went out.

And to bugger off for weekends camping with other bikers sounds like just another way of getting to do her own thing and shut me out.

I am going to suggest getting my sports car on the road (and I know how that will be met ?oh so your not selling it then?) then taking a long weekend camping trip to the Nurbergring, and if she so much as suggests going with the people she and her ex went with, and that theres this nice little hotel nearby where we stayed? or fobs it all off, I?ll bloody crown her! She has done all before when I suggested it.

Maybe I will then know where I stand and it will give me the confidence to tell her to move out. Me or them.

I feel really angry about it. And right now I feel my world is coming apart and I don?t know how to handle it.

I thought we had made some progress the other night.

and another:

She does exactly the same about going into town, can?t be arsed to go with me but as soon as her mates suggest it, it?s the best thing. The only reason she hasn?t gone recently is because she is skint. I do think that she is pissed that I went to a ar show last weekend (that was booked and paid for months ago) as she keeps saying about doing things and then saying, ?but oh I cant afford it?. I think soon as she gets paid after her in ahnd perio at her new job she'll be out with her mates again.

I don?t like the way she treats money too. I spend all my money each month running the house and getting to work. When I have a little spare cash I try to do something for us. When she was working before, she paid for the shopping, council tax and Sky and had a fair bit left over each month (and will again when she starts getting paid), she spends the spare cash on herself and her friends then has the cheek to say I should be more careful with my money as I have none left each month and cant afford to go out.

When ever we do go out I pay, but if I don?t have any money she never says lets go out, I?ll pay. Just spends it on herself.

Monday night I paid her £40 to get some ink for the printer to do a paid job, and £20 to get the photo paper. The job paid us £24, she gave that to her son to pay for a school trip to before I got home then asked if I minded. That now means I don?t have enough money to fuel my car for work for the rest of the month. So I am going to ring my mum to borrow some money.

If she fobs off the Nurbergring trip, it will truly show me where I stand after her conversation last night, and I think I will then do it anyway and take my son.

She doesn?t talk to me on a night because (her excuse while she was unemployed) we email each other during the day and there?s nothing to talk about. Well now she is working, we don?t email each other yet she still has nothing to talk to me about and any attempt at conversation is met with short sharp closed replies.

Yet she can talk for 2 hours to some other bloke and spend afternoons at her friends talking!

I am now wondering how she took over an hour to get the tortillas from the shop in our village when you can walk there in 5 mins from our house, and she took the car!

I don?t want to be in the position of having to leave her, but it looks like its (we) not working out from here, and its getting worse.

I don?t really want to be with someone who is selfish, 2 faced, lies about things, hides blokes and has double standards and be relegated to division 6 behind every one she knows.

But it is starting to look that way and she can?t even see it. Or maybe she can and is just waiting for me to finish it for her.

I am booking a day off on Monday, she finishes at 1, but her ex hubby has the kids from school so she has a totally empty house for 5 ½ hours til I get home. Last monday nothing got done in the house when she said she was going to do the cleaning and the same for weeks before, months in fact. She didn?t even do it while she was unemployed, and it wasn?t like she had no spare time on her hands. So I am going to see what she does somehow.

I feel that I am acting irrationally and maybe I am, but this needs sorting one way or the other. I?m not over reacting am I, I feel very confused about stuff. And I?m hurting like hell.

I wish I could find the confidence to walk or for her to come clean and allow me to walk.

harrierhom I do hope you're ok and that your suggestions for going away give you some of the answers you need.

As an outsider I would agree with everyone who has said she is no good, and no good for you, and you need to walk away.

However, I also know that in reality it's just not that easy. It seems as though you're desperately searching for that evidence. That 'permission' almost, to walk away and deal with the inevitable fallout of a relationship break up. It's hard to do. Especially when you still love someone.

I really hope you can get the evidence you need. Even if it is from her reaction to the trip and the camping.
Once you get the confidence to walk away, I'm sure you'll never look back.

p.s. when you said "or her to come clean and allow me to walk" - I think you need to allow yourself to walk.
She will never ever tell the full truth. Even once you have evidence. They never do.

You need to allow yourself to accept that what she is doing is not right, in any way, and that's all the permission you need.

what Baffy said.

Especially Baffy's second posting.

You're a good person, and splitting with her will preserve that.

everybody is talking to the hand