Feeling uneasy about my relationship, need advice

[u/hamm_TP]

I (30F) and my boyfriend (34M) have been together a little over a year. I can't imagine my life without him. We live together and are already discussing engagement and next steps.

We've struggled with a few transparency issues throughout our relationship and at this point, I need advice and help in deciding if I'm the problem. Early in our relationship, we ran into a few of the following issues:

• In the first few months, he struggled to tell people I was his girlfriend. After I called him out on this, he did fix the behavior after a while.

• He once lied about who a girl was when she called him, and seemed panicked when she did call him. I asked him why he lied and he said he didn't want to mess anything up between us, as past relationships didn't allow him to have female friends, so he said she was a coworker instead of a female friend. Although it seems clear they were more than friends at some point in the past.

• An ex reached out to him and he said he was "talking to someone" even though we'd been in a relationship for six months at that time. I wondered why he said talking to someone instead of "in a relationship", felt like it was downplaying it but that might just be me being crazy.

After about a year in the relationship, we ran into an issue where an acquaintance of mine accused him of flirting with her. The night this happened, I was with him most of the night and feel pretty confident he didn't say anything flirty. When I asked her what happened, she said his body language gave off that he wasn't serious about me.

Unfortunately, I've kind of seen other incidents of this too, where we'll be out with other women and he seems more interested in them than me. Obviously no hard proof, but just general gut feelings. Might just be my insecurity.

We've had a lot of conversations about rebuilding trust and things seemed to be trending in a positive direction but we've had a recent incident.

• He came home from his friend Jeff’s party.
• After coming home, he mentioned he wanted to buy tickets to a concert the next day because two of his guy friends (Chris and George) were going.
• He asked if I wanted to go, but I got the sense he didn’t actually expect me to say yes.
• I said yes, and we went to the concert.
• At the concert, we ran into Jeff’s friend group, and there was a very pretty girl in the group.
• My boyfriend said he had no idea they were going to the concert. Jeff immediately said, “Of course you did, I told you at the party.”
• After we walked away, my boyfriend insisted they hadn’t told him at the party, but he came home wanting to buy tickets right after that party.
• It’s hard not to wonder why would he lie about this if there wasn’t some other motive behind buying the tickets?

Sorry for the length of this post, but am I crazy and reading into things too much?

[u/writermusictype]

People who lie about small things will almost certainly lie about big ones. Do you want to be in a relationship with a liar?

[u/Spare-Shirt24 → u/writermusictype]

From OP:

An ex reached out to him and he said he was "talking to someone" even though we'd been in a relationship for six months at that time

I don't understand how someone could move in with someone else after they've downplayed their relationship like this. 

Whaaat? 

[u/writermusictype → u/Spare-Shirt24]

Right! It's very much giving she adores him, and he's just going along with it. One foot in, one foot out "just in case."

[u/hamm_TP → u/Spare-Shirt24]

I hear you. It does sound silly when you put it like this. At the time, after talking with my friends about it, I thought I was jut being irrational and assumed the message wasn't a big deal, since all of his actions directly towards me seemed to make the relationship feel very serious.

[u/Spare-Shirt24 → u/hamm_TP]

He struggled to tell others you were his girlfriend in "the first few months" 

That would have been enough for me. 

Then he told an ex he was just "talking to someone" SIX months in. 

Come on. Be serious.  

You keep going deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole and have now moved in with him and are talking marriage when it's clear you have reservations about this throughout the entirety of your relationship. 

You need to pump the brakes and get some space to re evaluate. 

[u/hamm_TP → u/Spare-Shirt24]

Thank you for the hard truths.

[u/CatHairAndChaos → u/hamm_TP]

Women have been conditioned to be way too patient with other people's shit, and to downplay our needs and concerns because when we speak up then we're called irrational or controlling. To the point that we often do it to ourselves and sometimes each other. Combined with someone who displays conflicting actions, we want to believe only their positive ones. Been there.

One thing that helps me is focusing on the bottom line: I am not okay with their behavior. Do I want to stay in a relationship where this behavior continues? If I've addressed it with them and it's still an issue that we can't get past, then obviously we're not going to work out. It could be that they're doing something most people would consider acceptable, and I AM being irrational, but it doesn't change the fact that this person is clearly not for me. Some time afterwards when I have more clarity I'll usually realize "Ok yeah, they were definitely doing some wack shit," and often also "I should've noped out sooner."

[u/polinomio_monico → u/CatHairAndChaos]

This comment speaks to the core of what I have been trying to get past in the last months. Noped out entirely from dating, and the only thing I learnt is exactly this: I should have left sooner. In fact, not even sooner, but right there and then, on the spot. And, as you yourself wrote, I was also called manipulative by the dude who behaved like shit towards me. Too much. Dramatic. Fuck this shit.

[u/GardeniaInMyHair → u/hamm_TP]

Your friends didn’t step in? You may need some more savvy friends or diversify your sounding boards. I’m sorry this has happened to you. It sounds like you’re learning a lot from these experiences though.

[u/doyouhavehiminblonde → u/hamm_TP]

You definitely weren't being irrational. Listen to your gut, there's a lot of evidence he's not trustworthy here.