Relationships: Where's the line between trusting and stupid?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m pretty sure I know the answer to my question; I just want to use you guys as a sounding board.

So I’ve been dating this girl for a while now. We decide to make things exclusive. Exactly one week after making things exclusive the following happens.

As a general routine on Friday nights or Saturday nights my Gf likes to go out to the pubs and be the social butterfly. I like to stay home and hang with my kids. I always tell her; when she’s through hanging out up at the bar; don’t bother calling a taxi; I’ll come pick you up. (It’s only a five minute ride)

She’s always like this idea and thought of me as a pretty sweet guy for doing so. At least that’s what she’s always told me.

So Fri-Night rolls around; she goes to the bar; I stay at home. Fri-night comes and goes and I never get a call from my GF. No biggie I think, she must have went home early because she did have to work the following Saturday. (Not her normal day to work)

Saturday afternoon rolls around, I’ve been cleaning my house all day so I decided to go to the bar for an afternoon beer.

When I pull up to the bar I notice my GF’s car outside. I think to myself “Hmm, I wonder how she got home last night.”

Anyway, I’m sitting at the bar when about twenty minutes later my GF walks in with her ex. They sat with each other. They couldn’t see me as I happened to be sitting in the corner (that’s where the video game was) behind a bunch of liquor bottles.

They weren’t making out or holding hands or anything but their body language seemed to suggest they were getting along quite nicely. This after her telling me what a jackass he was and she wants nothing to do with him.

By this point I pretty much felt like I had a brick in my stomach. So I paid my tab and left. Before I did tho’ I went up to her, kissed her on the cheeck and told her “have a nice life baby.” (OK I was being passive aggressive. cut me some slack.)

She was obviously very shocked to see me there as she turned pale white.

A couple of days later I was informed by other bar patrons there that she started to cry as soon as I left. She left me several text and voicemails since the event claiming she didn’t fuck around on me.

Her claim is that she got drunk, her ex-bf happened to show up, they got to talking and he took her back to his place but NOTHING HAPPENED. She slept on the couch with her clothes on.

From all the crying she’s done since this event took place I tend to believe she truly is sorry. But still; am I an asshole for not believing nothing took place that night?

Or if I trust her am I being stupid?

2

If you react this strongly to a girlfriend talking to her ex, then you need to think about whether you will be able to cope with your suspicion and jealousy in future relationships.

Let’s break it down:

  1. It was all innocent. (N.B. I agree she probably should have phoned you that night.)

You have broken up with her without giving her a chance to explain and are still refusing to speak to her.
That’s going to destroy future relationships for sure.

  1. She’s guilty.

Obviously that will hurt a lot. But bad stuff does happen. If you want a long-term loving relationship that will benefit your existing family, you have to talk things through.
Maybe she’s not the one for you in this case. But again you will lose future partners if you can’t discuss your fears and worries with them.

3

Personally I would have left unseen and then when I next spoke to find out what she did last night/that day without making it obvious I knew where she’d been. If she volunteered that she’d seen her ex straight up I would have talked to her about why (given the “he’s a jackass and I want nothing more to do with him” comment previously) to give her the chance to explain, if she lied then that for me would be that and I’d cut things short there an then because I don’t date liars. I probably wouldn’t reveal that I’d seen her as this runs the risk of her then suddenly backtracking and turning into a whole lot of explanations (read: more lies) which I don’t want to hear.

What you’ve done is played to your own insecurity and acted rashly, and now you have a much harder time differentiating from her remorse for the situation from remorse at being caught out. What you should do next I can’t really say as you need to go with your gut. If you feel you can’t trust her now then trying to make yourself won’t work, no matter how good the relationship is on paper. Relationships aren’t based on rational decisions, they’re based on feelings.

Maybe I’m not the best person to advise as I don’t experience jealousy and approach things as dispassionately as set out above, but I do have a propensity to be suspicious and cynical about people’s motives/behaviour which makes relationships equally difficult, so it kind of balances out. :slight_smile:

4

Don’t worry about any stories about “you should have…” or even your own thoughts about what happened. What is is what is.

You are an asshole for not believing nothing took place that night.

And if you trust her you are being stupid.

But you are the position where it is all up to you. All you have to do is talk to her, tell her what you have told us and take it one step at a time. You aren’t required to make any snap decision about anything. If you are having second thoughts just check out the facts while staying one step removed.

5

Anything that takes place in or originates from a bar . . .

6

This is excelent advice…if the OP wants to go through the rest of his life as a chump.

I’m not sure why women think they can act any way they please and the guy is just supposed to “trust” that nothing happened. Part of trust is demonstrating that you are trustworthy.

  • She lied to you about never wanting to see her “jackass” boyfriend ever again.
  • She spent the night in someone elses house without telling you where she was.
  • And what is the deal with hanging out in the bars all weekend? Is she hanging out with friends or just showing up by herself and getting drunk?

These are not the behaviors of a person trying to earn your trust.

I mean you can stay with her if you like. I don’t really see the point though. You’ve only been “exclusive” for like a week. Go find someone else for who giving you trust doesn’t require such a suspension of disbelief.

7

I agree with msmith537.
I’d have left, too. Life’s too short to bother with that “I got drunk and went to my ex’s place overnight, but it was platonic” drama. Even if nothing happened, do you really want to be with someone who’s so clueless about appropriate social boundaries and fostering trust in your relationship that she’d go home from a bar with her ex at all?

8

Seconded.

What happens the next time she gets drunk and does the same thing with her ex or someone else? If it’s with a stranger would you have felt any better? I would just move on and find someone else. It’s a lot easier for us to tell you what to do because we don’t have any kind of emotional attachment to her. I hope you do what works best. Good luck.

9

The doubt will always be there. Walk away and start fresh.

Certainly it could have been platonic, but I wouldn’t bet the farm on it. msmith537 has summed it up far better than I could so I’ll stop here.

10

Well…as far as the OP knows.:wink:

11

You make some excellent points

In all fairness I do feel lke I need to define “drunk” as it pertains to this thread.

By drunk, I mean not being able to drive legaly. (0.08 bac)

I’m not sure to what degree she got drunk the night in question as I wasn’t there. The drunkest I’ve ever seen this girl; she’s still been able to keep up with any conversation with out sluring her words and she’s also been able to walk with out looking drunk.

As far as hanging out at bars goes; she’ll usually either go up there friday or saturday but never both. At least not since she’s been with me.

Also, I’d be more open to at least trying to talk things out if I had any significant amount of time invested in this girl. But this happens ONE WEEK after a commitment is made? Come on.

12

At the very least, she’s guilty of spectacularly, mind-bogglingly poor judgement. And that’s probably not a quality you want in a partner.

13

If I’m reading you correctly, OP, you agreed to an exclusive relationship and the understanding was that she wanted nothing to do with the ex. Had she said, “But I still want to date my ex” or “My ex and I are still friends,” maybe you would have decided differently.

Her talking to him in a bar beyond hello violates that idea. Her going to his place violates it as well. Even if no sex transpired, she didn’t live up to her word.

I’d be gone for that reason alone. And as others say, maybe next time she will sleep with him (or a stranger etc.). If she can’t understand that people would jump to the conclusion, she’s incredibly naive. But we’re just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic here.

One part of your story confuses me though: why was her car there? I assumed that since you said you’d give her a ride home, she probably walked to the bar. I guess you’re saying she would drive there, but if she were too drunk, then you’d pick her up?

It sounds to me like she wouldn’t exactly be considered a criminal mastermind. If her car is still there the next day, isn’t there a possibility you would notice it as you went about your business, running errands and such around the neighborhood? And if she’s talking to the ex in the bar (then leaving with him), wouldn’t she risk some telling you, like they told you she started crying right after you left?

It just boggles the mind. So after a very questionable decision to talk to him, go home with him, now they’re back, together, at the same bar the next day?! WTF?! Want to get caught much?!

Nah, be glad she’s a bad liar, lick your wounds, and move on.

ETA: And one more thing…it’s pretty cool of you to trust her to go to bars and socialize etc. But you should find someone who doesn’t do that. I’m not condemning the lifestyle choice—I’m just saying that she has a social butterfly streak and you don’t. Sooner or later that difference is going to cause problems, e.g. “How come you never come out with me?”/“How come you never stay home with me?” Plus of course the alcohol-induced bad decision making thing.

14

I’m with you SHAKES, ditch her. One week in and she’s too drunk to drive, too stupid to call a cab, and would rather go home with her “ex” then call her boyfriend.

It’s irrelevant if she’s falling down drunk or .09 impaired. It’s irrelevant if she slept with the “ex” or not. What is relevant is she went home with him instead of calling you.

Don’t bother with her, she is nothing but trouble, IMHO.

15

Even if she didn’t sleep with him, the fact that her thought process led her to figure she should try to hide something from you rather than talk to you about it is a big red flag. This is probably how she will approach the other parts of your relationship too. Just walk away and be glad you found out what kind of person she is sooner rather than later.

16

Ugh - she sounds like trouble. 1 week after she decides to make a commitment with guy X she’s sleeping on the couch of guy Y? With no call? WTF?

Also, bursting into tears when confronted by your BF about being busted with another man is not the reaction of an innocent person - it’s the reaction of a guilty one. If I were sitting somewhere talking with my ex and my man came up and basically blew me off like you did, I would follow and demand to know what the hell was up his ass. I sure wouldn’t sit there and cry - if I’m perfectly innocent I have nothing to cry about.

17

Whether she was telling the truth or not, you obviously don’t trust her. So the question is really whether or not you want to stay in a relationship with a woman you don’t trust. I would say it’s not worth it.

EDIT: alice_in_wonderland is right, people who are wrongly suspected of something they didn’t do are usually angry about it. Now, angry women do sometimes cry (I know I do), but it still seems odd that she’d burst into tears the moment you left if she wasn’t already feeling guilty. This doesn’t necessarily mean she actually slept with the ex, but whatever she did (even if it was just go to his place and sleep on his couch after she told you she wanted nothing to do with him) she knew it wasn’t something she should have been doing.

18

A very good point - something that struck me reading SHAKE’s account was the part about “she turned pale white” because that’s a reaction you would only get if the person in question felt they had done something wrong or was worried anyway. So either she DOES feel like she’s done something wrong, or knows that she shouldn’t haven’t been there with the ex and felt caught out. I would point out though that we only have SHAKE’s account of all this and a run down of one incident, so I think the damning of her entire character and person is a bit unwarranted.

19

If I was sitting in the bar that Saturday and watched this thing play out, I’d be all “Yeah, you go SHAKES! Bitch got what she deserved…”

If you’d been with this girl for several months or a year, then maybe I’d have suggested that you give it all more time and reasoning and try to work stuff out. But, I think you did the right thing and stuck up for yourself beautifully.

20

Cut your losses. At least you found this out early on.