Once upon a time, I met a man who was charming, upbeat, relentless, and cocky to a fault. He pursued me for months, but I wrote him off because I felt his over confidence was a turn-off.
As friends, I came to see that his cockiness was mainly a façade. I found he was also a man who was open-hearted, honest, spiritual and who wanted the same things out of a relationship that I did. Friendship turned into a three year relationship.
Shortly after celebrating our third anniversary, there seemed to be a shift in our dynamic. Among other things, I was finding that his flirtatious nature had turned from a quirk to a liability. He didn’t seem to be as communicative, attentive and had filled his schedule with social events, computer gaming and extracurricular activities.
I’d never been one to pry or snoop, but when I would try to voice a concern, he would simply reduce my feelings as “dramatic or ridiculous.” We had once told each other we had no secrets from each other and had given each other permission and passwords to one another’s phones, email, etc. When I felt I had no other choice, I decided to put my investigative skills to work.
I began by reviewing our mutual phone bill and saw tons of texts and calls to a number I didn’t recognize. Most of these were made while he was at work.
This fed my curiosity even more. One night, when he came home from playing softball and stumbled into the bedroom, drunk as usual, I retrieved his cell. Upon review of his text log, I felt my heart race as I read a conversation that read like a Manhunt chat.
(A. is the other guy. B. is my boyfriend)
It included lines like,
A.“Nice package.”
B.“Nice ass.”
A.“You were all up on it last night. I got wood with you behind me.”
B.”Remember that night we had a lingering kiss?”
My hands shook as I thought about anyone else’s hands on him. Besides that, this wasn’t the first time I had caught him sending inappropriate messages.
A few months prior when I had a gut feeling things were off, I had investigated his emails and texts. I found out he had opened an Adam4Adam profile, had been exchanging pictures, lewd conversations and even been setting up times to meet, which just-so-happened to correlate with times I was at work. His phone contained a very sexually charged conversation with someone I had never heard of, which included detailed descriptions of things they planned to do to one another.
Once I confronted him about that, he had promised to never do it again. So, discovering it was still going on blew my mind. I had a choice. I could rush into the bedroom, wake him and confront him or sleep on it and discuss it more level headed in the morning.
I ended up doing the latter. The next morning before leaving for work, I calmly told him what I was upset about. Instantly, he became defensive, mad at me for “snooping” and told me I was overreacting.
I tried to put in plain words that I shouldn’t have to explain why I was upset and that I simply felt his behavior wasn’t ok. Then, came the excuses.
“I’m just social that can come off as flirting,” he stated. “It doesn’t mean anything.” In my dictionary, the definition of “social” doesn’t include grabbing somebody’s dick, then texting them the next day to talk about it.
“I don’t know how to not reciprocate when someone’s flirting,” he defended. Um, just say “thank you.” Two words that say it all; I appreciate the compliment but I’m not going to fuel the situation.
“I feel neglected. You never compliment me,” he whined. “I like the attention.” So, because I don’t tell him he’s pretty on a daily basis, he has to flirt and have his ego(and apparently other things) stroked by other men?
“If I thought the texts would bother you, I would have deleted them,” he assured. So, there may have been more explicit conversations but he deleted them so I wouldn’t be upset?
“What’s the big deal?” he asked. “This conversation was tamer than the last time you caught me. Besides, the last time was with a guy who was old and unattractive and this time was with someone queeny and fat.” The bottom line is I DON’T LIKE IT. I don’t care who it is.
I needed to vent and decided to go out for drinks with mutual friends of ours, Christian and Rob.
“You knew he was a flirt when you met him,” Rob said.
“Yes, but there’s a difference between flirting and being ‘hands-on’ then carrying it on afterwards,” I explained.
“Oh, I know what you mean,” Christian interjected. “One night when we all went out drinking together, he started feeling me up and tried to kiss me.”
That was a new revelation. All this time, my boyfriend was making it out to sound like other people were initiating the flirtation. When I revealed my new information to him, he flew into a rage. He denied it and actually claimed that the opposite happened. I believed him. Not only because he was so adamant about it but also because Christian had done the same thing to me on one occasion.
After all was said and done, the real reason behind his behavior surfaced. He felt that I wasn’t emotionally available or supportive and that I was pulling away. I had to come to terms with the fact that clearly we both had our faults. It was only then that he finally acknowledged my feelings and we were able to start rebuilding our relationship.
Erik Fact: Without trust there can be no real intimacy. I learned that if you choose to believe a friend over your partner, there’s a lack of trust in your relationship. Even though it may hurt, sometimes you need to be brutally honest about your feelings. And if you’re lucky, you’ll both be open enough to take it and grow from it.
