A
female
age
41-50,
anonymous
writes:I was wondering whether I could have some anonymous advice? Ok, so I have this man in my life.. who I've been with for 8 years.. who, until today, I had 100% trust in. We have our own friends and both of us have hang out with other girls and guys, but there's the trust there.. so it's never a problem.I've always prided myself on being 100% honest. If I've ever wanted to spend time with a friend, I've told him straight up etc.Yesterday, I asked him if he wanted to do anything last night. He gave me a closed answer.. for the first time in 8 years - "I might just hang out at home tonight." He's going through a tough time at work at the moment, so I called him to chat about it that night.. I got no answer.. tried an hour later, no answer.. then an hour later.. no answer.I rung his cell and text him.. no answer. It's not as if I expect him to report his every movements.. but because I've been hurt by others in the past.. I guess I jumped to the conclusion that he didn't want me to know where he was for some reason.. it was so unlike him.Anyways, I talk to him this morning and he says he had gotten a wrong number phonecall, so he'd turned down the volume of his landline. He then went for a drive. I was relieved and laughing about how stupid I had been.. calling him all those times.. then he mentions he'd been to the movies with this girl.. this girl whose apparently back visiting family.. from another town.. who I happen to know for a fact, has always been in love with him. They catch up occasionally .. about once a year.. it's always bothered me deep down.. but I know he's entitled to his own friends.. But after 20 minutes of the phone convo, he mentions he's been out with this girl.. and then accidentally run into some of our mutual friends. Is this the only reason he told me? Is all the other strange behaviour in the day mean he was planning on keeping this all secret? Why the secrecy if they're just 'friends'???Anyways, when I spoke to him on the phone I laughed at my own behaviour and insecurities and said the opposite of how I was feeling. I don't WANT to be posessive and I don't WANT to be the girl with the jealousy problem jumping to mad conclusions.. so whenever I had a horrible thought, I'd say something nice. In the end I hung up the phone realising I'd told him to spend the rest of the weekend catching up with her!!When I said it, he IMMEDIATELY replied with, "But it doesn't feel right.. ok well I might take her little girl to the zoo." THAT hurt me more than anything.. because my boyfriend doesn't have much time for kids.. and suddenly I felt like he was ready to play step-daddy to this girl's daughter!All day I've felt like my stomach's going to fall out my butt.. and that I want to be sick.. and this giant lump in my throat. I even went as far as driving by his house and he was out past 3pm... so he'd spent the day with her. (Actually I had driven past the house early this morning after we spoke and he wasn't there)... I'm just letting my mind run away with me.Could someone please give me some RATIONAL advice? I am NOT a crazy stalker.. I'm actually one of those saintly girls, that's only ever been with the one guy.. always been honest.. caring.. no bad temper etc.... but when you love someone.. it can make you do crazy things.. like how many times I'd called him last night.. sometimes your pride can take a back seat.Look forward to hearing what you have to say.
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female
reader, anonymous, writes (21 July 2009): By the way.. I really appreciate the advice you've sent me. The second poster had a total understanding for why I did what I did e.g. telling him to go out with that girl. I actually hoped he would say, "No I saw her last night, I want to see you today." But it went the OTHER way.. and I felt I had no one to blame but myself.I'm not going to FIGHT for the man in my life. If my love isn't enough.. and believe me I am a model girlfriend.. then I think I deserve better for myself.By the way, I did have a tete-to-tete discussion with him, but he somehow made it seem like something so tiny.. and I just felt riddled with guilt at the time for overreacting. But I think if this girl hadn't gone back out of town, he'd probably still be spending time with her. I feel now as if I'm just the gap-filler.I'm studying fulltime at the moment, and my boyfriend has been giving me a guilt trip over not giving him enough attention and not spending time with him for weeks.. but he took off to the other side of the world on his own the other day for a holiday.. and goes away on conferences all the time.. and I have always just fitted in with his demanding schedules. But I had spent the past couple of weeks doing whatever I can do make up for the fact he hasn't taken first priority in my life for once.. my study has instead.And his defence, when I spoke to him about this girl, was that he's lonely because he doesn't see me as much as he used to.. so I simmered down and started feeling guilty. Thanks :O)
A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (21 July 2009): Thanks for the advice guys. One of you asked that I give you an update.While I was posting my original entry, he was out with this girl and her daughter at the zoo. I was a bit sneaky and drove past his house (once again.. exhibiting typical stalking behaviour) and he wasn't back till around 4pm.. so he'd spent the day with her. Then he called me that night casually making conversation like he wasn't expecting my reaction.I ended up showing a sign of weakness and crying on the phone. I didn't abuse him or yell at him, but I said that I thought he had feelings for this girl. My boyfriend is going through a difficult time at work and was considering resigning on the Monday.. so I had expected to spend the weekend with him.. helping support him while he made his decision.. and that's part of the reason this hurt so much.. that he'd (apparently) opened up to this other girl about his problems.When I asked him straight out (which isn't like me.. but I forced myself to be assertive) if he had feelings for this girl.. he said, "Nothing that I've explored". What does this mean???? I could advise someone else about a situation like this, but when you're the one in it.. you can't see things clearly.I went to his house later in the night to talk more.. and he had basically sweet-talked me around to thinking I'd overreacted and he was entirely innocent.. but thinking about how it went down during the next day.. I went back to my original feelings.. that him spending a weekend with another girl who has NO knowledge of ME existing, just doesn't sit well with me. He never even stopped in that afternoon to say hi or anything.. and claimed that night on the phone that he'd only spent an hour with her.. not knowing I knew he was out for the whole day.This could be NOTHING .. or it could be definite signs of something. I keep thinking it's just paranoia. But I think that you can lose trust in someone after something tiny like this. We would always remain friends, coz that's what we were before we went out, and on that level, I've told him I want to see him happy no matter who he's with. It wasn't so much that he might have feelings for another girl, but that I felt my best friend in the world had let me down.What do you think?
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A
reader, anonymous, writes (19 July 2009): well how i usally figure out the truth is by tellin them how much i love them and i look for regret in there eyes when i say this and if u say it and he looks away from u then u no that there is something going on but if there isnt any of these signs when u do this then u no u might be over reacting a bit and there isnt anything to worry about. so goodluck
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