Help. *edit

Wow I am all sorts of confused right now. Anger, shame, embarrassment, and anger again. Confused.

Please be as honest as possible with feedback because I need outsiders’ opinions on this. For validation of either anger, or that I am actually a crazy bitch.

Yesterday Paco and I went to breakfast together. He started telling me what was on his agenda for next week. Snowboarding Sunday, getting a drink with a fried Monday, blah blah Tuesday, etc.

Immediately my girlfriend bells started ringing, very quietly and low but they were there.

Which friend? I asked. Fully expecting it to be that girl I was all weirded out about a few months ago because I saw in his texts (crazy girlfriend alert) that he was going to meet up with her, but he never mentioned it so I couldn’t ask or mention without it being obvious that I’d betrayed his trust and violated his belongings. So I left it as it left my mind (sort of).

He said, “Melissa.” I said, “who is Melissa?” he said, “just a friend…” I said, “huh, I’ve never heard of her. Why are you meeting up?” he said, “just to have a drink…” My mind started short circuiting, because usually when he mentions friends or people I haven’t heard of, he’s very up front and almost excited for me to know about another person in his life and says things like “you’d really like him/her” and vise versa. So the ambiguity of his answers this time, about someone completely foreign to me… Not even a reference to her in Facebook or otherwise… Was odd.

I took his short ambiguous answers and had an intense reaction. Like something was wrong. His behavior was just… different from what I’ve seen in the past.

My body started shaking and my mind was running. I tried to hide it, but I couldn’t shake it. Even a trip to the bathroom to purposely calm down didn’t work.

Obviously he sensed my change in mood and I wasn’t exactly hiding it very well.

We talked it out some more and he said that he has a lot of friends that he may meet up with from time to time and some I may have never heard of and some I have, and would I like a list of his friends?

I mean, really. That’s kind of insulting. I don’t think it’s out of line to be curious about him randomly meeting up with someone I’ve never heard of.

I told him that, and that it wasn’t the meeting up that bothered me, it was his reaction to my questions that threw me.

He got pretty frustrated and I felt stupid but still somehow strong in my instinct.

He told me that he knew her through the bartender at his favorite bar and they’ve been friends for awhile and she works at Boeing and has a dog. Okay.

I asked again why they were meeting up, and he said, “she is going through a difficult time right now and wants to meet up to talk about it.”

Well, why didn’t you just say that? That’s all I needed to know. Usually there is a motivation behind those things, I said.

Moved on. Sort of. I still had a feeling in my gut about it, that didn’t go away through the whole day. Not after attending a work dinner for him, or going to see Cirque Du Soleil, or awesome love sex at night. The instinct was still there.

So, this morning he went to the bathroom to get ready for snowboarding and I looked at his Facebook. Knowing that it was probably through Facebook chat that they made the plans.

Sure enough. I scrolled up, looking through previous months.

“I miss you!” “I miss your face!” “I really want to see you!” (from her) The most recent one, from Friday, they talked about a mutual friend and she was saying that he hit on her and that she wasn’t even remotely attracted to him. Then she said, “but I am attracted to you!”

Even just writing it makes my blood cold.

He didn’t reciprocate but also didn’t mention having a girlfriend and was more than willing to meet up.

I am shaking writing this. My phone is about to fall out of my hands.

I closed the browser and deleted the history and picked up his phone to look at his texts. Not as incriminating but I did see that he texted her first and said, “here’s my number!”

Paco came out of the bathroom and I laid there, unable to move or figure out a strategy to say something… He laid down next to me and said I’m so pretty… And I was shaking.

Not only did he lie to me about the motivation – she is not going through a difficult time and needs someone to talk to – but he is willingly meeting up with someone who clearly wants to jump his bones as recently as fucking friday.

He immediately sensed something was wrong, I am not good at hiding things. I said I just had a bad dream. He asked what it was, I said I couldn’t tell him without sounding like a crazy person. He said he knows I’m not crazy (but I am) and I told him that I had a dream about him meeting up with his friend…. And that I don’t know if I was there but in dreamland I witnessed the whole thing, and it was really disturbing because he didn’t meet up with her for the reasons he told me. And that I was really awful witnessing them.

He said, Boo, it’s just a dream. You can’t let that be your reality. (but it is reality.)

I said, I know, I know it sounds crazy but I have just had this terrible nagging instinctive feeling since you told me about it. And I don’t know… if I believe you.

He jumped a bit, and said “have I ever done anything that would make you doubt me or not trust me?” “No…” (YES THIS) (and you can’t trust me either, I am a snooping violator)

“I am not attracted to this girl.” (but she is attracted to you, I know this!) “She has a boyfriend.”

Another fucking dagger through my heart with a lie. She doesn’t have a boyfriend. She wants him. I read it. And she told him about other people hitting on her. She. Doesn’t. Have. A. Boyfriend.

He said he was going to cancel. I told him that I dont normally have this strong of a reaction, naturally, and I am trying to make it quiet down but it is burning. I told him not to cancel. At this point, the damage is done.

He said he is canceling, that he’s not going to threaten what we have by meeting up with someone that doesn’t mean anything to him.

I said I’m sorry, I know it sounds crazy and I’ve never felt this way with any other friends. He said, this is going to be an issue. I have a lot of friends… And if this happens every time….

I wanted so badly to tell him that I knew. I saw. I read. I’m sorry, but you’re lying and I feel like I can’t be upset about it because the way I found out was by betraying you.

He left to go snowboarding and I left to go home and stew in my confusion.

I don’t know what to do. I want him to know that I know. But I can admit that I did what I did. I try to justify it in my head, think of some way I could make him understand… “do you know how hard it is to know something to be true but not have proof? I needed proof” – fuck. That doesn’t work.

I will be labeled crazy either way. Either I’m crazy for suspecting, or I’m crazy for suspecting and then snooping.

My instincts were right. Even scarier.

Help.

***

Thank you all for your notes. It is interesting, but not surprising, that all of you have unique experiences and relationships and would handle this situation differently than each other. Makes sense really, especially knowing all of you as well as I do.

After crying in my bed and reading online about relationship experts’ advice regarding my position and also Paco’s, and talking to my mom (crying to my mom), I decided what I’m going to do and why.

First of all. What bothers me about Paco’s side is that he lied to me. Honesty is a trait in a relationship that is fundamental in its core and foundation. He fucked up.

If I expect him to be honest with me, I, too, have to be honest with him. Even if it makes me look bad. And it does. I will have to deal with the repercussions and that’s just a part of life. It fucking sucks that I felt the need to snoop in the first place, but I did and I will take the consequences.

It is going to hurt.

I am meeting with him in an hour at his apartment. He knows I’m upset and that we’re going to have a talk…

I’m going to start by telling him that I doubted him and had an intuitive reaction to his odd behavior and that nothing sat well with me. Not even questioning him got me anywhere because he was ambiguous and seemed to peg me as just being jealous (“do you want me to give you a list of my friends?”).

I didn’t know what to do, to confirm or deny my suspicions. So in a moment of weakness and opportunity, I looked at his Facebook messages with her.

I know it was wrong. It violates and I am having a hard time even admitting to myself that I did that.

Then I will give him the opportunity to come clean. Let him admit. I don’t want to accuse, because his explanation may make sense…. Regardless, he lied to me and I need to know why and we need to figure out what is wrong that made him lie and we need to fix it.

The fact that I have clear motivation and suspicion that was confirmed puts me in a different spot to him. I am admitting up front that I did a bad thing, and he is going to have to admit without knowing exactly what I know.

My perfect relationship is undergoing its first real test. I know I fucked up, I know he fucked up. The real test is how we recover.

I’m scared as hell.