Emotional Cheating or No?

Based on the following signs, would you say this is an emotional affair, full-out cheating, or a good friendship?

Tl;dr – Loving, nurturing guy, fails to establish boundaries, resulting in a friendship w/ a girl coworker involving ambiguously appropriate lines (esp. via emotional bonding). I don’t have much faith in close male-female relationships when one or both people are taken. Constant texting, placing himself with her repeatedly when unnecessary (always w/ a third friend but she has her own car), serving as an emotional support to her when he was taken, buying her the gift. He claims I hadn’t exhibited a pattern of being concerned about things (since he was transparent), I feel that he should have known better than placing himself in that kind of proximity to another woman.

Context – This involved a female coworker who, he claims, he always hung out with in the company of his guy friend coworker, to help further ensure that everything was kosher. I have met all three, and experienced no negative vibes until D-Day. They would all spend upwards of 12 hours some days together (work, driving together as a group, etc.).

He asked me throughout the friendship and our relationship if I was okay with everything (but the gift) below – besides each individual text, ofc – and I feel like I did an awful job protecting myself from a slippery workplace relationship slope. According to his phone call history, they did not talk very much at all ( <4 min apiece) beyond that last 3-hr phone call after we broke up. I don’t know if he deleted any calls, I don’t know if he had called/texted her on another app. I was the ‘chill’ girlfriend until I saw the last sign (car, below).

I have been ‘that’ girl before – and I cut the guy off once it bordered an emotional affair. I feel – in retrospect – that I should have accepted any territorial feelings and asked that he distance himself from a girl in a vulnerable position (multiple highly emotionally turbulent life happenings for her – in her own life – throughout their friendship).

\- Texting — Transparent about communication w/ her, never hid phone, would sometimes ask me to check his responses as he wrote them. HOWEVER. Some days he would text (non-emoji, short, banter-y) her throughout the day. One day he started texting her after a group event (with me) to send some group pics (midnight) and – beyond sleeping – didn’t stop texting her throughout the following day. Why for hours??? Towards the end, I warned him ‘look, she’s been through a LOT recently and you are a prominent, happy guy in her life. Guard her heart and don’t try to interfere too much’. He took this to mean that I didn’t want him interfering with trying to set up her and his coworker guy friend (which he had been trying to do). So, the texting frequency did not lessen.

\- Gifts – He normally gives gifts to coworkers (be it food or otherwise). During our first year together he was not a gifter, period – the first gift I ever received from him was maybe 5 months into the relationship (besides dinners he made). HOWEVER. Within several months of knowing her, he bought her a \~$15 gift. Symbolism, to me, is what matters. That he spent money on her, a close female peer coworker, at all. He did not tell me about this until he asked me to text her, letting her know (during an emergency situation) that pick-me-up was forthcoming. He THEN showed me the package tracker. He claims his coworker friend and he split funds. Idk whether to trust that claim.

\- Transparency – He pointedly asked me to hang out with the three of them – often. To meet her and, as his gf, help him help the people closest to him. I’m introverted, so I declined on all but one occasion.

\- He served as an emotional support to her, like he does for all his friends – but he was a taken man and, to my mind, should not have made himself that available to another woman, on an emotional level. He knew about each new tragedy that happened. I knew that he was being her friend to that extent because he would talk to me about it. I met her when we all went out dancing together – initially I picked up no odd vibes, so, I thought everything was ok. YET. Apparently – according to him – he offered to be an ear and help, if she needed to talk through anything (i.e., the latest tragedy). She is quiet and did not pursue the offer. He claims he did not relay any info regarding our relationship to her. He acknowledges that he should have drawn the line by suggesting that she seek out help from other lady coworkers, rather than serving as her support beam, and that he needed to act from a more conservative stance with women friends. Idk if he is placating or not.

\- He claims no hugs were given and I do not recall ever seeing him hug her. He did not exhibit any changes in behavior – no dress/’I want to impress’ changes, no intense desire to work out past his basic regimen, no lack of desire re: being around me, no lessening of attention beyond, perhaps, this. He has, historically, never cared what people thought, always operating from a heart of doing the right thing no matter what it looked like (hence the issue). His coworkers (beyond the three) claim nothing was untoward in day-to-day interactions.

\- ‘Because’ of their (the three coworkers) frequent drives together, she kept a group travel item in the car. I.e., her property was left in his car. They always took his car. The year prior, he had driven another girl co-worker to their work site multiple times – I didn’t meet that coworker until the following year (though he’d wanted me to meet her) and I trusted him enough to believe there was no issue. He broke my trust in the interim (unrelated to this post).

\- D-Day – He was driving these two to work, and me back home. He had never mentioned her riding in the front seat before (apparently the two coworkers would take turns sitting up front). I got in the empty front seat, with the girl immediately behind me and the guy behind my guy. I immediately wanted her out of the car. The conversation was banter-y, it wasn’t anything like that. It was the bloody perfume, her presence in the car. I have never felt that way towards another person. We get to my place, I get out, I turn around and she’s getting into the front seat. I’m done.

\- Upon our immediate break-up that night (I initiated it due to the car incident and all the other factors), he cut the friendship – apparently she got misty-eyed and ran from the room. He backed off of both friends (he’d been trying to set the two up since they all met, or a little after). Why did she get emotional, aside from her life challenges of late? Why were they so close that him leaving gave her that much of an emotional reaction? He refocused on the relationship even though it was broken up – i.e., he started pulling significant parts of his lifestyle together, improving in tangible ways his ways of life. He essentially tried explaining he was acting with the intent as a friend and did not know he was crossing lines based on our pattern of checking in (and my subsequent responses). HOWEVER – he also – after the break-up – talked to her twice, once one-on-one and once with their mutual friend (in-part). This was AFTER we had agreed to meet to talk – why continue contacting that person if you have any hope of reconciliation?

While it is possible she was developing feelings and he wasn’t reciprocating and intended to simply treat her as he would any of his other friends (he does treat his friends similarly), with all of these elements combined, he was toying with the line of ‘whatever his intentions, this doesn’t seem like an appropriate relationship, work or otherwise’. I feel gross about this. We were already working on some things when this situation started developing. He has always been enthusiastic about us but at times I have felt like his parent – ditto from his side, in some respects. I am trying to ensure that I’m not merely reacting from my own high anxiety-tendencies but the signs do speak for themselves…and it hurts so much…