irishjoe

I need some help on where to go with my suspscions, they are eating away at my relationship and each day i become more volatile toward my girlfriend.

We've been together for 7 years, we are both 25 and have been together exclusively since we were 18.

She started a job about a year ago where she works in a fairly large office with an even spread of men and women. I vaguely remember some of her early comments about this guy and off handedly registered them as her letting me know about the various people she was working with.

Some of the things she has started doing have me raising concerns that i have never had. She is taking alot more interest in how she looks in the morning before she goes to work, when i say this she has gradually become almost compulsive in getting all the minor things done right. This is definitely a new behaviour.

She will leave for work in the morning sometimes 2 hours earlier than she needs to but she dosen't finnish work earlier.

She recieves phone messages when shes at home from this guy.

After becomming suspiscious of this i decided to breach her privacy and do some reading on her phone, e-mail and facebook.

What i saw was a routine of communication that extended from a work relationship into close friends who worked together. They regularly met for coffe, went to lunch together and were well versed in eachothers personal problems. The main issue i have is from the communication i saw she was the one initiating alot of the activites between the 2 of them. I saw one quite hurtful exchange of messages in which she had a problem at work that had upset her quite a bit, what i read was her need to lean on this guy and seek his comfort & only to have this guy tell her that she should raise the issue with me, her reply to that was she couldn't talk to me about it and she needed someone to support her.

She has recently left that workplace but she still remains in contact with this guy. She recently got a new mobile and gave me her old one, the other guy accidentally messaged me a few days ago with a message asking what she would like to do, after i further investigated later that night i found out that because she was going to be in the city she asked if he would like to meet up with her since she was going to be near her old workplace.

Am i reading too much into this? I know no-one can tell me for sure there is anything going on but in my stomach i feel as though i have been betrayed on an emotional level, i don't have any reason to believe anything physical happened but i have basically convinced myself that my partner found something emotionally attractive and arousing about this guy. Given more time and under the right circumstances it may have become phyiscal.

I feel that unless i confront her i will continue to hate her and this will fester into something dangerous. If i do confront her and she flat out denies it as anything more than a friendship than theres been irreparable damage caused.

Anyones thoughts or advice are very much appreciated.

keko

DO NOT confront her until you have a hard evidence, otherwise she'll just gaslight you.

Which phone is using?

Do you know where she actually is when she leaves early?

Shaggy

You might be able to retrieve deleted messages on the phone you now have.

irishjoe

Well i'm not sure what counts as hard evidence? i saw the messages and communication with my own eyes and can almost recount them verbatim, the only way she can deny what i've read is if she is trying to insult both of our intelligences.

Which phone is she using? not sure what you meant by that.

She says she is going to work early, i ask her why and she says that she may as well, i have no reason not to believe that she's not going straight to work but i do think she's doing it to socialise before work.

Eli-Zor

If its not already its an affair waiting to happen.
Have a conversation with your wife, choose your words carefully and say you are the one she should be talking to not him . Talk , discuss , memtion you are incomfortable with her contacing him and she should be talking to you, do not reveal that you are snooping or to what extent you have gone. Text him and tell him to back off.
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keko

Which brand phone?

irishjoe

I have considered both of those but decided to sit back and see if it eventuates further. The way my brain works is that if she is guilty of what i think she is than what am i trying to save? I'm angry at her not him so i don't imagine that i would ever need to contact this other guy. I guess i feel that the moment i think it's reached the point i need to raise it with her than it's already destroyed whatever we had. I just couldn't continue on and regain trust after that. That's why im so apprehensive about what i should be doing with the knowledge i have now because keeping it to myself has become corrosive to our relationship.

irishjoe

She has a Samsung Galaxy, one of the more redeeming points in her favor is that she dosen't really hide her phone or try to password protect it from me so i was and am still able to keep tabs of her conversations. She has however acknowledged that i have been on her phone and she has recently started deleting her messages with everyone on a daily basis.

keko

Joe, sorry to say but there are plenty of red flags of an affair, at the very least an emotional one.

If there are any bestbuy/radioshack/walmart buy a VAR(voice activated recorder) and place it in her car(under the drivers seat, firmly).

How is her work schedule? Is she coming late, working on weekends? Can you check her pay stubs if she is taking off any work days?

Count of Monte Cristo

The two of you have been together since you were both eighteen. The statistics for a lifetime relationship isn't very promising for a relationship that started so young. Is this the woman that you want to grow old with? If so, you need to agree on boundaries in the relationship. One such boundary is no male confidant. You might also want to find out what she expects out of the relationship. The good thing about all this is that you're not married to her. Still hurts. But a lot less than if you were legally bound to her.

tacoma

Download the phone logs from her old phone onto a PC so you can find any deleted texts
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jh52

Read this paragraph again:

"What i saw was a routine of communication that extended from a work relationship into close friends who worked together. They regularly met for coffe, went to lunch together and were well versed in eachothers personal problems. The main issue i have is from the communication i saw she was the one initiating alot of the activites between the 2 of them. I saw one quite hurtful exchange of messages in which she had a problem at work that had upset her quite a bit, what i read was her need to lean on this guy and seek his comfort & only to have this guy tell her that she should raise the issue with me, her reply to that was she couldn't talk to me about it and she needed someone to support her."

It appears for whatever reason she cannot talk to you and share what is on her mind -- because you don't support her.

Look to yourself and be honest -- and ask yourself if she is right. If she is correct -- you can be open more and supportive and work on this.

Like others have said -- she is not getting what is needed from you -- so this guy has taken your place as least for support.

If she hasn't started an EA with this guy -- and things don't change between you to (talking, doing things together, going on dates, etc) she will find someone to start another EA and possibly a PA.

I am not putting this all on you -- it takes two to make a marriage work -- but right now her perception is her reality and the perception is that you don't support her.

aug

You've been together for 7 years since you were 18. You're not married.

If she's not interested in continuing the relationship, maybe she has outgrown it? Maybe it's time to move on. You cant spend your life with someone you dont trust.

irishjoe

The emotional affair is something i never knew existed until i felt that she was connected to another man. I could tell the way she communicated with him and the environment in which she did it that she had a certain specific interest in this guy. This is something i basically resigned myself into accepting, that was hard.

Like i said in my original post, she no longer (as far as i know) see's him on a daily basis as she moved jobs 3 months ago. It wasn't until a few days ago that i recieved the message via my phone by accident that all of this resurfaced and i knew that while she may no longer work with him there was a lengthy perioid that she was doing something wrong.

Checking her work times would be almost an impossibility, she had a very flexible job and didnt really need to account for her whereabouts for the day, apart from her starting work outrageously early (which was unnecessary) and her fixation on her appearance (which has also now stopped that she no longer works there) and her sudden interest in losing some weight (didnt have much to lose) i never would have known what was going on. Theres either nothing going on or she dosen't think i'm perceptive enough to notice. Hard to know which.

Peachy Cat

RED FLAGS all over the place.

TRUST YOUR GUT.

She's asking for emotional support from him and basically tells him you aren't there for her.

I have to give the OM one "good mark" for deflecting her need to "lean" back to you. But, I just wonder 'if' there's an EA or PA going on, he's only in it for one thing... doesn't want to be bothered with the emotional stuff.


She's deleting messages. After she knows you've read her past messages, she hasn't offered one word of explanation, conversation, etc. about the messages she knows you read. But now she erases them. Not a good sign.

Good luck... keep us posted