'Unsettling message from stranger made me question my phone relationship'
Discovering that your partner is concealing things from you can be a devastating blow to any relationship. Trust is the bedrock of a healthy partnership, with both parties needing to have confidence that the other won't betray them or keep secrets.
However, one woman has found herself questioning her trust in her boyfriend after receiving an unsettling message from a stranger.
The woman, who has been in what she describes as the "most incredible relationship" for about a year, was thrown into doubt when she received an online message from an unknown man. The stranger claimed that her boyfriend had been sending messages to his wife and attempting to "get with" her.
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Warning: The media below contains explicit language
In a Reddit post, the woman said she felt she could trust her boyfriend, so she immediately told him about the message and said she assumed the stranger had got the wrong person. But her partner started "acting weird" before eventually admitting the man's wife was his friend from school and that they'd recently messaged each other to "exchange happy birthdays".
Suspicious, the woman messaged the man back, asking to see the messages between his wife and her boyfriend. While waiting for a response, she questioned her boyfriend further and demanded to see his phone - which made him start acting even more defensive.
She said: "He gets all defensive and won't let me look through it, only showing me while he's looking through it. He tells me he deleted the messages with that girl because he's always been accused of cheating in past relationships and didn't want me to assume. I tell him I have never once even accused him of anything ever nor looked through his phone, so that's odd."
The man doubled down and claimed he was just "good friends" with the stranger's wife, but the woman argued that couldn't possibly be true because she'd never met or even heard of this woman before. Then, the wife messaged the woman to claim her husband was "jealous" and often accused her of cheating when she hadn't done anything wrong - which only left the woman feeling even more confused on who to believe.
Now, the woman is unsure what to do as she has no solid proof that her boyfriend is being unfaithful, but she thinks his behaviour is suspicious and knows some trust has already been shattered.
She added: "I'm not trying to be naive. This looks so bad. I have been with cheaters you always see the signs leading up to it. I have noticed nothing. His behaviour when I accused him of it and asked him to look at his phone is what's worrying me the most. This all looks so bad. I'm freaking out. We were going to get married. I have never ever been more confident in anyone in my life before."
Commenters on the post urged the woman to rethink her relationship. Many said that while it's possible the husband was overreacting and the pair haven't been having an affair, her boyfriend's overly defensive reaction cannot be explained away.
One person said: "Your boyfriend's reaction - getting angry, defensive and refusing to let you look through his phone - is highly troubling. I'm sorry, but it doesn't look good for your relationship. Your boyfriend could have easily fixed this by showing you his phone had nothing to hide, but he obviously couldn't."
Another added: "If your boyfriend had nothing to hide, he should have given you his phone. He didn't. Sorry, but he is being very deceptive and is certainly hiding something he definitely doesn't want you to know."
