Based on these facts ... paranoia or legitimate concerns?

[Tonee]

Okay I wrote this story with different names, but the it is all true ... thanks for reading and your opinion.

 

John is a good-looking guy, his Fiancé, Maria is a good-looking woman close to his age. They seem to be a great couple together and are looking forward to their future. Currently John and Maria live several thousand miles away. John rents apartments on a short-term basis, often to younger women who come from other countries. These women do not speak the local language so John is the only one around they can talk with. John is a nice person and is nice to these women. He does not treat them as a property owner would usually treat a tenant. He socializes with them daily and he consistently takes them places and does things for them. Maria doesn't mind that as she knows John wants to be helpful.

 

Very late one night John’s time Maria was video chatting with John briefly but had to go. John told Maria he would call her back in a half hour. An hour and a half later Maria still had not heard from John. It was almost 1:30 in the morning where John was. Maria knows that John normally goes to bed much earlier than that and it is not like him not to call when he said he would. She began to worry so she decided to try to call John. She tried calling twice but John did not answer.

 

Finally, Maria receives a video call back from John. He said he was across the street outside the restaurant there drinking beer with two single female friends and he had not heard Maria’s call because he was listening to music. John says he has been friends with these women for a long long time and no reason to worry. There were more people there earlier but it had just been the three of them for the last couple hours. Maria knows John often sits outside the restaurant and talks with friends or family. Usually when he is sitting outside he will answer Maria’s call there, or he will call her from there. This time when he called her back he was standing outside his house rather than calling her from across the street or simply going inside his house where he could sit and talk to her as he typically does. John says he was calling from outside the house because it was quieter. After standing outside for a few minutes, John yells loud “Kate … I am going to bed”, before he goes into his house to continue to talk to Maria.

 

Kate is a young woman renting an apartment from John. The apartments are very close to John’s house, just on the other side of John’s driveway. Kate is quite a bit younger than John is. Maria has heard John talk about Kate though she has not met her.

 

A couple of weeks later Maria is visiting John. While they are in the middle of making love John says something a word followed by “I want to make love to you”. Maria wasn't sure what the first word of but thought it started with a “K” with one syllable. She thinks it sounded like “Kate” but then thinks that could not be and that sounds crazy; she tries think of what it could have been other than that but was not able to come up with anything that might make sense. She knows it sounded nothing like “Maria”.

 

The next day as she cannot forget about the word, Maria decides to ask John about. She is uncomfortable but she asks anyway. John says he cannot remember what he said. Maria remembered that night John did not call her back and that she had wondered why John needed to let Kate know he was going to bed at 1:30 in the morning. She could not think of a reason a property owner would need to let a tenant know they were going to bed at that, or any time, yet she had not asked John about this before. But now, Maria decides to ask John about that too. John says he cannot remember why, that maybe Kate got up to go to the bathroom, which she would have had to go outside to do and was waiting to talk to him. Maria remembers John yelling loudly which makes her believe Kate was probably not standing outside her apartment as that would have been too close to require yelling.

 

This also causes Maria to remember a couple of times when Kate was at John’s house alone with John. One was late at night, i.e. 11:00, past the time John normally goes to bed and talks with Maria. John said Kate was there because she wanted to watch a movie. Another time was early in the morning his time. Maria normally does not talk to John early in the morning but happened to be chatting with him and wanted to see him so she called and saw that Kate was there. They were watching a special TV program together.

 

After visiting John Maria thinks things are great and has forgotten about the questions. One day a couple of weeks later John sends Maria a screenshot from his messaging app to show her something. On the screen Maria notices a chat John had that did not have a name on it like normal but instead said “empty chat”. A little while later, while they are chatting online, Maria asks John what that means, “empty chat”. John tells her it was Kate. Maria asks why it says empty chat and not Kate. John says Kate must have deleted him. Maria knows that John and Kate have used this application to communicate about things as he has forwarded her screenshots of questions related to the property to get her opinion. She wonders why a tenant would delete their property owner if that were how they communicated with them. Therefore, she asks John. John says he does not know.

 

Maria thinks this all seems odd and is uncomfortable so she asks John to see the chat. John says he cannot show it to her because he has deleted the chat. John deleted the chat that morning after he sent the screenshot, even though they had been talking all morning after he sent the screen shot, except for only 15 minutes or so. She asks why John would delete the chat. John says because Kate deleted him as a friend he deleted the chat and removed Kate as a friend. Maria asks John why he would do that he repeats that he did because she did not want to be friends with him … and if someone does not want to be friends with him then he does not want to be friends with them. He repeats that he does not know why Kate would have deleted him. Maria noticed that chat was from three days ago, she asks John why he waited until now to delete it, after he had sent the screen shot. John says he just noticed this morning Kate had deleted him.

 

Although Maria loves John very much she is very confused. She wants to trust John and does not think he has ever lied to her. Maria has trusted several people in the past though and eventually found they were lying to her so she is very uncomfortable. She remembers a time early in their relationship when John was chatting regularly with at least three prior girlfriends, who he said were just friends, yet he did not want to know about Maria. John voluntarily showed Maria the latest chats so she could see there was nothing romantic going on. One of the prior girlfriends had stated she was “missing” John, one was sending John messages just to say good morning and then good night, one was regularly sending John pictures of herself. Maria told John she wanted to be in a serious, committed relationship with John and that she did not believe that was possible for her if he kept relationships like that with girlfriends. John had told Maria he would not chat with them anymore, and then the very next day John messaged each of them. Maria was going to end the relationship because of that as she felt she might not be able to count on John to keep his word and that he really wanted to keep the other relationships. After John agreed to make sure the girlfriends he was chatting with knew about his relationship with Maria and again said he would not be chatting with them, Maria changed her mind. She was glad she did as she really loved and wanted to be with John. Now though, Maria is very confused.

 

Based on the facts above, what should Maria do? Should she just stop being paranoid ... or does she have legitimate concerns....

[Clio]

Sounds like she doesn't trust him and that alone is reason for concern. It's hard to say for sure, but it does sound like there might have been cheating. The reason being that an innocent person would probably have told her off for all the accusatory interrogations instead of providing long winded explanations. Has he ever cheated on anyone previously? Past behaviour can be indication of future behaviour.

[indea08]

They're out late at the bar together, she comes over because she wants to watch a movie, she's there early in the morning to watch a tv show with him....Sounds like they are the couple. I would be long gone.

[Hollyj]

Doesn't sound like John is such a nice guy, after all.

[HeartGoesOn]

Based on the facts above, what should Maria do? Should she just stop being paranoid ... or does she have legitimate concerns....

 

Rather than playing detective, Maria should throw in the towel, admit the lack of trust in this relationship and be on her merry way...

[MissCanuck]

John has very poor boundaries and like the attention of other women, including the pretty little thing next door. There is probably a lot more Maria doesn't know, because it's quite obvious John is not being honest about his interactions with Kate.

 

Maria is right to be concerned about this man. He is not behaving like a good boyfriend.

 

I would tell Maria to find a man who isn't acting like anyone else's surrogate boyfriend.

[ParisPaulette]

Even if John truly stops seeing these other women, which come on they all live right there, so yeah good luck with that, his lack of boundaries, his need to be the center of female attention, his obvious long-winded lies (when someone goes on and on with long-winded explanations that make zero sense, it's usually a lie) coupled with what Maria has been able to observe for herself then it doesn't matter what John does or doesn't do.

 

He can never be trusted. He will find other women and other ways to do this and with Maria not there to keep an eye on him, which she shouldn't have to do since she's not his mom and should never agree to assume a mom role with someone who is supposed to be a partner, then the only thing to do is:

 

a) admit that John put up an act with her, the same one he is putting up with all these other women of being a "nice guy" who is shady A F.

b) admit that she shouldn't have to be in a relationship where there is a lack of trust

c) admit she isn't there to even see what goes on and whether John is lying to her or not

d( admit there are women over at John's place all hours of the night and day and sometimes he goes "missing" for awhile

e) admit she now knows John better and what she's seeing now is more the truth of what and who he is

f) admit that maybe she wants a better relationship and should get it with someone not so many shades of shady.

 

I admit when I first read this post my initial thought of John providing housing to young foreign women was, "Oh dear lord, is he trafficking these women?"

 

Maybe he is, maybe he isn't, but it plus the other stuff described would be more than enough for me to end things, block and delete, learn a valuable lesson that my own intuition and observations are valid enough to take a total pass on staying connected to this guy.

[Wiseman2]

John sounds like a player and Maria needs to move on. Unfortunately writing in the third person makes seem like a rhetorical question.

[Tonee]

Thanks for the reply. Actually I should have clarified, John lives in Thailand, the women are typically from the west and are there to teach english at a school. So no worries about the trafficking -- but not sure that changes your response otherwise ...

[Tonee]

Thank you for the reply. Actually to clarify, John does get upset when he is asked questions about the incidents mentioned. I don't know if he has ever cheated on anyone. He has said from the beginning that his last two relationships ended because his girlfriend cheated on him ... and he was only interested in a relationship where two people are committed to being only with each other. And "Maria" admits that she has a difficult time with trust due to past experiences. Not sure if that changes your response ... appreciate your thoughts

[Wiseman2]

Maria needs to stop dragging her past into this relationship and either trust john his own merit or break up if she can't trust him because he's not trustworthy...or she refuses to let go of her baggage and will be forever suspicious in relationships.