\*Sorry for the wall of text in the original post, something was off with the formatting. It’s my first time using Reddit and I am on my mobile. Also tried to shorten it to ease the readability. Thank you for your perspectives and though somewhat harsh, it’s what I needed to hear to gain clarity without muddying things up with my feelings.\*
I know based on the title alone, most – if not all will say that I should just walk away. Honestly, I’m not too far off from considering it. It’s just, I guess I’m wanting to understand some of the underlying factors in his decision making and to validate that I’m not just speculating what I think is going on.
A bit of relevant background, we’ve been in and out of a relationship for over a decade… high school sweethearts. He was my first love and I thought the world of him but in light of more recent conversations, I doubt he saw me in the same way.
When we were in highschool he broke up with me for the very first time and attempted to pursue a relationship with a transfer student, Daria. People in my ‘friend group’ were gossiping about them getting together and one particular “friend” Tracy played a significant role in convincing him to break up with me and pursue Daria.
Throughout the years, during the course of us being young adults in a serious relationship, Daria has always found a way to insert herself into what was supposed to be quality time for me and bf. Instead of having her respect the fact that we were spending time together, he would stop everything that we were doing to entertain her. I later discovered through my friend group that this was done by Daria intentionally to “put me in my place” at Tracy’s request.
Fast forward to Halloween, last year, bf and I live together with our child and were making snacks to celebrate. Midway through the prep, bf is on his phone texting away saying it was a male friend who relocated to our area and he just wanted to connect, and stops helping entirely. I’m thinking nothing of it at the time as me and the kiddo are still having fun.
Well after I finish the snacks and serve them up for our movie night, he tells me that what he said earlier was a lie, and that he was actually talking to Daria, and he didn’t tell me the truth at the time because he didn’t want me to be upset and accidentally hurt myself.
I was ticked off, first, for him thinking that lying is acceptable in any circumstance and second, that he basically is falling right back into how he treated me in highschool. I told him as much, he apologized and said that he understood my being upset, but he was only replying to her message and just wanted to be friends with her.
After some talking, I finally realized my mind could not accept what he was saying as truth. I asked for him to show me the exchange if he was being honest in just wanting to be her friend. He handed over his phone without hesitation. I read the messages, and honestly while her parts were brief and platonic in nature, every single thing he said was dripping with affection.
Then I saw it, he tells her ” it’s embarrassing, but I always had the biggest crush on you and I never really took that flag and ran with it because I felt like I was losing an uphill battle. I appreciate all the effort you put into us. Our friendship and all the fun stuff I got to experience because of you. I’d love to repay your kindness at least once in my life. ”
She responds, ” my love and friendship towards you is always unconditional. You don’t need to repay me for anything. I’d love to be able to just see you again! ”
The conversation continues like this until I see the second profession of his feelings “what I’m going to show you is kinda crazy, moving forward, but I’d like you to know that I still have a crush on you and that’s fine and all but if you don’t want to be my friend or if you hate my guts, I totally understand. “. She just says” Why wouldn’t I want to be your friend? ”
He tells her about our relationship (calling me ” his partner”) and how he felt like he needed to change his ahole ways otherwise I was going to take his kid and he’d never see her again (untrue btw) then after his spamming, she finally asks him are you ok to be talking to me? I don’t want anything to be secret. To which he responds “as long as I tell my partner is just fine. No secrets. Not that guy anymore.”
Then she tells him ” Don’t say anything to me that you’d be ashamed of your partner to see. You took leaps and bounds to make it work. Don’t mess that up.” He tells her it’s fine and that I know he’s had a crush on her and I love to heckle him about it (also not true) he finished off by saying that he wants to be her friend and better than he was before.
Naturally at this point, I’m livid and asking him what the frick is he on about saying that he still has a crush on her, that I knew about it, and that I like to make fun of his crush on her? And then I started questioning why he would lie about it if it was just an innocent conversation and he stood by his original explanation stating that he just didn’t want me to hurt myself and be upset.
I continue to press him on why he felt the need to pour his affection out onto her telling him how it looks and how it made me feel and being in a relationship with him. He states that he was just trying to get closure on his emotions and that he was not looking to pursue anything in professing his feeling towards her. That even if she reciprocated his feelings he wouldn’t pursue anything with her he just wanted her to know how he felt. I told him I wanted him to stop talking to her and to let her know why he was not talking to her anymore.
He tells me that that’s too much to ask and that I’m being controlling and self righteous. I know it comes off like I am but I honestly feel disrespected and disregarded and I don’t feel like he respects me or even likes me… I’m just a placeholder in his life for what he couldn’t have.
After long weeks of arguing over this and our feelings, he suggested that we should go to therapy. I know this is wrong, but I couldn’t quell my anxiety or my thoughts… I looked at his phone and saw that he had deleted the entire chat history on Instagram where they were first talking and he friended her on Facebook and that’s where they’re socializing now.
I guess he wants to still pursue a “friendship” with her without me being aware of what they are discussing. I haven’t talked to him about this yet as he works overnight, but the entire time while he was talking to her on Facebook last night, I couldn’t get him to say more than two to three words to me during the same time frame.
But anyways, I don’t really know what I’m asking for besides I guess perspective… I don’t really have anybody else I can talk to about this and he refuses to talk to anyone within his circle as he says he doesn’t want to be judged. I guess I just want to ask if any of his justifications for reaching out to her are based or is he just making up excuses for blatantly professing his feelings for her.
He claims that the only thing he was looking for from her was closure and him saying those things to her was getting that closure he needed but regardless he still wants to maintain a friendship with her.
We were even discussing getting a house prior to this incident and recently when we talked about the house situation he asked well how would you feel about me having friends over? After some pressing I finally got him to specify that he was referring to Daria, and I asked him why do you think I would be comfortable with her being in a place that’s supposed to be my sanctuary? And he argued that if he’s going to help contribute to a place that he’s going to live in that he should be able to have people over that he wants to spend time with.