A
female
age
41-50,
*ngel777
writes:Please help! Going out with seperated man with 2 kids for the last 2 years. Initially I was skeptical and worried would it work out with his baggage, etc. I know we all have baggage but I suppose I always thought I would meet someone single like me and get married...; We kept things very low key at the start of our relationship. I knew of his ex-wife and family and I wanted to be sure before any hurt was caused. I know he was free to date but still I didn't want to commit and take on the hassle. In fact when I did meet his kids there was a bit of agro from his ex wife..nothing much..but then she still doesn't know who I am. Weird I know but our paths have never crossed and I have suggested at times he tell her who I am. She would recognise me but thats about it. She knows my first name and she hasn't asked anymore. He'll tell her if I want but he doesn't think its that important. He says he wants a future with me and recently has suggested moving in together. I get on very well with his kids and do often think we could make a good future together. We live close by and when he doesn't have the kids he practically lives in mine and I visit his when he's got the kids. We've met each others extended families but something that's always irked me is that he never really talks about me to his family. They are not a family of talkers like mine and i accept that, but it just kind of gets to me. He delayed even telling them when we first met and he certainly doesnt push invitations on me to visit them with him though he has got better... Sorry this is all the backround stuff..what's really bugging me as that I feel he plays a passive role in the relationship. He doesn't want to get married again though he says he'll marry me! I'm not comfortable about that. I believe in marriage and I know its different for him but he married young and it wasn't a happy marriage, he says he always felt he was with the wrong person. I suppose I'd like to feel if I was the right person he would have no qualms.Before we started going out I knew him as aquaintance and had driven past him one day walking with a woman, so when we started going out naturally i mentioned this. He said she was someone he had worked with and they had been friends for a while. She had been a good support to him during his break up (2 yrs previously) she was married during this time but didn't invite him to wedding which i thought was odd. That was fine and as he didn't have any other close friends I would ask time to time had they been in touch. His answer was always the same..a vague yes followed by we only talk about work stuff, he also stopped going for walks with her which he said he felt kind of bad about that he had forgotten about her since meeting me. All this time i reassured him and told him to go for walks if he wanted. After nearly a year together I picked up his phone by accident (something i know he finds hard to believe but its true!)it was dark and we have similiar phones. Anyway it was from an unknown girl asking him did he want to go online or why wasn't he online, there was lots of winks and smiles in the text and she asked was he in bed..it was 9pm!! I was working that night. Anyway there was about 4 texts but i didnt read them all and felt guilty for even looking. I trusted him completely at this point.Well about 2 days later i thought i should bring it up. The look on his face..and then he deleted the texts in front of me. I felt sick and told him to go. With tears in his eyes he told me 'nothing had ever happened'. 3 days later he confessed that she was someone he used to work with about 7 years ago and that on a work night out they had had a brief kiss (he was married at this time) and that over the years they had kept in contact with long periods between keeping in touch. He told me nothing was going on. That he had panicked when i discovered the texts, that she knew about me and that he was happy, that it was unusual for her to ask him to go online and he thought something was wrong. They had a brief IM conversation and there was no flirting, he had never met up with her or pursued her at any stage. I had found her facebook page and he was a friend. He had told me he didn't have a FB account and he has several empty accounts on different social networking sites as he works in that industry and they monitor different sites. He admitted that at one point in his life she had made him feel good and there was flirting but that was no longer the case. I asked to see his FB account which he gave me password for there was 1 other girl on it that he used to work with and now lived in NZ so i let that go. There was no messages in the account and i wondered had he deleted everything..then i found misteltoe kisses sent by her the previous xmas. Ok, but he had returned the kisses at the end of jan! He said this was when he had discovered them and didnt want to be rude, then why not send a msg? i thought this made the kisses more significant.All of this really bothered me I thought this man was crazy about me up to this point. We spent all our time together and he was very loving. So i became paranoid! and this included the woman i had not brought up for some time..the one he went walking with! I was annoyed that he never brought her up voluntarily. Then 1 day he opens his laptop in front of me and the last IM he had had was on the screen. He was confiding to this woman all about me and how he didn't think our relationship was worth it because i mistrusted him about the other girl.I was really angry that he said all they ever talked about was work and here he was having an intimate converstion about me. At the time i decided that at least he refused flirting with the other girl and that there was obviously nothing going on between them. So I told him to be upfront about everything. I told him everything. I had never distrusted him up to this point. Well things were shaky between us he thought he had done nothing wrong. A few months passed my instinct kept kicking in telling me he was hiding things so i began checking his phone (how depressing! i didn't want to be that person) he deleted everything until one night i went through a log and found that there was texts and calls to these 2 women that he had deleted form the regular log. I broke up with him then. He convinced me to get back with him and told me he would never be in contact with either one again. And i believe he hasn't been. However a few months ago I found out that during this bad period we had he had sent an email to a work colleague. It was his 1st time meeting this female colleague and she had travelled to be at a work function (she lives in the UK) he had sent her an email while travelling home to see me. I felt the email was very flirty in nature telling her how great she was and how great it was to meet her. He had even wrote 'i hope you remember what i said!', he told me that was something about work, he was giving her advice. Then I found out internet dating sites that i knew he was on before he met me so i googled his username and there was multiple sites and 1 had a 'last login' date from that time we had broke up. he said he went on it briefly, that it was an old habit that he resorted to beacause he felt bad about our break-up and he immediately logged out because he realised he didn't want 'to do that anymore'. I was angry because he had clicked on a 'want to meet' woman who was divorced with 2 children!! He said he hardly remembers clicking it and few seconds he was offline and never chatted to anyone that night or ever during our relationship.I can't believe I've gone on for so long! and if you're still with me I'd love to hear your advice.On a good note he's very kind and loving and has always been complimentary to me and i do believe he loves me.I just want to know why all the messing? Why run the risk of sabotaging what we have?Looking forward to any responses out there!!
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broke up, divorce, ex-wife, facebook, flirt, his ex, period, text, wedding Reply to this Question
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Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
male
reader, Ven  +, writes (19 October 2010):
Because he has issues. It may be that his ex really hurt him and he hasn't dealt with it, or be may just not see a problem with doing things behind your back. Either way, if you go back through your post and count the number of times he has lied to you about that one woman....
"He was confiding to this woman all about me and how he didn't think our relationship was worth it because i mistrusted him about the other girl."
Find a man who can be honest with you, who is happy with you, and who doesn't need more to keep his self-esteem up.
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