"Fool Me Once, Shame On You...Fool Me Twice.....???"

First of all, I'm so thankful to have found this group. I don't have a lot of friends or family members who I feel would be qualified to give me unbiased advice about my present situation.

Thanks in advance for reading and offering any advice you may have. I know this is long, but there's a lot going on here, and I've never had the opportunity to talk to anyone else about this...

First, a little background. I've been in a serious relationship for 3.5 years. I'm 25, he's 27. We live together and now own a business together, so, although we do spend time apart occasionally, we are together every day, almost all day. Neither of us has ever been one for "flings", short-term relationships / "hook-ups", etc. (as far as I knew, at least).

Now onto the "goods"...There's just so much to this that I'm not even sure where to start.......

Perhaps a "timeline" of sorts would be easiest.

Late 2004 -

He lent me his cell phone one afternoon while mine was being repaired. I pulled up his contacts and found about 15 girls' names that I didn't recognize. Not a huge deal, as everyone has friends and not everyone keeps their phonebooks updated....However, this phone was less than 3 months old. I looked at his phone logs, and it appeared that every day, shortly after I left for work, he called one of two numbers and stayed on the phone for approximately 20 minutes to 1 hour. Both of these numbers belonged to females. Sometimes there were multiple calls to and from both numbers throughout the day. He denied this, saying that "someone else must have been using his phone" at those times. Right.

Mid-2005 to Early 2006 -

He engaged in lengthy "chat sessions" well into the night with various females from all over the country. I told him that I was uncomfortable with this, and asked him to please stop, or at least share with me what he was talking about and who he was chatting with. He told me he would no longer do it, but I found multiple chat records that post-date this statement. Girls were sending him pictures (some of these girls were nude or scantily-clad), and he, in turn, was sending photos of himself to them, as well.

June 2006 -

We were relaxing on the couch, watching TV when he received a phone call. He was on the phone for about 10 minutes, sounding fairly nervous. When he hung up, I casually asked who it was. It turns out, a fifteen year-old girl in Georgia had his personal cell phone number saved in her phone log and address book, and the caller in question was said girl's MOTHER asking who he was and advising him that her daughter was under age and had no business talking to him. Apparently, the girl confessed that she had been talking to him online and over the phone for an indetermined amount of time. According to what I heard of his side of the conversation, he never denied any of these things.

October 2006 -

I found three pairs of women's underwear under the bed while cleaning. To this day, he denies knowing anything about them or how they got there.

I was searching an old hard drive for a word document. I couldn't remember the title, so I searched the entire drive for all ".doc" files. A file titled "[Female's Name Witheld].Doc" came up, dated 2005. I opened it, of course, out of curiosity. It was a saved Instant Message conversation between him and a girl, saying how "she was the best thing that ever happened to him", "he couldn't wait to see her again", "he waited for her calls every night" [while I was at work], "he had never met anyone as beautiful as her", etc. I was floored. I confronted him about it, and he (seriously!!!) said that he "didn't remember" having that conversation. I actually went so far as to contact the girl he was having the conversation with. She was polite, and did give me some information about their relationship. She says that although they never engaged in a physical relationship, they did go on several dates and she was not ever aware that he was in a relationship with me at the time. She admitted that he wanted a serious relationship with her, and she wasn't ready for a commitment at the time, so she broke it off with him. She was nineteen at the time. He was 25. I've never gotten the whole story from him, as he says he "can't remember the details" from that long ago. He says he believes he was just "playing her" as a means to get attention and that he had no feelings for her. I've never gotten over this, and have since found it impossible to trust or fully forgive him.

Earlier This Month -

I needed his mom's e-mail address so I could contact her about plans for his birthday. I opened up his e-mail program and noticed that he had several e-mails saved from a particular girl I had never heard of. I opened the latest one, which included several photos, and her response to his last e-mail to her, in which he said that he "thought about her all the time" and "missed talking to her". She went on to reply that she "thought about him all the time, too, while she was....[insert gross sexual remarks here]"

This was it. I was livid.

I confronted him, as usual, and (also as usual) he played dumb and acted like I was somehow mistaken about having seen that message.

I am really at a loss as to what to do from here.

Our lives are so co-mingled at this point that it's hard to figure out how to separate everything should I decide to leave.

I haven't really spoken to him much this month, as I've been doing a bit of soul-searching and trying to figure out the best way to handle this. He swears that he "will never do anything like this again" and that he "never wants to hurt me", etc.

My father used to be fond of the old saying, "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me". I have a feeling this applies here. The situations described above really only scratch the surface. I've not said anything about the rest of the lying, hiding things, denials, and all the other generally shady behavior I've dealt with over the past couple of years.

At this point, I feel like the past 3.5 years of my life have been worthless, and I've been played for a fool this whole time. It hurts, especially since I've been nothing but honest with him, and have done my best to support him (both emotionally and financially at times) throughout our relationship.

I guess I just need a fresh pair of eyes to look at this and tell me what they would do in this situation. I'm always great at giving out relationship advice to others, but sometimes life has a tendency to cloud your judgment when it comes to your own situations.

Much appreciated.

Claire

If it was me, I hope I'd kick him out of my life.

This guy has basically been cheating on you. Or at the least has a deeply entrenched addiction to chasing women over the net.

He is never going to be good for you, his claims that he wants to change are an attempt to maintain the status quo whereby he has his fun and a steady relationship.

He acts dumb to make you question your jusgement. In your gut you know what to do.

Welcome Claire! Yes, this is a great forum and yes, you will get straightforward honest advice - so here goes!

He has fooled you over and over and over and over..... and will continue to do so. He is consitantly lying to you; cheating on you; manipulating your feelings; and using you. You need to get out of this relationship. His behaviour is only going to continue as he has no reason to change it does he? He is getting everything he wants - love and support and comfort from you and all the sexual flings on the side. Why would he want to change? He is having his cake and eating it too. 100%

It's time to change your relationship into a purely working relationship. I do not envy you here as this will be very hard. I really don't have a lot of advice on how to do that well. You know your business and what's involved and how much contact you need to be in with him etc.

I know you feel like you've wasted the last 3.5years. Maybe it was a comfort pattern for you both. You definetly show a lot of tollerance as I think I would've had a hard time with the phone call from the underage girls mother. But that's me, my life, not you and your life. It's easy to judge what's written on a post rather than living it. The biggest thing I feel, and have posted about frequently, is that we all have something to learn. Don't regret the past (that's left for bad photo pictures from highschool and bad clothing choices ala 80's) Instead, learn from what you can with everything you've gone through. Mind you, that might take a while, after some space and healing and regrouping for yourself.

First step Clair, I think you should leave this relationship. It's not healthy for you. And you need to evaluate how to separate the romatic relationship with the business one. Keep us posted.

All I can say is...aaarrrgghh!!!!!! When it comes to red flags waving, or big red firetrucks with lights and sirens wailing....should you stay and try to work this out ? In my opinion...no way. No way Jose'. I am only six months into a relationship, and if even one of those things came up I would probably say.."See ya later"....where is the trust and honesty? Without that, there really isn't much to build on. It would be like trying to build a house on the shoreline...in the sand. You can try to ignore the fact that there is no foundation and the stuff above is all that is important...but then as the waves or high tide comes in...it all just collapses. Start over....and you did not waste those years...you learned a lot I am sure. Don't stay with someone just because you have invested so much time. That time doesn't mean much if the outcome is that you are unhappy...and he is a big, fat liar, expending energy on other women. Let him go. There is a big ol' world out there, and someone who has some integrity is what you deserve.

Okay, lecture and vent over. Take care !!!

Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, out with you!

He has a clear pattern of behaviour here, and worse, he does not confess or own up to any of it - he simply pays dumb as if hiding his head under the sand will make you go away. Unfortunately, it seems to work. If he was sorry about it, owned up to it, and made an effort to change (counselling, open disclosure of passwords, etc) MAYBE you could come to trust him again.

But playing dumb and pretending nothing happened only means it will continue.

Thank you all so much for your advice. To be honest, this was exactly what I was expecting to hear; I guess I just needed to hear it from someone else. If any of my friends came to me with similar problems, I would tell them "run fast, run far, and don't look back" -- it's funny how "following your own advice" really doesn't work sometimes.

I realized that I've been enabling his behavior patterns by offering threats and no actions to back them up. I'm great at giving ultimatums, but lax with follow through; that's something I'll have to work on in future relationships, I guess. I have a tendency to allow myself to actually feel sorry for him, which is, I think, how this poisonous situation has been dragged out this long.

Thanks so much to all of you who offered advice. This is exactly what I needed.

I realized that I've been enabling his behavior patterns by offering threats and no actions to back them up. I'm great at giving ultimatums, but lax with follow through; that's something I'll have to work on in future relationships, I guess. I have a tendency to allow myself to actually feel sorry for him, which is, I think, how this poisonous situation has been dragged out this long.

I hope that you will be in a relationship in the future where you don't have to lay down such serious ultimatums!! I mean there is always compromise in a relationship but these were some SERIOUS RED FLAGS WAVING IN YOUR FACE!! Not just "I like scary movies and you like romance movies." type of compromises.

And yes, pity is a terrible thing to receive from a partner. But to be honest, he doesn't even deserve that from you. I have a feeling that his manipulations aren't through. He's going to try and make you geel guilty and try and manipulate the situation in his favour again. After all, it is what has succeded so far so he will try again. You have to remind yourself of all these reasons that the relationship was bad. Keep strong! You seem to be a very compassionate, loving, caring person or you wouldn't have tolerated his behaviour for as long as you did. Keep strong and find someone who will match and respect those qualities in you. Don't settle. Your partner deserves your love and respect, not your pity.

Good luck Claire!

 

At this point, I feel like the past 3.5 years of my life have been worthless, and I've been played for a fool this whole time. It hurts, especially since I've been nothing but honest with him, and have done my best to support him (both emotionally and financially at times) throughout our relationship.

 

 

Much appreciated.

Claire

I hate to say it, because you sound like a nice person... you would have to be to put up with this. But I think its high time that you admit, that yes you have been played. Now you have two choices. Continue being played, for as long as you are with this guy. Or stand up, be strong and get him out of your life.

You know full well that hes cheating on you, if not physically, then emotionally at least. Hes lying to you, hes pretending that you are an idiot. You are not, you are simply in love with him... and that can make us do STUPID things sometimes. IE putting up with huge huge amounts of garbage and mistreatment that we would normally otherwise scream STOP! and put an end to it. But nope... your in love, so your head is in the clouds, or in the sand and we just keep plugging along and getting walked on.

Its time you put an end to that. I cant see any reason to give this guy a second chance. He doesnt even sound sorry for anything that he has done. It would be different if he came to you and confessed his wrongdoings, and then begged your forgiveness. However he is denying multiple situations of him obviously being caught red handed and he simply says 'huh, I didnt do nothin'. Give me a break.

Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. The only problem here girl, is that you are currently on 'fool me 43rd time, shame on me again'

Save your money and get out, move in with friends, move in with your parents... whatever. But do yourself a favor and get out.