SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Dear valuable members of this community,

I'm posting here because I don't know where to post this. I don't know if that counts as cheating but my guts say so.

So I'm in a relationship with my BF for 2 years now. Most of the time BF tries to be there for me and supports me. We never had a fight since we started this relationship. It is always steady and BF is my safe place to be when life is hard.

At the start of our relationship BF was seeing his ex still, but because of a reason: A DOG. They bought a dog together before things going bad for them and now BF still takes care of the dog once every week and sometimes more. His ex is living alone and doesn't have a BF. For these 2 years, I always saw this as 'okay-ish' since BF confirmed that he doesn't have any feelings left for her and he is only doing this because he feels guilty that they got a dog back in time. BF told me that he wants to keep taking care of the dog until his ex find someone that can take care of the dog & his ex.

We live seperately but we stay in each others places couple of days in a week. Recently, because of my issues at work, I started to seeing a therapist. I was talking about this issue with IC and IC suddenly told me that this actually bothers me alot. Because when I come to think about it, BF never let me be in his place when he needs to take care of the dog -every saturday. And if we are gonna see each other on saturday, its either going out for a dinner or BF coming to my place after his ex takes the dog from his place.

After talking with therapist, my therapist told me that BF might be still have feelings for his ex and he just don't want to even admit it to himself and thats why he acts the way that he takes care of the dog.

After talking about this, I realized some of BF behaviors are also weird since the beginning of our relationship. For instance, BF asked me if I would want to spice up the relationship with threesome when we are just at the beginning of the relationship - like 3-4 months -I think? And I said no, I would like to commit to one person. BF also talks about his ex-partners alot, almost every day BF tells me something about his exes. And these bother me alot, since we don't live together and we work in different places, I don't fully know what BF is busy with in a day and I started to feel like BF might be cheating on me with his ex because they text every day which I find very annoying. When I say this to BF, he says we are talking about our dog. Really? Every day you talk about a dog... That is odd.

What shall I do? A guidance is very appreciated.
Thanks.

Setting aside your BF's behaviours for a minute, I would take a hard look at yourself and ask if your needs are being met in this relationship. Are you in a good place with him in your life? It sounds like you might not becaligned in terms of how you each see the world.

Welcome to SI. The Healing Library has a ton of great information, including the list of acronyms we use. Also, there are some pinned posts at the top of the forum that you may find helpful.

Not Just Friends by Dr. Shirley Glass may be helpful for you. There is a checklist to help identify if the relationship is an A (affair). There's also a really good chapter on boundaries. If nothing else, it sounds like he may have boundary issues.

The behavior does raise a red flag. I'm glad you're in IC (individual counseling) to help you through this time.

Here’s what matters more than anything else. He may be cheating, he may not. What matters is that his behavior doesn’t match your values. He is definitely at the least walking a very thin line of cheating.

I would suggest you do a deep look into yourself, and ask is this acceptable for me? You have that right, and for sure if you are considering moving the relationship further you should consider it significantly.

From what you wrote, no it’s not. Sure BF is great at all of these things but if what he is doing is a boundary for you, then enforce it. Don’t let the idea of being "that Crazy GF" or anything else interfere with your decision. There are no shortage of BWs here who all say something similar, check out the post in general called "How Could I be So Stupid"

It doesn’t have to be the smoking gun of full on cheating for you to decide this isn’t acceptable for me.

Talk with him, tell him this is a boundary for you and you won’t accept it anymore. His ex can bring the dog over to his house, or you and BF can meet up at a public location/park so he can have dog time. There is no reason that it has to be only at her house. If he bucks at this or gives some excuse as to why it can only be at exgf house, well there you go. And again, even if he’s not cheating, if he doesn’t agree to a compromise to make you feel better then I would say that is not a good quality for a long term partner.

ETA: just saw the part where they are texting non stop. Again, you have every right to enforce your boundaries. He will likely fight this and make some speech about he can be just friends with whoever. EX are never just friends, that line was already crossed. Personally, unless kids are involved I would never tolerate my spouse having any relationship with an ex. That’s my boundary.

[This message edited by HellIsNotHalfFull at 4:53 PM, Tuesday, February 27th]

You know what the first red flag in your post was to me?

Not the dog.

Not the request for the threesome.

Not the talking about his ex partners all the time.

Not the frequent phone calls to his latest ex.

It was this:

Most of the time BF tries to be there for me and supports me. We never had a fight since we started this relationship.

What does "try to be there for you" mean? Either he's there for you or he's not.

Also, how are you defining "fight"? If you mean that you've never had a screaming match or came to blows, that's fine (albeit not something to brag about, either). But if you mean that you've never had a major disagreement, that's not healthy or normal. It means that either one or both of you is suppressing your feelings to avoid conflict, maintaining an inauthentic facade, or a combination of both. This type of dynamic is a common precursor to infidelity.

As for your question about whether your boyfriend is cheating...

I don't know if your BF is sleeping with his ex or other people. But even if he isn't, you don't have to be in a relationship with someone who remains in close contact with his exes, is preoccupied with them, and has already expressed an interest in sexual relations with other people.

First I will address the dog issue. To many people, it is not JUST a dog! Honestly I love my dogs more than I love all but a handful of people in my life and they are better companions than even most of them! lol. So, I can get not wanting to leave your dog behind. With that being said, what follows is an example and my concern for you.

The example:

My WH had a 2-3 year hot and heavy affair with a co-worker. Prior to this happening we got two dogs (both of which are still around). When the shit hit the fan we had several years of nastiness, divorce, and discontent BUT there was no way I was going to leave my dogs behind. As big of a ______ (insert profane comment at will) he was, he also loved the dogs, and even when I left we made arrangements for joint custody of sorts regarding the dogs, including my staying at the house where there was precisely zero going on between us aside from a lot of anger and passive-aggressive nastiness. In the years that followed we repaired our friendship to an extent and we are sort of dating. I do stay there sometimes and most of the time nothing is going on with us but we both get to see the dogs, which is awesome. The caveat is that neither of us are dating anyone else so if something happens, whatever. That being said even if I were dating someone if they were not cool with my going there to see my dogs then we wouldn't be dating. It's an upfront deal-breaker for me. The dogs win over someone new in my life.

Every day you talk about a dog... That is odd.

Then call me odd - we talk all the time about our dogs. They are family. We share photos of them all the time and funny things they do. We really love them. So, I'm not saying this is your situation but I am saying it's totally possible. (I was NOT a dog person before we got these two dogs - I was 100% on the cat person side of things to the extent I was anything and hadn't actually had any pets in a long time so prior to us getting these dogs this behavior would have been totally out of character for me).

My concern:

BF told me that he wants to keep taking care of the dog until his ex find someone that can take care of the dog & his ex.

The fact that your BF wants someone to take care of the dog = admirable in my world. The fact that he wants someone to take care of his ex...red-flag-o-rama. While your therapist says he may still have feelings for the ex and uses the dog as an excuse, this may be true, or these two things may be independent of each other. But for your purposes it really doesn't matter. Excluding you from being around during those times is the issue here. He knows you are cool with their being friends still so that isn't the problem (kudos to you BTW - I think this is healthy behavior). If he felt you would freak out/be rude to the ex or whatever that is cause for concern on his part.

My solution:

You and your BF need to TALK about this ASAP. His reaction will tell you loads about where his head is at. If you tell him you don't care about their being friends but you feel at this juncture in your relationship you need to be a part of his life, including that aspect, you will know where you stand pretty quickly.

[This message edited by ThisIsSoLonely at 6:59 PM, Tuesday, February 27th]

It only matters what you think.

If you think he’s shady, he’s shady.

In a brand new relationship while you are high as a kite with love hormones he is asking for a threesome. If it were me he would only see the tire marks as I peeled out of there.

The dogs are not the issue. I love my dog so much.

The issue is his secrecy.

The issue is your spidey senses that something is not quite right.

That is what dating is for, you find a companion. He has not let you into his life to be one.

Supportive? How?