Saturday, 13 October 2012

• Cheating Boyfriend? What to Do?

  
  This post was submitted by Remy.
  
  It started this summer (June/July area). My boyfriend began disappearing for long hours at a time. I’d go stay with my parents on the weekends and I’d live with him during the week. He’d be all snuggly and, “You’re the love of my life!” when I was around, but then when I was gone, he’d disappear for 1-3 hours at a time. He’d always say his phone was broken or he wasn’t getting any of my texts.
  
  One night in particular he stopped texting me around 5PM and I didn’t get a response until 9PM on the dot. He had some bullshit lie about how his phone was frozen (which did happen a lot but never for that extended amount of time). He also said his dad was accusing him of being out that night when he was "sitting in his room" (his dad is sometimes a dick, but I’ve never seen him that bad). The next day, his brother came over and asked him, “What time did you get home last night?”
  
  My boyfriend hesitated and said, “Erm, I wasn’t out.” So his brother asked the same question again and awkwardly, my boyfriend said, "...Nine." Immediately after he walked out and closed the door behind him, I talked to his brother for 15 minutes. When he got back in, I tried to ask where he was and he just said, "Everyone thinks I was out last night, so whatever. I’m not gonna fight it. I’ll just go along with it."
  
  This was a huge red flag for me and began my suspicions. Come September, I find two Facebook messages sent to his friend dated that exact incident's day saying, “Hey, I was out the past couple of nights from 2-9PM. Can you lie to my dad and say I was with you?” He said it was because he had to drive his drunk brother home. Two nights in a row for 7 hours? Yeah right. But let’s back up a bit.

  
  Not too long after that incident, he began to get a little cranky and distant. He never lost interest in sex, but he wouldn’t give me the same long passionate kisses in public like he used to saying, "I don’t want to in front of everyone." He also began not letting me near his phone (something he never had a problem with) and constantly started pointing out my flaws. He would tell me I do this and that and also began saying he didn’t make me happy without me ever showing signs of being unhappy.
  
  He would pick tiny fights, but to a degree I think I did too. His nose was constantly burrowed in his phone and he’d always say it was his brother or dad. Also, I used to stop by his work every now and again to say hi, but I was no longer allowed to go near the place or else he’d "get in trouble." He was constantly broke and had no reason for it (he makes more than me and I always had more money than him with the same known spending habits).

  He works from 5AM-1PM whereas I work from 7AM-3PM. I work an hour away and he works 5 minutes away, so I wouldn’t get home until 4PM and he should’ve been home by 1:10PM at the latest. He would constantly get out of work 20 minutes late (he has always texted me when he gets out). He sometimes wouldn’t even text to tell me he was out of work and I wouldn’t hear from him for an hour.
  
  He’d say that he didn’t get my texts/was sending me texts that I wasn’t getting or that he fell asleep. Immediately after work every day, he’d take a two or three hour nap without telling me. He’d pop up a few hours after getting out of work and say, "I’m sorry, I fell asleep!" This was kind of weird to me, but he has always had a habit of passing out randomly.

  Needless to say, I began to get very suspicious. There was one girl in particular that he worked with that I pinpointed because he was constantly talking crap about her (even though he had used to say he got along with her). They had seemingly the same interests (music, comics, etc.) and I couldn’t help wonder why he’d go out of his way to shit-talk a girl to me that I didn’t even know.

  Then, came one day where I got out of work and went home (he said he’d been home for a couple of hours). His car was still hot and making that clicking “cooling down” noise a car makes in the summer when it’s been recently used. But he’d been home for two hours? When I got inside, he was freshly showered even though he said in a text two hours earlier that he had just showered. I asked why and he said he wanted to re-shower so he did.
  
  While he was cleaning the kitchen I noticed his drawstring backpack on the floor. It was packed with a change of clothes, his wallet, and an opened pack of Newport cigarettes. He hasn’t smoked since well before he met me and Newport used to be his brand. I asked him about it and he said the Newport’s were his brother’s, even though his brother is a health nut and cyclist. The rest of the clothes I could tell by the smell had never been worn, so I didn’t say anything about that.
  
  We had to go somewhere immediately after, so when we got in the car he didn’t take his wallet with him. I gave him a smug look and said, "Do you have your wallet?" He said he did and I told him no, it’s in your room in a backpack. He gave me an "oh shit" look and got the wallet. This is where I confronted him about cheating. He got VERY angry and yelled at me. "No! Why would I do that? Are you serious? Do you not trust me? You know I’d never. What the fuck is wrong with you?" He ignored me the rest of the night.

  After that, I asked him periodically, but he always said the same thing. The same kind of stuff was going on, but (because I trusted him) I got over it and that maybe I was being paranoid. Until one night in September. We were at Target and this girl I’ve never seen before walks by us and stopped. She looks absolutely stunned to see me there and confused when she looks at my boyfriend.
  
  She said, "Hey Dan, have you talked to Alicia lately?" (Alicia was the co-worker I suspected and she had recently quit their job.) He flatly said, "No," and walked away quickly; so did the girl. He started acting goofy and strange after that, as if he was trying to cheer me up. I confronted him again and he said that the girl was a friend of Alicia’s he’d met once for 5 minutes. It doesn’t make sense to me why she’d recognize him or talk to him like that.

  So two days later, I get a Facebook message from this girl saying my boyfriend had been “dating” her friend Alicia for the past 3 months. That he always bought her stuff and that they smoked. He met her parents, but he was very inconsistent with hanging out. The times in which they hung out were all times I was at my parent’s or at work. She said he was constantly making excuses like, "my dad’s mad at me," I got a ticket," etc. Same things he says to me and that only someone who knows him could say.
  
  She also said he had a "fling" with another girl he worked with. Only problem is, Alicia refused to talk to me. Supposedly, she didn’t know about me and he lied saying my name on his Facebook page was because he was too lazy to change it and I never used Facebook. I had asked him at one point to remove all of his work friends from Facebook (for other reasons). He had no problem with it, but… he removed everyone except for Alicia. She constantly posted random stuff on his Facebook.

  He started bawling his eyes out when I showed him everything. He’s an assistant manager at his job and Alicia did not leave on good terms. He said this girl was trying to get back at him for giving him the boot. He begged me not leave him because he didn’t do anything. Odd thing is, though, he kept sobbing and apologizing. If he didn’t cheat, why was he acting this way?

  The following week was a rough one. I asked him every dayif he was cheating and he got angrier and angrier. I continued to talk to Alicia’s friend and without me saying anything, he always knew the exact moment I texted her (even when we weren’t even in the same room). He would get infuriated. It was like someone kept telling him I was texting for information. So, instead I went to a different co-worker. She told me the same things. She said that after work they’d go out to lunch, the same times he’d be “napping.”
  
  She is friends with Alicia, though, so if this really is a ruse, she could be in on it. I highly doubt that though. His co-worker said, "I don’t know about him. He used to be so nice to me and always talked about marrying you. Then, one day, he stopped. And a couple of months later he came out and said he and Alicia were dating. I thought it was fishy from the start.” He kept getting worse and worse after I brought up all my information until I took the "don’t let on to your suspicions” advice.
  
  He denied it up and down, but when I stopped asking, he suddenly became the cuddly loving boyfriend he hadn’t been for months. He has had more money lately and I don’t find cigarettes in his car anymore. He doesn’t take “naps” or anything. Except… I know they still talk.
  
  I had seen a text from her once saying, "It’s so cute you can’t spell," and I know her number is still on his phone. He won’t let me near the phone. And recently (this week), he has begun random "naps" again and has become cranky… again. I ask for pictures of him while I’m away because "I miss him so much" and he’s always at home.

  He’s never given me reason to doubt him in a two year relationship until recently. Everyone even said to me, "He’s not the cheating type, no way." He seems to have so much conviction about his innocence that I wonder if he’s clean. But, everything doesn’t add up in his favor. I wonder if he's cheated on me and how I can get him to tell me! I believe in second chances and I’m stuck (I’m a college student living in CT, my parents live in FL, I live with him. I have nowhere to go). At this point, though, I just want to know.
  
  I can’t bring myself to leave him until I see him cheat or hear him say it to me. Advice?

  • 5:00 PM
  • 6888 Views
  • 106 eProps
  • 58 Comments