Is it ever okay to lie in a relationship to protect your partner?

[SherrySher]

This is not a respectful woman. You need to find a different girlfriend.

[boltnrun]

42 minutes ago, Yawrum said:

after they split, they still remained in contact since he was still helping her with things and she couldn't  didn't want to just cut it all off.

Fixed it for you.

What religion teaches people to lie to someone they claim to love and who they know loves them?

[MissCanuck]

My god man, this is not what decent relationships look like. 

This woman is playing you for a fool. 

[lostandhurt]

Okay I didn't respond to this when I first saw it because it didn't seem real but you have replied several times so at least you are engaged although you seem to be in denial. 

First off I have seen you call this guy her ex friend.  He isn't her ex friend, he is her ex boyfriend.  They dated exclusively so they were a couple which means they were boyfriend and girlfriend.  Stop kidding yourself there at least.

Next you have her on a pedestal.  She clearly lies and uses people so it is time to take her down off the pedestal and see that she is not perfect or innocent.

She lied to you and she kept her ex bf in her life because he was "doing things" for her.  That doesn't sound very honest does it? Sounds like she was keeping him around to use him for "things"

  You are long distance so answer a few questions please.

How many days total have you spent actually together?

Have you had sex?

Do you do "things" for her also? (give her money, pay bills for her...)

When do you plan on being in the same city together?

Since this is your first relationship how are you so positive she was a virgin when you met her?

I am not sure what she is up to but it really does look sketchy and deceitful.

Lost

[DancingFool]

OP, when you find yourself in a situation where you are doing all kinds of fancy mental gymnastics trying to convince yourself that your partner is good and honest, but you still cannot shake off that icky sick feeling in your stomach..... Listen to your gut and walk away.

Healthy relationships do not ever involve this kind of drama.

She didn't lie to protect you, she lied to protect herself. Mainly because if you and this guy had met, it would have likely come out pretty fast that there is a lot more between them and that a lot of the bad things she has said about him were made up lies. Also, you likely would have discovered that she has said terrible things about you to him. Consider how willing he was to play along with her request. In his mind, it was her and him against you. Logically, she had to have made you out to be crazy long before this incident.

Beware of people who badmouth their ex's because they'll badmouth you too. It's a huge red flag. It's also a manipulative kind of behavior.

Bottom line is she is playing you and him both and loving the attention. 

This is where you need to set aside your emotions, think rationally, and realize that this entire situation is not normal, not OK and not something you should be participating in. In your shoes, I'd set her free yesterday.

[Yawrum]

19 minutes ago, DancingFool said:

OP, when you find yourself in a situation where you are doing all kinds of fancy mental gymnastics trying to convince yourself that your partner is good and honest, but you still cannot shake off that icky sick feeling in your stomach..... Listen to your gut and walk away.

Healthy relationships do not ever involve this kind of drama.

She didn't lie to protect you, she lied to protect herself. Mainly because if you and this guy had met, it would have likely come out pretty fast that there is a lot more between them and that a lot of the bad things she has said about him were made up lies. Also, you likely would have discovered that she has said terrible things about you to him. Consider how willing he was to play along with her request. In his mind, it was her and him against you. Logically, she had to have made you out to be crazy long before this incident.

Beware of people who badmouth their ex's because they'll badmouth you too. It's a huge red flag. It's also a manipulative kind of behavior.

Bottom line is she is playing you and him both and loving the attention. 

This is where you need to set aside your emotions, think rationally, and realize that this entire situation is not normal, not OK and not something you should be participating in. In your shoes, I'd set her free yesterday.

Your first paragraph really is where I'm at. I keep trying to convince myself that everything is fine and honestly it totally could all be fine and that nothing happened at all between them besides just bad decision making on solving issues from their side. But just the exhaustion of always trying to convince myself just does not seem healthy and losing sleep over. 

I wasn't expecting this much response and so I'll provide an extra detail, her and I have taken a break from each other now for a few months and it was my decision since I told her I couldn't handle it anymore. It totally broke both of our hearts but we've still been in contact these few months and I can tell she still loves me, and the way I see it is that if she and her ex still had something, she could have easily gotten back together with him during this time apart but she isn't and won't she says. She is very remorseful for what she did, but at the same time, even till now I can't forget about it and don't know if I ever will.

[Andrina]

Go no contact for closure. She's nearly 30 years old, so if she hasn't figured out good ethics and how to properly date, why would she magically start now? You don't want to turn into her and be messaging an "ex" when you're dating someone else. As you can see, that creates stress and distrust.

Stick to dating locally. Try meet up.com. Take dance lessons, or cooking lessons. Do volunteer work. Go to book discussion groups. Get out into the world more to meet available women. You'll find out sooner, in person, who a person really is. And make a must-have list and a dealbreaker list when it comes to dating, and stick to it. You have to have standards. When you don't, you get treated like a doormat, and waste a lot of time on toxic people.

[DancingFool]

11 minutes ago, Yawrum said:

Your first paragraph really is where I'm at. I keep trying to convince myself that everything is fine and honestly it totally could all be fine and that nothing happened at all between them besides just bad decision making on solving issues from their side. But just the exhaustion of always trying to convince myself just does not seem healthy and losing sleep over. 

I wasn't expecting this much response and so I'll provide an extra detail, her and I have taken a break from each other now for a few months and it was my decision since I told her I couldn't handle it anymore. It totally broke both of our hearts but we've still been in contact these few months and I can tell she still loves me, and the way I see it is that if she and her ex still had something, she could have easily gotten back together with him during this time apart but she isn't and won't she says. She is very remorseful for what she did, but at the same time, even till now I can't forget about it and don't know if I ever will.

Like I said, when a situation leaves you feeling like that, it's your giant clue that you need to walk away. You are feeling like that because your gut won't stop ringing alarm bells no matter how much you try to silence them. Again, always listen to your gut instinct because it's never wrong.

As for her ex, it's not that she wants to be with him exclusively or directly, it's that she enjoys playing you and him against each other and getting attention from both. This is what toxic looks like, along with the anxiety and exhaustion you are feeling.

As for being on a break, there are no breaks in relationships. Either you are together or you are broken up. Being on a break is just adding more confusion and dysfunction to an already dysfunctional situation. So is the ongoing contact between you. Just break up and stop the contact.

Reason for stopping all contact is that once you do that, yes it will feel bad for a bit, but after some time it gives you a chance to calm down and see things rationally, rather than boiling in emotions all the time. Continuing to talk is like constantly peeling your scab off, so your wound never heals and eventually starts to fester.

In relationship terms, this constant contact is preventing you from healing, moving on, and eventually meeting someone better suited for you.

A huge part of finding the right partner is your capacity to weed out the wrong ones quickly and cleanly. That does mean, unfortunately, that while you date, you will probably end up having some bad experiences like this one. The key is to listen to your instincts and walk away sooner rather than later.

 

[boltnrun]

Maybe her ex told her to kick rocks once he found out she was two-timing the both of you.  And now she wants to circle back to you.

[MissCanuck]

6 hours ago, Yawrum said:

her and I have taken a break from each other now for a few months

Make that a permanent break. 

At her age, she knew what she was doing. She showed you she has poor boundaries and is deceptive. Forget this woman. 

She's not the person you wanted to believe she was. 

[smackie9]

19 hours ago, Yawrum said:

We're both late 20s. This was a one time thing that her friend and her planned well before she met me. She has no family over here and so after they split, they still remained in contact since he was still helping her with things and she couldn't just cut it all off. She told me that in her head, she only thought of it as a friend coming over to visit since she doesn't view him as anything more, but once he came she knew she needed to tell me instead of hiding that. 

No she needed to realize how inappropriate her decision was to have him sleep there and to see how disrespectful it is to your relationship. How can date someone with this mind set to have a man sleep with her?

[reinventmyself]

Her lies protect her, not you.  But I think you knew that already or you wouldn't be here asking.

[lostandhurt]

You are long distance so answer a few questions please.

How many days total have you spent actually together?

Have you had sex?

Do you do "things" for her also? (give her money, pay bills for her...)

When did you plan on being in the same city together?

Since this is your first relationship how are you so positive she was a virgin when you met her?

 

Lost

[SooSad33]

On 9/5/2022 at 3:24 AM, Yawrum said:

next time we got the opportunity to be in her friend's state, I asked if I could also meet him and talk to him. In front of me she said that it would be fine to do so, but behind my back, she was texting him and telling him to not come out and just text back saying that he's busy so that I could see. So she basically lied to me so that I couldn't meet up with him and her reasoning behind these lies was because she knows that I didn't like him coming over to visit her and also hearing the stories of how he treated her back then, that I might get into an argument with him if we had met.

I don't understand how any of this is a form of 'protecting you'?

And how I see all of this is because she feared how YOU might react towards him, yes.

But, WHY is she continuing such a relationship with him - is what I am wondering.

IF they are truly done. he should not be going over to her place, sleeping over etc.

( How long had they split before YOU came along.....?).

 

[DarkCh0c0]

She's lying to protect herself. Don't let her fool you.

Have some self-respect and move on from this messy situation. Lying like this is a deal-breaker. I'm sorry.

[SherrySher]

On 9/5/2022 at 4:02 PM, Yawrum said:

even till now I can't forget about it and don't know if I ever will.

I don't blame you.

Remember this one rule and remember it well: Someone who loves you and respects you, will never lie to you or try to hide hide things from you.

You will save yourself a lot of heartache if you stay away from those who would do those things to you.

All you need is to see it one time.

[Yawrum]

On 9/6/2022 at 6:38 PM, SherrySher said:

I don't blame you.

Remember this one rule and remember it well: Someone who loves you and respects you, will never lie to you or try to hide hide things from you.

You will save yourself a lot of heartache if you stay away from those who would do those things to you.

All you need is to see it one time.

Yeah, and I’ve even tried putting myself in her shoes in that situation, at the time the lie happened, there was tons of gossip going around from some of her “friends” that tried to make things up so that I would get mad at her about him visiting so I tried putting myself in her shoes and I guess I can see why she would have lied, but that definitely doesn’t mean that was the right thing for her to do.

I guess I was holding out hope in that I could possibly forget this since she didn’t technically physically cheat, and I’ve read so many stories online where someone’s partner actually physically cheated and they were able to forgive their partner and move on to a happy life together. I guess everyone’s boundaries are more open than others in that regard.

[Wiseman2]

2 minutes ago, Yawrum said:

 since she didn’t technically physically cheat

You don't really know that as a fact since you weren't there. 28 year old women do not have innocent slumber parties with exes or male friends.

Step way back. Date local reliable honest mature women.

[SherrySher]

2 hours ago, Yawrum said:

Yeah, and I’ve even tried putting myself in her shoes in that situation, at the time the lie happened, there was tons of gossip going around from some of her “friends” that tried to make things up so that I would get mad at her about him visiting so I tried putting myself in her shoes and I guess I can see why she would have lied, but that definitely doesn’t mean that was the right thing for her to do.

I guess I was holding out hope in that I could possibly forget this since she didn’t technically physically cheat, and I’ve read so many stories online where someone’s partner actually physically cheated and they were able to forgive their partner and move on to a happy life together. I guess everyone’s boundaries are more open than others in that regard.

Make things up...unless you have proof, maybe their warnings were real.

Right now you are desperate to try to justify her behavior because you want things to work out, you want her to be a better person than she is and for your relationship to be wonderful again.

But wanting and reality are two different things.

In this lifetime we will meet many people that we feel we love but are hurt by their actions (sometimes really hurt). And we try to find reasons for it, look past it, tell ourselves they really aren't that bad.

Why? Because we want them to be the people we had thought they were when we met them.

I think everyone at some point has desperately tried to "fix" a version of someone because we wanted them, and told ourself "it's not that bad".

But at the end of the day, you already know that it was bad. You know that she is fooling around where she shouldn't be. And she tried to not only hide it from you, but lied to you.

Lying is not a small thing, no matter what anyone tries to tell you.

There is no good reason for it.

Lying about an ex boyfriend, is even worse.

I know you are grasping at straws right now because you want it to be okay, but I really do think you're setting yourself up for more heartache if you stay.

We can't live your life for you, or change your mind. All we can do is advise based on experience and wisdom.

Even if she is the wrong choice, if you decide to go forward with it, I pray you won't be too hurt because truth be told, OP, it's not a good situation.

 

[MissCanuck]

4 hours ago, Yawrum said:

there was tons of gossip going around from some of her “friends” that tried to make things up so that I would get mad at her about him visiting

That makes no sense, dude. 

What reason would these people have to make you mad at her? Come on, now. That's just not very plausible. 

I think they were being honest and she is the one pretending they were just gossiping. 

4 hours ago, Yawrum said:

she didn’t technically physically cheat

My guy. If you still believe that, I have ocean-front property in Kazakhstand to sell you.