RileyS Posted January 26, 2017 Posted January 26, 2017 Hi all, I'm not very experienced with relationships and don't want to discuss this with my friends so was hoping I might get some opinions here. I've been in a long-distance relationship with my girlfriend for approaching 18 months now and it's getting to the point where we're seriously considering moving in together. We live about 50 miles apart and will be looking for somewhere halfway so neither has a terrible commute. We're both 37 for what it's worth and this has been my longest relationship by some distance. Moving in together should be something to look forward to but a few things have given me pause for thought. About two months ago I found out her previous relationship was for four years with a married man with young children, she found out he was married after a year and continued seeing him anyway. Her father cheated on her mother about 10 years ago and she saw how devastated her mother was at the time so she knew full well the effect it would have had on the other woman's family. (Red flag 1) We met online on eHarmony, I cancelled my subscription after we'd been together 3 months, she cancelled hers after 9 months, I didn't say it but was never happy that she was still paying for membership so long into our relationship but she had a cheap membership and said she'd never gotten round to cancelling it so I never worried about it. She couldn't cancel it with the phone app so she used my computer and when she did it saved her login credentials, I noticed this sometime ago but never gave it any thought until the other week when talk of moving in became more serious, two weeks ago curiosity got the better of me and to my shame I logged into her account and had a look. Now, 7 months into our relationship I foolishly accused her of gifting some chocolates I'd given her back to me, she hadn't. Obviously she was hurt and felt disrespected by this false accusation, I apologised profusely and thought she'd forgiven my stupidity but it appears this caused her to become active on eHarmony again. (Red flag 2) Between that accusation and her cancelling her membership she sent smiles (equivalent of winks on match.com) to some 800 men. None of this came to anything as far as I can see but it bothers me, I'll always look back at that period of our relationship and the weekends we spent away as the time she was stringing me along while trying to find someone else. That was over 8 months ago now and things have been fine since then, we've been abroad a couple of times and had a great time, there's talk of marriage and children. However, it's been two weeks since finding this out and it's been playing on my mind a lot, this and the nature of her past relationship are giving me big doubts about whether I'll ever feel secure with her. Equally, I don't want to throw away the last 18 months when she's not done anything seriously wrong. Should this be a cause for concern or just be seen as teething troubles? In her defence, we never had sex until about 10 months into the relationship because a side effect of the medication I was on at the time was erectile dysfunction. She was wonderfully supportive about that and has never given me any reason to doubt she's been unfaithful at any point. One final thing, she never told me she loved me until we'd been together some 15 months and I finally got sick of waiting and asked how she felt about me. Her actions and affection made it clear that she did but it really bothered me not hearing the words.
SevenCity Posted January 26, 2017 Posted January 26, 2017 I think you have 800 reasons to have doubts. She obviously has a low self esteem and is ready to line up another guy when things are rocky with you. Instead, she should be communicating with you. The affair in her childhood has damaged her. It's apparent in her behavior 800 smiles?!?!? 7
Lilyana76 Posted January 26, 2017 Posted January 26, 2017 I think you should be seriously concerned. These are issues that need to be ironed out BEFORE you move in with each other. Doubt has been placed, it won't go away. It will fester and get worse. You need to have a serious talk with the girl.
Fhsjkfjrhsdh3646 Posted January 26, 2017 Posted January 26, 2017 Well she sounds a bit insecure for sure. However you shouldn't have accused her either. I don't know, the future doesn't bode well for this in my opinion. 1
Author RileyS Posted January 26, 2017 Author Posted January 26, 2017 I think you have 800 reasons to have doubts. She obviously has a low self esteem and is ready to line up another guy when things are rocky with you. Instead, she should be communicating with you. The affair in her childhood has damaged her. It's apparent in her behavior 800 smiles?!?!? The affair was when she was about 20 but she's also had issues with depression for most of her adult life, she's on a low maintenance dose of anti-depressants (not an SSRI) now and as far as I can tell seems perfectly OK. I don't want to go into too much detail about how eHarmony works but unlike pretty much every other dating site you can't browse all the members at once, instead it matches you with 10-20 profiles per day. With these you can send them a virtual smile to show you're interested, or send them a list of pre-written multiple choice questions, once you get past the questions you can then send direct messages to someone. She never sent the questions but did send smiles to pretty much 85-90% of all the matches she received. None of this appears to have led anywhere, but I still find it disturbing and a lot of the times when I'm looking at her now I'm just thinking "eight ****ing hundred!!!!".
Author RileyS Posted January 26, 2017 Author Posted January 26, 2017 I think you should be seriously concerned. These are issues that need to be ironed out BEFORE you move in with each other. Doubt has been placed, it won't go away. It will fester and get worse. You need to have a serious talk with the girl. I agree, I'd love to ask her about it but the trouble is I've no idea how to bring it up since it was so long ago and I only found out about it by invading her privacy
Author RileyS Posted January 26, 2017 Author Posted January 26, 2017 Well she sounds a bit insecure for sure. However you shouldn't have accused her either. I don't know, the future doesn't bode well for this in my opinion. I did make a big mistake by accusing her of that and did apologise, but then there's been times where she's upset me too but I've never felt the need to immediately go and flirt with other women afterwards, online or in real life. I think I'm going to be delaying any plans of us moving in together for the time being until I've had more time to process it all anyway
SevenCity Posted January 26, 2017 Posted January 26, 2017 The affair was when she was about 20 but she's also had issues with depression for most of her adult life, she's on a low maintenance dose of anti-depressants (not an SSRI) now and as far as I can tell seems perfectly OK. I don't want to go into too much detail about how eHarmony works but unlike pretty much every other dating site you can't browse all the members at once, instead it matches you with 10-20 profiles per day. With these you can send them a virtual smile to show you're interested, or send them a list of pre-written multiple choice questions, once you get past the questions you can then send direct messages to someone. She never sent the questions but did send smiles to pretty much 85-90% of all the matches she received. None of this appears to have led anywhere, but I still find it disturbing and a lot of the times when I'm looking at her now I'm just thinking "eight ****ing hundred!!!!". I'm familiar with eHarmony (though now you can direct message). It's not so much the amount but I'm assuming you were exclusive at 7 months, no? If so, she was looking for a dude 800 times while you were together. That's cheating in my book. If you were still not exclusive then it's better but 800 smiles sounds like a cry for attention and validation. She's damaged goods. The hope of a healthy RL is slim. 4
Gaeta Posted January 26, 2017 Posted January 26, 2017 (edited) About two months ago I found out her previous relationship was for four years with a married man with young children, she found out he was married after a year and continued seeing him anyway. This is one issue that can be explained. It was probably a phase, she was younger, inexperienced, emotionally involved after a year with him before discovering it, and the list goes on and on. Many women (and men) have fallen in that trap than past that phase they meet someone free and move on with their life and have normal fulfilling relationships after that. Among all of the things you said about her on here this would be the thing that brings me the least concern. she cancelled hers after 9 months, I didn't say it but was never happy that she was still paying for membership so long into our relationship but she had a cheap membership and said she'd never gotten round to cancelling it so I never worried about it. Now, 7 months into our relationship.......... but it appears this caused her to become active on eHarmony again. (Red flag 2) Between that accusation and her cancelling her membership she sent smiles (equivalent of winks on match.com) to some 800 men. None of this came to anything as far as I can see but it bothers me, I'll always look back at that period of our relationship and the weekends we spent away as the time she was stringing me along while trying to find someone else. This is the red flag you should be worried about. How long does it take to send 800 likes!! Weeks! So for weeks while she was in an exclusive relationship with you she was seeking other men. She was active online advertising herself as single. She did this right away after you and her had a dispute. How can you trust her to not do the same if you have another dispute?. Is this a mature way of handling disagreement in relationship! Edited January 26, 2017 by Gaeta 5
Miss Spider Posted January 26, 2017 Posted January 26, 2017 (edited) there's so much 'nope' here, I don't even know where to begin... Edited January 26, 2017 by Cookiesandough 2
Author RileyS Posted January 27, 2017 Author Posted January 27, 2017 I'm familiar with eHarmony (though now you can direct message). It's not so much the amount but I'm assuming you were exclusive at 7 months, no? If so, she was looking for a dude 800 times while you were together. That's cheating in my book. If you were still not exclusive then it's better but 800 smiles sounds like a cry for attention and validation. She's damaged goods. The hope of a healthy RL is slim. We never had a specific discussion about exclusivity but we did have a chat about all our previous dates from online dating after a few weeks and both said we weren't dating or wanting to date anyone else. In that period she did receive questions from other men on there who she'd not sent smiles to but didn't reply to any of them. The last ones she replied to were from months previously and never progressed beyond the second round of preset questions. 1
Author RileyS Posted January 27, 2017 Author Posted January 27, 2017 This is one issue that can be explained. It was probably a phase, she was younger, inexperienced, emotionally involved after a year with him before discovering it, and the list goes on and on. Many women (and men) have fallen in that trap than past that phase they meet someone free and move on with their life and have normal fulfilling relationships after that. Among all of the things you said about her on here this would be the thing that brings me the least concern. That in itself I'm not happy about but I have been coming to terms with it and don't think of it as a dealbreaker, when combined with the rest it does make me question how much respect she has for committed relationships. This is the red flag you should be worried about. How long does it take to send 800 likes!! Weeks! So for weeks while she was in an exclusive relationship with you she was seeking other men. She was active online advertising herself as single. She did this right away after you and her had a dispute. How can you trust her to not do the same if you have another dispute?. Is this a mature way of handling disagreement in relationship! Exactly, the fact it never went anywhere beyond smiles/likes is some consolation and maybe it was only for validation or whatever but it does give me pretty big trust issues.
Author RileyS Posted January 27, 2017 Author Posted January 27, 2017 there's so much 'nope' here, I don't even know where to begin... Feel free to, as I said in the original post this is the only serious relationship I've been so am likely to overlook more than most, I'd like to hear the opinions of people with more experience than myself and I'm sure you can understand why I don't want to discuss the details of this with my friends and family.
Grumpybutfun Posted January 27, 2017 Posted January 27, 2017 Red flags are red flags for a reason. Dating married men, looking for other men when you are having issues, not communicating her feelings without you demanding them to me say that she isn't emotionally healthy and would be a poor investment. You aren't two years in and she has already shown you that she makes you anxious, accusatory and unhappy enough to doubt her compatibility. In a healthy relationship, this is very rare. I have been married for 23 years and in that time period have had none of the drama you are describing here. Good luck, Grumps 2
salparadise Posted January 27, 2017 Posted January 27, 2017 there's so much 'nope' here, I don't even know where to begin... My thoughts exactly. No need to enumerate. She like male attention––and lots of it. The conscious realizations at the moment are merely the tip of the iceberg. My guess is that she will always be in the market to upgrade and actively shopping. My guess is that she's got prime––free two day delivery.
SevenCity Posted January 27, 2017 Posted January 27, 2017 Red flags are red flags for a reason. Dating married men, looking for other men when you are having issues, not communicating her feelings without you demanding them to me say that she isn't emotionally healthy and would be a poor investment. You aren't two years in and she has already shown you that she makes you anxious, accusatory and unhappy enough to doubt her compatibility. In a healthy relationship, this is very rare. I have been married for 23 years and in that time period have had none of the drama you are describing here. Good luck, Grumps Although difficult when your emotions are involved, listening to your gut often works out in the long run. Red flags are your gut telling you something is wrong. It's normal to have some doubts and depending on your level of insecurity your gut may be wrong. But what the OP listed would concern me as well. She is an attention seeker. The minute you get busy, take her for granted or have a fight she will be looking for another guy. Since you know her history of smiling on eHarmony, maybe test her with "Since we've been dating have you reached out to anyone online?" If she lies about the 800 smiles you know she is dishonest. Also the not telling her she loves you would be a red flag for me as well. 2
Gaeta Posted January 27, 2017 Posted January 27, 2017 Exactly, the fact it never went anywhere beyond smiles/likes is some consolation and maybe it was only for validation or whatever but it does give me pretty big trust issues. Her being on e-harmony is one red flag you were made aware of. I am sure she has still old contacts in her phones from being online back then. You think she would hesitate to get back in touch with them? I bet she did. And those 800 smiles, I mean, c'mon, you've got to be on there full time to reach 800 smiles. It's not because nothing came out of it that it makes it less of a betrayal. What if one (or several) of them had pursued her. You said she got around 20 matches a day from e-harmony. Lets say she sent a smile to all of them each day. She'd have to send 20 smiles a day for 40 days to reach 800 smiles. Think of it, for a couple of months, maybe more, each time she laid next to you in bed she had just logged off e-harmony and sent 20 smiles to other men. 2
Jj66 Posted January 27, 2017 Posted January 27, 2017 Every 37 year old single person will have some damage in the past. People can get over their past hurts and get beyond their past mistakes but this one has CURRENT issues that she needs to address. That means you as a couple have serious issues. Is this what you want? 1
stillafool Posted January 27, 2017 Posted January 27, 2017 One final thing, she never told me she loved me until we'd been together some 15 months and I finally got sick of waiting and asked how she felt about me. Her actions and affection made it clear that she did but it really bothered me not hearing the words. On this, had you told her ILY first and she didn't say it back until much later or were you waiting on her to say it first?
smackie9 Posted January 27, 2017 Posted January 27, 2017 (edited) This goes against your moral code. You need to remove yourself from this emotionally and take a good look at your situation. She chose to keep the affair for 3 more years....she thinks of herself, and not about his wife and kids. This is a DEAL BREAKER. She kept this from you for over a year.....that is very telling of her character. Edited January 27, 2017 by smackie9 2
Author RileyS Posted January 27, 2017 Author Posted January 27, 2017 Red flags are red flags for a reason. Dating married men, looking for other men when you are having issues, not communicating her feelings without you demanding them to me say that she isn't emotionally healthy and would be a poor investment. You aren't two years in and she has already shown you that she makes you anxious, accusatory and unhappy enough to doubt her compatibility. In a healthy relationship, this is very rare. I have been married for 23 years and in that time period have had none of the drama you are describing here. Good luck, Grumps Thanks, without much past experience it's difficult to know what's normal but I've regularly felt anxious and unhappy with the relationship to the point where I'm often feeling like I'm looking for a reason to end it. I do love her but the reactions of people on this thread are putting into words what my gut's been trying to tell me for some time now. 1
Author RileyS Posted January 27, 2017 Author Posted January 27, 2017 Her being on e-harmony is one red flag you were made aware of. I am sure she has still old contacts in her phones from being online back then. You think she would hesitate to get back in touch with them? I bet she did. And those 800 smiles, I mean, c'mon, you've got to be on there full time to reach 800 smiles. It's not because nothing came out of it that it makes it less of a betrayal. What if one (or several) of them had pursued her. You said she got around 20 matches a day from e-harmony. Lets say she sent a smile to all of them each day. She'd have to send 20 smiles a day for 40 days to reach 800 smiles. Think of it, for a couple of months, maybe more, each time she laid next to you in bed she had just logged off e-harmony and sent 20 smiles to other men. Perhaps she has got details on there, I'm not sure, she said she's only been on three dates from it and the first two were duds and there's no message history of her talking to anyone else but I guess they could have been deleted. Oh believe me I have thought about those smiles a lot, the first was sent on the 16th Feb and the last on the 1st April. Took me ages to count them and it was like you say 20 odd a day to at least 85% of the matches she received.
Author RileyS Posted January 27, 2017 Author Posted January 27, 2017 Every 37 year old single person will have some damage in the past. People can get over their past hurts and get beyond their past mistakes but this one has CURRENT issues that she needs to address. That means you as a couple have serious issues. Is this what you want? Right now I've not decided what I want but this thread has been very helpful, I'm certainly not going to be progressing the relationship any further anytime soon. There's not been anything since April to give me cause for concern but as someone else pointed out who knows what would have happened if those smiles progressed any further.
Author RileyS Posted January 27, 2017 Author Posted January 27, 2017 On this, had you told her ILY first and she didn't say it back until much later or were you waiting on her to say it first? I first told her after about four months when we were lying in bed about to go to sleep, she never really reacted. The second time was after about 10 months when we were saying goodbye at the end of the weekend, that time she just gave me a big hug. After that I decided never to say it again until she did. I discussed it with a friend once and he said not to worry as some people just don't say it for whatever reason, she never says it to her family either. It did hurt more and more the longer it went on though hence why I asked her. She's never said it since except when we've had an argument or when I've said it first. 1
Author RileyS Posted January 27, 2017 Author Posted January 27, 2017 This goes against your moral code. You need to remove yourself from this emotionally and take a good look at your situation. She chose to keep the affair for 3 more years....she thinks of herself, and not about his wife and kids. This is a DEAL BREAKER. She kept this from you for over a year.....that is very telling of her character. I've tried to look at it objectively, she had issues with depression when he began pursuing her and had developed feelings for him by the time she found out. People do say the past is the past and people learn from their mistakes and I don't think she'd knowingly enter a relationship with a married person again, but, it does disgust me that she continued seeing him when she found out. She's also quite selfish in other ways too.
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