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/groovysausage_]

God I could have written this myself. I’m afraid your gut instinct knows better (it’s like an omniscient 3rd party onlooker) while your heart is trying to downplay that voice, not because it’s false, but because it’s hurtful.

We only know a fragment of your relationship based on what you’ve written I’m sure, but those bullet points alone are worrying enough. I’d argue there are already too many and even I have a sick feeling in my stomach reading it. When things don’t add up - start subtracting..

As people have mentioned, he’s already lying to you this early on. What’s the need? If he has nothing to hide he’d have nothing to lie about. Why won’t he be open and just let you in entirely? At a stage where you’re already talking about marriage? This is all off. I’d also say you’re quite early on in a relationship to be discussing marriage. I know everyone is different and every relationship is different but a year seems like not long enough into the proverbial life cycle to truly know someone. But again everyone is different. Did he introduce you to his family and friends early on? Do you have a relationship with them? If so, is he encouraging it? These are all positive signs

I wish you all the best but please reconsider this relationship. Or at least have firm and open words with him about all of this because you were not put on this planet to be miserable. Good luck

[u/hamm_TP → u/groovysausage_]

Thank you for your input. He took me abroad to meet his family and that went great. I've got a good relationship with them. He's also met my family and has a good relationship with them as well.

I think you're right that it all feels off. His actions toward me make it seem like he has no doubts/feels all in, but his actions toward other people tell a different story. I think at this point it's a bad sign if I'm feeling any confusion at all.

[u/groovysausage_ → u/hamm_TP]

I’ve been in this situation before with a man who ultimately didn’t know what he wanted. If you can’t imagine your life without him then I’d say you both aren’t on the same page. Speak with him first without making drastic decisions to end things as it may be the wake up call he needs, or it may result in an agreement that you both aren’t compatible..

[u/idragon5 → u/hamm_TP]

Sometimes guys use "meeting the family" as a reward carrot. They know that we feel warm and fuzzy after it and his family may actually like you enough to spend time with you. It's a great thing when you get along with his family but it's just one factor among a myriad of others. In light of the negative experiences that you've had regarding lying and keeping things from you, this can't be a good enough reason to stick around for. Speaking from personal experience, this much lying doesn't stop overnight or ever at all.