Advice pls ?

syd_b

Hi All,
I really could do with some advice please.
Back in February this year I found messages on my girlfriends facebook messenger with a bloke which quite frankly could only be decsribed as sex txts. They had also been sending pictures.
After a big confrontation she told me that she was truly sorry and that these stemmed back to before we met - and that it had only happened a few times since we'd been together. It took an awful lot to get over it as I have been hurt before and it felt like "here we go again"
Our relationship had seemed to be perfect - we were happy to have found each other and she said she there was nothing lacking in anything between us. Everything really did feel perfect.
I asked her to delete the "friend" from facebook and to have no further contact with him. She has also since come off facebook.
To put more context behind this - he is married to one of her friends ( not a close friend ) and she does work at his offices and her friends house but never when he is there. The txts were simply that and she maintains it was never physical - certainly reading the messages at the time he was getting a kick out of it but it didn't appear any more than just words and pictures.
I know morally I should not have looked at her facebook but there was something that happened at the time that raise a suspicion. It did start off way before we met so her reason that this was something that should have been broken off - I sort of can go along with.
About 3 months ago I know he txt her again - to be fair to say the office where she was due to visit were working late and to warn her that they were all still there and to leave it until empty. It caused another argument because in my mind - no contact meant no contact so why was he still txting her. She maintains that she has had no further contact with him and the messages about office being busy were unavoidable and he was doing her a favour.
I now think I have trust issues - yesterday evening I couldn't stop myself and checked her phone. She has now renamed his details to another name ( female ) and I saw more messages - this time not just about the office - but "Hi - how you doing, how's work x" type messages.
We've had another argument and she is mad that I checked her phone ( yes I know I shouldn't have and it makes me feel sad that I've resorted to checking )
She argues changing the name was obvious because there would be the occassional message about work and she wanted to avoid any arguments.
What I am finding hard to get over is she promised she would have no further contact with him - but clearly still is talking ( not just messages about work ). OK not every week - but she promised and regardless of the promise is not sticking to it.
I told her that I could forgive but I needed to know she would cut all ties with him when it came to txts / facebook so I wouldn't have this keep playing on my mind.
She does love me and I dearly love her and we are in the midst of buying a lovely house together and looking forward to the rest of our relationship.
I asked her why she still felt the need to txt him knowing that it would upset me if I found out and all she can say is it's innocent and all the stuff before stopped immediately.
She has never talked to this guy on the phone, been out with him or turned into anything physical.
What on earth do I do.
I could do with a women's perspective please ? I am a good man who holds loyalty as a very important value in life. But the trust is eating me up.

mrcow

You either trust her or you don't.

If you don't, walk away.
if you do, then believe in her and leave it alone.

Stop going through her phone and stop trying to be so controlling - you're going to drive her away.

marisco_2

I am not surprised you have trust issues. A woman who you loved and trusted implicitly went behind your back and was sex texting the husband of a friend of hers. That action shows how little regard she held for you or her friend. Most people would struggle to get past that kind of betrayal.

For your own reasons you decided to try to forgive and forget and move on from it and she agreed to cut contact with this guy. She has since gone back on that promise without any real understanding of how that would make you feel or what damage it would cause to your relationship with her. If everything were so innocent and above board and they only communicated about work related issues, there would be no need for her to go as far as to change contact details on her phone to make it look like she were communicating with a female when in fact it was with him.

This wont be what you want to hear at all but she is playing you for a complete mug. Basically staying in the security of your relationship whilst most likely playing away. In short you cant trust her as far as you could throw her. Personally I think you would be mad to purchase property with a person who you justifiably can place so little trust in. Dump her, move on and spend some time by yourself before getting involved with anyone else is my advice. It may well cause you a fair bit of heartache but that would be nothing in comparison to what you would go through if you stayed with her long term I suspect.

balletshoes

you don't trust her - for heavens sake don't buy a house with her!

Atomix

Just out of interest - how old are you both?

Sounds like the sort of thing a teenager would do... Which means she's not taking life seriously / doesnt want to settle down?

Make any sense?

krlyr

mrcow wrote: »

You either trust her or you don't.

If you don't, walk away.
if you do, then believe in her and leave it alone.

Stop going through her phone and stop trying to be so controlling - you're going to drive her away.

I've seen lots of threads about this from the other perspective (man texting, woman checking the phone) and never heard a woman be called controlling for this kind of behaviour. Yes, I suppose telling her not to contact this guy is controlling in a way - but I would rate it on par with asking a partner not to look at !!!!!! because you dislike it. Telling someone to stop contacting the person they're having a "textual relationship" with is different to telling them not to speak to x friend because you don't like the look of them.

If I had someone I was a bit flirty with before meeting my OH, I would call things off straight away out of respect for him.
She doesn't see or speak to this guy so it's not like they have much of a friendship - what has she really got to lose by ditching him? Why gamble with her relationship with you, what has she got to gain by maintaining contact with him? That's what I'd be asking myself. Another red flag for me is that she's showing a lack of respect for her friend too, since this guy is married - is it a personality trait of hers, to treat people she supposedly cares for with such little respect?

From a women's POV, if a man was doing this to me, I'd be out of the relationship ASAP. Infact, it has happened to me in a way and he was given the elbow for it. What's to stop her doing it again, but being even more crafty about it (deleting all conversations, using a second phone, etc.)? And would you really feel able to trust her not to do it a third time - you'll be constantly wanting to check her phone or emails, and what kind of basis for a relationship is that?

Mojisola

syd_b wrote: »

I asked her to delete the "friend" from facebook and to have no further contact with him. She has also since come off facebook.
To put more context behind this - he is married to one of her friends ( not a close friend ) and she does work at his offices and her friends house but never when he is there.

About 3 months ago I know he txt her again - to be fair to say the office where she was due to visit were working late and to warn her that they were all still there and to leave it until empty. It caused another argument because in my mind - no contact meant no contact so why was he still txting her. She maintains that she has had no further contact with him and the messages about office being busy were unavoidable and he was doing her a favour.

I now think I have trust issues - yesterday evening I couldn't stop myself and checked her phone. She has now renamed his details to another name ( female ) and I saw more messages - this time not just about the office - but "Hi - how you doing, how's work x" type messages.

We've had another argument and she is mad that I checked her phone ( yes I know I shouldn't have and it makes me feel sad that I've resorted to checking )

She argues changing the name was obvious because there would be the occassional message about work and she wanted to avoid any arguments.

She does love me and I dearly love her and we are in the midst of buying a lovely house together and looking forward to the rest of our relationship.

I could do with a women's perspective please ? I am a good man who holds loyalty as a very important value in life. But the trust is eating me up.

If you've had a bad experience in the past, you will find it more difficult to trust and are likely to over-react to current events. That's something you could deal with by having some counselling.

I would been upset if my partner had been posting pictures of himself to another woman. He works with a lot of lovely young women and has to have contact with them relating to work but there are boundaries that shouldn't be crossed.

It's obviously going to be difficult for her to cut all communication with him because of the work issues. She may also feel a bit different about him because he is her friend's husband as well as a colleague. Do you ever socialise together?

I can see how she thought renaming his contact details might be easier than dealing with you over-reacting to a work related text but things like that will only feed your worries.

Could you ask her to change it back to his name and tell her that you will trust her to only have contact about work?

If you promise to find a way to work on your trust issues, will she reciprocate by accepting that you are a bit over-sensitive and being very careful to keep things quite formal with him?

Deal with this very quickly - if she was posting, I would be saying don't go as far as buying a house together until this is sorted out. Living with a jealous partner can be very hard and most relationships like this don't survive.

triple_choc_chip

Most of us have been in the position that you find yourself in now, ie: wanting to believe in someone because you love them, considering all that is beautiful about the person / relationship in the hope it will compensate for that awful, deep, gut feeling of impending heartache.

I'm sorry, but that feeling won't go away.

You could learn to live with it, have a lovely property and partner and on the surface everything would look perfect, but you won't be happy.
You could continue as you are now, challenging her, arguing, mistrusting, sneaking about looking at stuff until the love dies anyway, a slow and painful death. :wall:
You could feel the fear and do it anyway - cut your losses, admit that she isn't the one who deserves to share the perfect dream and change direction in the pursuit for happiness. :heartsmil
Good luck.

syd_b

krlyr wrote: »

I've seen lots of threads about this from the other perspective (man texting, woman checking the phone) and never heard a woman be called controlling for this kind of behaviour. Yes, I suppose telling her not to contact this guy is controlling in a way - but I would rate it on par with asking a partner not to look at !!!!!! because you dislike it. Telling someone to stop contacting the person they're having a "textual relationship" with is different to telling them not to speak to x friend because you don't like the look of them.

If I had someone I was a bit flirty with before meeting my OH, I would call things off straight away out of respect for him.
She doesn't see or speak to this guy so it's not like they have much of a friendship - what has she really got to lose by ditching him? Why gamble with her relationship with you, what has she got to gain by maintaining contact with him? That's what I'd be asking myself. Another red flag for me is that she's showing a lack of respect for her friend too, since this guy is married - is it a personality trait of hers, to treat people she supposedly cares for with such little respect?

From a women's POV, if a man was doing this to me, I'd be out of the relationship ASAP. Infact, it has happened to me in a way and he was given the elbow for it. What's to stop her doing it again, but being even more crafty about it (deleting all conversations, using a second phone, etc.)? And would you really feel able to trust her not to do it a third time - you'll be constantly wanting to check her phone or emails, and what kind of basis for a relationship is that?

Thank you.
She's gone home now following the argument earlier. The thing is I believe she really loves me. What I can't fathom is what she needs to txt this other bloke (even though only half a dozen times since feb). If I reverse the tables I would do everything in my power to convince her I had cut all ties.
I really hate myself for checking - it's a bit like picking a scab - you know you shouldn't but you can't help yourself.
AND we complete in the house this Friday coming !
She made me promise at the time I wouldn't do anything to this bloke. There is a chance we could bump into him and his wife as apparently live in the same town. The male in me wants to thump him and give him some of the anguish I've had to live with.
I don't condone checking her phone - I know it was wrong but the fact is she didn't stick to what she said she would do.
Shes 36 I'm 44

mrcow

krlyr wrote: »

I've seen lots of threads about this from the other perspective (man texting, woman checking the phone) and never heard a woman be called controlling for this kind of behaviour. Yes, I suppose telling her not to contact this guy is controlling in a way - but I would rate it on par with asking a partner not to look at !!!!!! because you dislike it. Telling someone to stop contacting the person they're having a "textual relationship" with is different to telling them not to speak to x friend because you don't like the look of them.

That would be an incredibly controlling thing to do.

A fully grown adult is allowed to (legally) look at what they want to!

Funky_Bold_Ribena

My advice would be to stop the house purchase if at all possible. Have you exchanged contracts yet?