I’ve been with my partner for over 3 years, I’ve always had a bit of anxiety when it comes to worrying he’ll find someone else but I’ve tried to be open and tell him when things are getting to me.
So I’ve just returned from a holiday just myself and my children. He’s not their father. He’s been fine the last few days, if anything over nice which made me wonder why. Tonight whilst putting my kids to bed, he fell asleep on the sofa something in me told me to open his phone, thee were some messages between him and his friend, his friend was acting an idiot over women and my other half was giving responses like ‘does she have a mate’ ‘tell her to come round’, then what’s even worse I’ve found messages between him and a woman he works with basically being quite flirty, him saying there’s nothing wrong with her arse and she should come over and see what he’s up to, granted her responses are no responses of that makes sense, his messages end with 😜 xxx we don’t even put x’s on messages and never have.
To say I’m broken is an understatement, I told him to leave, he went to meet the friend who he’d been asking if she had a mate.
When I’ve asked him he’s just said the last few months have been rubbish, it was abit of banter, I’m overreacting and if I’m like this why would he be with me, basically gas lighting me, he’s said nothing has happened though so why am I kicking off.
I feel horrendous and questioning what I’ve done considering I’ve been no different. Would you discuss it or is that the final line to be drawn
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I’ve been with my partner for over 3 years, I’ve always had a bit of anxiety when it comes to worrying he’ll find someone else but I’ve tried to be open and tell him when things are getting to me.
So I’ve just returned from a holiday just myself and my children. He’s not their father. He’s been fine the last few days, if anything over nice which made me wonder why. Tonight whilst putting my kids to bed, he fell asleep on the sofa something in me told me to open his phone, thee were some messages between him and his friend, his friend was acting an idiot over women and my other half was giving responses like ‘does she have a mate’ ‘tell her to come round’, then what’s even worse I’ve found messages between him and a woman he works with basically being quite flirty, him saying there’s nothing wrong with her arse and she should come over and see what he’s up to, granted her responses are no responses of that makes sense, his messages end with 😜 xxx we don’t even put x’s on messages and never have.
To say I’m broken is an understatement, I told him to leave, he went to meet the friend who he’d been asking if she had a mate.
When I’ve asked him he’s just said the last few months have been rubbish, it was abit of banter, I’m overreacting and if I’m like this why would he be with me, basically gas lighting me, he’s said nothing has happened though so why am I kicking off.
I feel horrendous and questioning what I’ve done considering I’ve been no different. Would you discuss it or is that the final line to be drawn
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> He kicked off at me for being overreactive and that I should let it go when nothing has happened
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Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.
NTA. You’ve “done” nothing but tell him to leave because he’s been cheating on you. Him denying it and pretending that you’re the problem just makes it worse. I don’t think there’s anything to salvage here.
NTA Leave him, he clearly doesn’t like or respect you.
NTA. I don’t think anyone should look through their partners phone, but it happens. It happened here. And you found some pretty fucked up stuff. I would think it’s a huge sign that he’s not trustworthy,
Especially with the gaslighting…
The question to ask yourself is this… why did you look? Have you had reasons not to trust before? Has something been slowly leading to this? Maybe you’re been noticing a change in him?
It’s also possible that your anxiety has taken a toll on you both slowly, and perhaps this has contributed to him slowly pulling away and or becoming interested elsewhere, I don’t know.
I just mention those two possibilities to illustrate that I’m a little tepid with saying NTA here, but given life experience, I assume a bit of all of the above is true, and that he’s the asshole at the end of the day, because no matter what, he shouldn’t have done what he did. Anyone tempted to act that way should muster up the courage to
Just end it. Maybe now is your chance to do that too
NTA.
Clearly the two of you have different values and it’s good that you figured that out before marriage. You deserve to have someone entirely faithful to you because that is what you bring to a relationship. You will find that.
It really sucks that you discovered this after three years, but don’t continue to waste your time with him.
ESH.
You shouldn’t be so insecure you have to look through your partner’s phone – what a privacy violation.
He shouldn’t be cheating on you then blaming you for doing it.
NTA. Everyone often acts like “going through your SO’s phone” is the ultimate invasion of privacy and a violation of trust – some even call it controlling behavior. And there are cases when any/all of those apply but any previous violation of trust from THAT person permits a moment of weakness. you weren’t checking daily. you aren’t making him prove himself for a PAST relationship. you trusted your gut instinct and its really hard for me to fault someone for that.
INFO: are you upset about the messages, or what the messages could imply have happened? If you are assuming that more happened and that’s why you ended things, then there is something to be said for communication depending on how much you loved this person. But if the messages are enough of a boundary cross that you “feel he should have known better” then that is a fundamental difference in your values that would end up replicated in other scenarios down the line.
Please do t degrade yourself, and beg him. Kick his but to the curb.
NTA. Only you can answer the question of whether to work it out, and even I couldn’t say for sure what I’d do, it would depend on a lot of things.
Also, being someone whos relationships have naturally ended up with mutual phone access for one reason or another, I don’t find it strange that you were in there.
TBH though, sending messages like that knowing you know his pin seems a bit silly, and might lend weight to the fact it is not serious? Definitely not not what it looks like though