Feeling betrayed...

[JackhammerGemma]

Sorry this is so long but I need to know if I'm making a bigger deal out of something than I should be and I feel the details are necessary.

 

My boyfriend is friends with a girl at our job, we'll call her Lisa, and has been since before we met. Lisa is cute and generally a nice person, to the point where some find her fake and insincere, she loves attention from guys and if she weren't married she and my bf probably would have hooked up already. (I can't fault him for anything he felt or did before I dated him, so fine.) It seemed to me Lisa, who normally was very nice to me, started ignoring me when she found out I was dating my bf. So I eventually gave up being nice and ignored her too. Because of what I perceived as her ignoring me, seeing them talk at work made me uncomfortable even though they've been friends for quite a while. I made a big deal out of it with him and she became a point of contention for us. Now when we go to social gatherings he knows better than to sit anywhere near her. He has always insisted nothing was going on between them. Just said he had thought she was cute and used to want to hook up with her before he found out she was married. But instead they just remained friends.

 

Yesterday I went to his desk and saw her standing closer to him than what I thought was appropriate and he looked like he wasn't looking at her face. He said later she came to offer him a brownie & that it was the brownie he was looking at. Ok, that's possible right (esp since, as he pointed out, she has no breasts to look at.) But I blew a fuse, went back to my desk and wrote him a message that I didn't care WTF Lisa was doing at his desk, if I saw that again it was over between us.

 

I approached the office gossip, who usually organizes the social things outside of work, and told her not to invite me anywhere Lisa would be anymore. (I wasn't going to tell her that previously because I didn't want to start drama in the office and after all she IS the Office Gossip. But after seeing Lisa at my bf's desk in what I perceived as an inappropriate manner, I had had enough.) The Office Gossip then told me that it was not "all Lisa". I asked her what she meant by that. She acted like she didn't want to tell me but finally said that at the last social thing at a bar we all went to about 5 weeks ago (where Lisa was sitting way far away from my bf and I), Lisa showed her some dirty texts my bf was sending her that night. The Office Gossip said Lisa told her she didn't know what to do about it. Everyone in our group that night had been drinking-me, my bf, Lisa, the Office Gossip, etc.

 

I confronted my bf right away even though the Office Gossip begged me (followed me all the way back to my desk in fact) not to tell him anything; she seemed desperate for me not to tell him. (I should add, she was already mad at him for some stupid thing his brother did that wasn't his fault.) He denied sending Lisa dirty texts and in fact got mad at me for believing the Office Gossip, whom he already couldn't stand and is now even more disgusted with. He said he didn't remember sending Lisa texts that night but that if he did, they weren't dirty. He said he wasn't that drunk that he couldn't remember if they were dirty. (Keep in mind he does a lot of texting to all his friends and family and me & it wouldn't really surprise me if he really didn't remember texting her.) I know he did call her and her friend that night because they got lost getting to the restaurant. That was no big deal, even now.

 

I still didn't feel comfortable after hearing his explanation so I approached Lisa, whom I haven't talked to in weeks. I asked if I could talk to her, and asked her about the texts. She swore that there was nothing going on between them, never had been, they were just friends and maybe if she weren't married then maybe...but said he didn't text her anything inappropriate that night or ever. She said she didn't understand why the Office Gossip, who was supposed to be her friend, would say such a thing to me. She seemed genuinely confused about it and said she was sorry I was going through this.

 

So my bf is mad at me for listening to and believing the Office Gossip, who he has long despised for being the way she is. He says she starts trouble because she is overweight and lonely and depressed and has nothing better to do. He is also angry at me for approaching Lisa about the texts because it means I didn't take his word for it that the texts weren't dirty.

 

I want to believe him but there are a few questions that keep going through my mind. I know Lisa and the Office Gossip were drinking that night but I still don't understand why Lisa would go to the bathroom to show her the texts if they were no big deal. Was it just to say 'Look who's texting me?' Even Lisa couldn't remember why she showed her, just said she had been drinking that night and was really buzzed. I asked my bf why he didn't tell me he and Lisa text (he has a few different texting buddies, as do I, but I thought we had already told each other who they were.) He said because they don't really text that much.

 

*On a side note, my bf's ex (who is dating someone I dated previously) told my bf I was sending her bf dirty texts a few months ago, which was completely untrue. He did proposition me and I said No thanks, too risky-but there was nothing dirty or explicit about anything I texted him. So I'm trying to see it from the angle that if someone told my bf something about me that wasn't true, maybe that's what's happening here. Actually more than one person has told him things about me that weren't true but he didn't blow a fuse about it, just asked me about it and then accepted my explanation.*

 

A while back I posted about my boyfriend's habits that bothered me, about him texting and taking his phone everywhere with him. Since then he has improved a lot in that area once he knew it bothered me, he has cut down on texting so much in front of me and doesn't take the phone with him everywhere anymore, leaves it on his bedside table more often now when he leaves the room. His explanation about locking his phone and computer was he just has a thing about privacy and that even his brother doesn't know his passwords and codes. The other night he got a call at midnight that he didn't answer. I felt uneasy about it and finally asked him who it was and he said his friend Paul, and showed me the caller ID on his phone. So I can't say he isn't trying at all to be more trustworthy. If he had anything to hide I suppose he wouldn't let me stay at his house the other night while he went to the gym.

 

I do believe that nothing has ever physically happened between my bf and Lisa, so it's not an issue of him cheating on me with her. But I still feel so betrayed at the thought of him sending her (or anyone actually) dirty texts. Last night he said that sometime before we started dating (about 4 months ago) he thought Lisa was cute but when he found out she was married didn't do anything about it as far as hooking up. He said she is just a friend and he likes her because she is nice to everyone.

 

I so want to believe him, and believe her since she too says the texts weren't dirty or anything she didn't know what to do about. But all I keep hearing is the Office Gossip's voice in my head describing one of the texts to me, something like "I want to cum all over you". It doesn't even sound like something he'd say to anyone. It makes me cringe and feel nauseous just to imagine it.

 

My bf and Lisa both insist the texts were not inappropriate, and he says I should consider the source (the Office Gossip). It's true that she likes to gossip and spread things and stir up the pot, I have always known that about her. I said Why would she lie about that when she knows you and Lisa will find out that she told me? His answer was she doesn't care because she is the way she is and just wants to cause problems. He is really upset that I would believe her of all people. Also he was upset that I told him it was over if I saw Lisa at his desk like that again. When all this went down, he withdrew and told me to just leave him alone.

 

I have always had trust issues with him, more because of perceived suspicion than any material reason. But now my bf says he doesn't know what to do or say because he thinks I will never trust him again, not for a long time to come. He seems really sad that I believed the Office Gossip and didn't give him the benefit of the doubt. Is this something I should end the relationship over, or should I just try to accept his and Lisa's word for it, get over it, and move past it? I think I can do that (get past it) but I can't get the "I want to cum all over you" out of my head, whether it is real or fictional.

 

Input is appreciated. But please try not to be too mean, I'm really fragile right now.

[LJE2007]

I kind of know where you are coming from. My husband worked at this company where he was pretty much the only guy there, in his department at any rate. This girl I knew from a long time ago started working there. I had asked him to stay away from her because I knew she was easy and didnt care that she was married. (Mind you, at this time, I am in my late 20s, just had a hysterectomy because of cancer, my hormones were all messed up. I was constantly being put on medication, then pulled off.) Well, my husband would look me straight in the eye and PROMISE he wasnt talking to her. A few weeks later, we are fighting over something mundane, and he throws in, oh yeah, by the way, I have been talking to her this whole time. She is my friend and I am going to talk to her. We fought about it for a couple days, but I was feeling better, system was finally working right without medication and I just didnt care anymore if he talked to her or not. Now YEARS after the fact, he tells me that he could have had her if he had pursued it. He told me that he stayed on her job more than he did any of the other women. He said he "liked" her and that he didnt see why I thought she was nasty. He said that she told him that everyone was saying they were having an affair. (He never told me any of this.) Then he tells me that when he used to go into work early, this girl was always there. He had told me his boss had told him to start coming in early and having everything ready to go. I told him that his boss told me that HE had REQUESTED coming in early. So he says, uh, yeah, well I wanted the overtime. I feel hurt, betrayed, it is like her friendship was more important to him than my feelings or the medical issues I was having.

 

I say be careful and keep an eye on him/them. I dont mean to be harsh or negative, but I have learned the hard way, that there is always some element of truth in rumors.