A
female
age
41-50,
anonymous
writes:How can I trust my fiance when he's already lied to me? My fiance and I have been together for two and a half years. We're getting married in early May, but I am having trouble trusting him.For me it was love at first sight. Well, not exactly, but close. We slept together the night we met. I was moving away two weeks after we met, so I didn't expect anything to come out of it. But he kept calling me. We talked for hours everyday. Six weeks after I moved, he invited me to be his guest at a wedding. We went to his old college town, where he wined and dined me and most importantly, asked me to be exclusive. I took this all very seriously. It turns out, however, that this was his modus operandi. Apparently, he had played the exact same moves with at least two women he dated before me. (I found this out from his supposed friends.)My fiance doesn't deny that he wasn't serious about me at the time. He admits that he didn't have feelings for me yet. Finding this all out has made me question the sincerity of his feelings. If he could be so convincingly romantic then, how can I trust his sincerity now?I've voiced my concerns to him and he shrugs them off. He regularly lies to me about small things. He says he does it because he doesn't want to fight with me. I think that's a cop out. What do you think?
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reader, anonymous, writes (6 February 2014): This is verified as being by the original poster of the questionI appreciate all of your responses. I'm not particularly fixated on his exes and I definitely don't feel inferior to any of them in any way. I'm better looking, better educated and more successful than any of the ones I know about (which is why he wants to marry me, lol).What has concerned me is that he played me very well when we met. I truly thought he was falling for me as I fell for him. He has confessed that it took him a little longer than I thought. It didn't take him that long to be on the same page as me. (He asked me to look at rings at the 8 month mark and we got engaged after a year and a half together. )My family loves him, my friends love him. Everyone thinks he's a decent person, especially my father which means a lot to me. But it's true, I know he can fool me if he wants to (at least temporarily, I eventually catch on). That scares me and i'm not sure how to handle it.Thank you so much for your responses! It really helps to see so many different perspectives!
A
female
reader, So_Very_Confused  +, writes (6 February 2014):
 OH i think he's sincere NOW.
the problem is look how EASILY HE LIES... look how EASILY he can turn things the way he wants with a bit of fibbing.
do you TRUST HIM?
to me how he feels right now is not the issue. clearly he is willing to marry you...whether it's out of true love or the willingness to settle for you... (and in a way we ALL settle in some way) only you can determine.
IF the ONLY reason you are questioning this is if he sincerely loves you, then yes he does.
I'd be more concerned about the ability to lie to you.
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A
female
reader, Ciar  +, writes (6 February 2014):
 You're right, OP. It generally is in poor taste for friends to discuss details of one's past relationships with a new partner, but at the same time it would be a bit weird and unhealthy to pretend those exes never existed. The past does come up now and again.
If you were, in my opinion, this hypersensitive and paranoid with your fiancé then it was no great leap to think you were being the same way with his friends.
I think the problem is you don't think you measure up to these women, that you're not on solid ground and therefore have little power in this relationship. That you want extra reassurance and special treatment and the only face saving way to get it is to convince your fiancé he's done you wrong and owes it to you.
The thing is, OP, your worst fears are going to become a reality if you continue this way. You're keeping his exes fresh in his mind. Whatever issues he had with them fade with time and in contrast with your constant bitter accusations, and hypersensitivity in the here and now their past short comings will seem insignificant.
Your fiancé may be the biggest heel out there. I don't know him obviously, but there is nothing in your post that raises any red flags about him.
If the shoe was on the other foot, if you'd written in telling us your fiancé frequently brought up your past, questioned your loyalty, accused you of lying, picked apart everything you said searching for evidence against you, we'd be telling you he was a bad guy and to get the hell away from him.
Your fiance doesn't need to marry you to have sex with you. He got that in the very beginning. If that's all he wanted from you why put himself through all this? Why be your boyfriend? Why marry you?
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (6 February 2014): I'm sorry but I don't agree with the other posts. Call me cynical but I'd run a mile from this guy. His 'modus operandi' is exactly that - he's trying to find a partner who will put up with him and his manipulative ways. I don't agree that he has developed true feelings for you - except in the sense that I think he is very, very needy and manipulative and is now feeling very happy that he found someone he can keep lying to and who will accept it. For him to say that he lies to you in order to keep the peace is a MASSIVE sign that something is wrong and it will get worse. People who draw you in very quickly like this usually have a huge amount of personal insecurity and neediness - you say you kind of fell in love at first sight - some people literally know how to manipulate this by seeming unusualy, unique, charming, and as if they hold the key to your heart. It comes from them being needy. Emotionally mature people just take things a lot slower and they conduct the relationship reciprocally. By sleeping with him immediately you sent out a signal "I am open to your manipulation, I have no/very low sense of boundaries and you can basically walk all over me if you do it in the right way"I'm sorry to kill any romantic dream, but you are trying to override your own instinct - the self doubt that you are already starting to show will be nothing compared to what will develop if you continue with this person.
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reader, anonymous, writes (6 February 2014): This is verified as being by the original poster of the questionThanks for your opinions. Everything about our courtship was completely different from the very start for me. My fiance was the first person I ever had sex with before exclusivity. I see how it's not fair to expect it was the same for him, but I am the first woman he proposed to, so it evened out. I was a bit hurt when I found out he was faking it with me, but I guess that if he could admit that to me now, he must really love me. To be honest, it was wonderful to be able to hear your objective perspectives. The one thing I object to is the implication that I am trying to isolate him from his friends. I am not at all. He talks to and spends as much time with them as he pleases. I just don't think a true friend would ever bring up past partners/dating scenarios to one's fiance. None of my friends or family have ever so much as whispered a word about any of my exes to my fiance (out of respect to me). I feel like these specific people were trying to rat him out, which is why I refer to them as "supposed friends."
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A
male
reader, Gauntlet  +, writes (6 February 2014):
 Even if I totally understand how you feel - kind of betrayed, having been a toy in his expert hands - I'd like to point out that you both were lying from the start. Having sex that fast and that easy is a lie in itself if you want my opinion, a way to subjugate the other part, a little bit like the drug dealer giving away samples of his substances to give his potential customers the taste for what he has to sell.Then, you have been seduced by a nice staging, but only because deep inside you wanted to. Your husband just gave you what he knew you was looking for, it's to say a "sweet dream of love" play which script is fairly common.He treated you as a "one more girlfriend" but eventually developed true feelings for you. That's how things work in our century. People have sex first, then ask themselves whether their heart follows their genitals. That's NOT romantic, not more genuinely romantic at least than your "sweet dream of love" as all that stuff has to do more with sensations than with real emotions.Now, it's time to be serious about the real reasons why you are together: just because of some "good atmospheres" and some good romps, or do you really have a lot in common, opinions, tastes, etc. ?If your conclusion is positive, with hindsight you will be able to "re qualify" your first dates as "genuine" (even if it was more based on instinct than on reason). If it is negative, that will be another story as everything will have to be taken as a succession of lies from both sides.I sincerely hope the positive will emerge from your story. Don't forget that happy ending stories often have a bad start, that's what we call a suspense, you know !
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A
female
reader, Ciar +, writes (5 February 2014):
What exactly was your fiance supposed to do differently?He dated those women before he met you, or at least before he dated you. I have to assume he had some affection for them at the time. So his feelings for you didn't progress at the same pace yours did for him. So what? That's how it is for most people.Clearly you've earned a reputation for mishandling information, so your fiance has understandably chosen to be selective with what he shares. It's not your fiance's honesty you want, but his submission. Having strong feelings for him before he had them for you gave him a power you didn't have. I think you're hoping to recoup some of that power by manipulating him into thinking he's done you wrong and 'owes' you. And it also explains why you're trying to isolate him from his 'supposed friends'. The only red flag I see here is you.
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A
female
reader, YouWish +, writes (5 February 2014):
 So you're emotionally punishing him because his emotions didn't travel the same exact trajectory that yours did??
If his intentions were a lie, you wouldn't be his fiance right now! Guys don't ask girls to MARRY them if it's all a ruse. Who *cares* if he wined and dined past girlfriends in a similar manner?! You made the decision to sleep with him from the get-go, so where is the payoff if he was being disingenuous? He already got laid! He continued to call you and see you and pursue you because he was interested. He wouldn't ask to marry you unless he fell in love, and who the hell cares how long it took him to do so??? His feelings are as real as yours are. You just had them faster, which happens in 99% of relationships. My husband knew he wanted to marry me before I had a clue that the relationship was going to be a serious one.
The journey of feelings is an individual one, and though I don't condone lying in a relationship, if you obsess over things like this, I wouldn't be surprised that he avoids fighting with you. If he were here instead of you asking for advice, I'd tell him to stop lying to avoid, and to tell you like it is and to get a grip, because your obsession and your jealousy over his past relationships are choking out your relationship now.
He was convincingly romantic because he *IS* romantic. It's retroactive jealousy to be obsessed over the fact that he made similar moves on past girls. He's not marrying them. He didn't screw you and leave you, which *IS* what false romance is intended for. The fact that he stayed with you and wants to spend the rest of his life with you means that everything WAS real, everything IS real, and the ball's in your court.
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