Girlfriend Met Up With Her Ex

Zipp101

My girlfriend and I have been seeing each other for about 5 months.

Yesterday I had a friend visiting from abroad and arranged to pick her up when she arrived at the bus station around 9.30 at night. My girlfriend, whom I had spent the morning told me the whole day that she was in the Library studying. I asked would she like to meet up in the afternoon but she said she had too much work to do. That was no problem.. we would meet that night and all head to a party of a mutual friend.

So my girlfriend told me she would give me a call around 9.30 to meet up and head to the party.

So I arrive at the bus station to pick up my friend (it's a big bus station).

As I walk through the buses I see my girlfriend waiting beside a bus as it is just about to move off and she has some sort of souvenier in her hands. My initial happy surprise at seeing her turned to confusion.

I had not expected to see her here and asked what she was doing... She gets a little flustered and explains to me that her ex-boyfriend had been in town to visit his parents and that he had called to meet her last minute.She said that they still have a friendly relationship and he's an important person in her life. She was apologetic and told me that she should have told me. The gift she had was from him so I doubt that meeting up could have been too last minute.

Had I arrived a minute earlier I would have seen them saying goodbye outside the bus. The image of seeing her there waving him off makes my heart sink completely.

She told me that she has a good relationship with all her ex-boyfriends and she thought it would have been easier to just not tell me. It happened yesterday and we have yet to chat about it properly because of my friend visiting. For her it is not a big deal she says, but she insists they are just friends and wants to be with me.

Everything had been going fantastic before this but now I can't get the image of her outside the bus out of my head.

leggo

If it was cool and not a big deal, why lie then? The lie is all you need to know. It doesn't matter about the merits of the excuse.

armaghlad

That's strike 1. The old me would say give her another chance; but having experienced girls like this before; I'd send her on. Lying about seeing an ex. That's like top of the list of things not to lie about!

05eaftqbrs9jlh

Sounds like she's collecting men in case of necessity. You likely can't trust someone who is dishonest about that. She clearly thrives on more male attention than you can provide for her. I'd say run a mile, unless you have the kind of open communication that allows for discussion and reconciliation, but at five months couples seldom do.

You need to ask yourself, is this worth the heartache and inferiority complex which will inevitably come from her treating you like a disposable boyfriend? You could take a chance and try again until the next knock, but I think, from experience, once a sneak, always a sneak.

Keane2baMused

No no no.

OP an ex doesn't just land at your front door and then you happen to wave them off on the bus (souvenir in hand!?!)

This was arranged and she lied to you.

Run a mile and find a woman who is fully committed, honest and respectful.

Big Bag of Chips

It may be all innocent, but the fact that she's lying has you on edge. Maybe she's lying out of immaturity. If an ex showed up unexpectedly to see me, I certainly wouldn't be waving them off at a bus station! I might drop them there, walk with them but I'd be leaving them there and as soon as they stepped on the bus I'd be gone. Not standing beside it waiting for it to move off.

You could give her a chance. Only you know. But you need to tell her that what she has done has really rocked you and made you feel weird. She's friends with all her exes? Did you know this? Have you seen her being in contact with any other exes in your time together? It's either than she is really immature and incapable of conducting an adult relationship where she feels she needs to hide things from you. Or she's cheating/cheated on you.

leggo

For me, you don't even need to know if she's cheating. The most hurtful thing about cheating, the thing that lingers and rots a relationship, is the breaking of trust. She's done that already. And many, myself included, would call sneaking around behind a partner's back to see an ex a form of cheating. There doesn't need to be a kiss or sex to solidify it. The ship has sailed on whether or not she's done a bad thing. He caught her. She got flustered and fed him a lot of excuses (always beware giving multiple different excuses when trying to identify a liar - "he called me by surprise", "I stay friends with all my exes", "I thought it'd be best if I didn't tell you", she's literally throwing dirt at the wall here hoping something will stick). The deed is done.

Turtle_

I actually don't know of anyone who actually stays friends with their ex... like, anyone. Courteous and civil, yes; friends, no.

Johnnyhpipe

Having being burned before in similar fashion I suggest you issue her the p45 quick.

Kidchameleon

Thats a tough one OP. Did she know you would be at the bus station picking your friend up? If she was up to no good she hardly would have gone there

Ursus Horribilis

I don't buy the last minute story either. But on the other hand, there might not have been anything particularly sinister going on here. Maybe she genuinely only met her ex as a friend but thought it'd be easier to secretly meet him rather than have to explain who he was etc. to you. I don't know you, I don't know her, I don't know what your dynamic is.

I think you'll find yourself coming up with an answer to this over time. If you find yourself continuing to doubt what she said and you start wondering what she's really doing, then cut your losses.

tara73

it's a really weird one from the situation she knew you'll be at the bus station too, so the possibilities you both will meet there were kind of high...

like somebody else said, we don't know her, could be she's the naive type and she didn't realise it's a big deal for you (and for almost anybody). Only you can find this out and make your decision based on her personality.

Personally, I think my trust would be gone if my partner is meeting exes behind my back. How can you know what she's doing with them if she's meeting up behind your back?

Completely normal and healthy reaction trust is gone or at least severely damaged and if she really cares for you she should be really worried how to get your trust back.

suicide_circus

She knew you were picking a friend up from the bus station yet decides to have a secret meeting with he ex at the same bus station? She's either not very bright or has utter contempt for you and your relationship.

StripedBoxers

I would end the relationship myself. I would feel extremely uncomfortable if a partner of mine was sneaking around behind my back to meet an ex. I would wonder what else my partner was up to without me knowing or suspecting.

Personally, if they do it once, they will do it again, but will be a lot more careful and discreet about it. As for the souvenir, I don't buy for one second that it was last minute. I would say it was very much planned in advance.

For me personally, the trust would severely damaged and would take a lot of work to rebuild and I think after five months it is a lot of work to try and rebuild something so massive and it will put a lot of strain on a new relationship.

SeaBreezes

Run.
No phone? No text? 'Oh Darling, guess who just popped into town, Ive decided to skip study, if your free fancy hanging with us'?
No? Run.

Zipp101

Her ex was getting that bus to the airport to go back to Germany where he lives. He was home visiting his parents and they met up for a few hours. They dated for 3 years and he helped her through a time when her mother was very sick.So they have a friendly relationship.

She didn't sleep last night. She wrote me a long letter and gave it to me this morning explaining that in this case it was better not to tell me and that she didn't want it to affect our relationship.

She is telling the truth but the idea that she still counts on this guy makes me a little uneasy. Is this normal ?

B.A._Baracus

Ah come on zip
She wrote a letter saying how it was best not to tell you?
... Doesn't that make her the caring and innocent person. Sorry to say but the cheek of her!

You catch her lying saying she was busy doing other things but in fact with her ex.
Then she says it was a last minute thing but yet he had a gift for her.
Then when everything is out of the bag she spins it so it was 'for the best' to not tell you.

Am sorry man. But you sure you really want to continue?

jcd5971

It's the lie really, you might think it's the ex that made you uncomfortable but it's not it's the lie about the ex.

In my experience both myself and friends over the years, this is a Pandora's box type problem, the trust is cracked and it never really goes back together properly.

Big Bag of Chips

Does her ex know she's now with you? She lied. She got caught, so now she's lying a bit more to try get out of it. Are you usually jealous and possessive? Would she have reason to believe that "it was for the best" to lie to you? Could she not have told you, and invited you along? Someone doesn't come home from Germany and last minute turn up on a friend's doorstep, a few hours before going home. They arrange it to make sure the person is available. Because their time is very limited so they want to make the most of it. If someone isn't available they won't waste time travelling to them only to find that out on the doorstep.

I think your gf might be completely innocent in terms of guilt/innocence, or she may be innocent in terms of not realising what being in a proper relationship entails. You know her. You know if she's a bit naieve to the ways of the world. But I think you need to leave her in NO DOUBT that her behaviour has been very damaging to your relationship. I'd probably give her another chance. But I'm a bit of a soft touch!

Edit: At the end of the day if she "thought it best" not to tell you, then she had a feeling it might upset you. But she did it anyway. Will that become a pattern in your relationship?

LegacyUser

Was in a slightly similar position. My (now ex) boyfriends ex girlfriend was fairly regularly messaging him things like 'happy birthday', 'thinking of your mom' and telling him her life story etc, and he was responding. He even responded to her when he was on a weeks holiday with me that I had paid for.
We tired to rebuild things but a couple of months ago she rang him concocting some BS about credit card details being stolen. I thought I could handle it but I brought it up a few days after he told me and he just stonewalled me, I got upset. We broke up the next day.

I think of course you should be civil to your exes, but when people are still that much involved with them there's something there, even if it's only a small thing, it's there. I also got told the excuse of not telling you in case it was better for you and not to affect your relationship. It's a copout. She could have mentioned it to you in passing from the start. She hasn't and now there's a dent in the trust. I don't know if it can be repaired. It's up to you if you think she's worth it and you can rebuild trust again. I guess you could try again and see.

leggo

Yeah it's not the meeting, it's the lying about the meeting that matters here. I'm not 100% of the view that it's impossible to be friends with an ex. It can work, with certain situations and boundaries in place and a LOT of up front honesty with your current partner. That's not the problem here.

What you need to look at is that she knew she was doing something wrong, so it's almost okay to let your mind wander here to the worst case scenario, as if she wasn't then it'd be in her best interest to not risk getting caught by lying. The truth was too ugly to tell so she decided to keep it from you, rather than involve you in the decision and risk getting told what she didn't want to hear.

Do you honestly think she'd have lost sleep if you didn't see her? She's sorry because she got caught, not sorry because she lied. She's looking for forgiveness to sooth her own conscience, she already decided beforehand that your feelings didn't matter here, else she'd have kept you informed.

Sorry dude.

ShaShaBear

Well here's the deal. Her workload was so heavy that she couldn't make time to see you this afternoon. But she was able to make time for her ex-boyfriend. It was NOT last minute if he had the foresight to take a gift for her. He knew he was going to meet her while he was home and it was either arranged while he was in Germany or when he got back home. Which would quite fairly suggest that the ruse of going to study was in it's entirety a planned lie to cover for her whereabouts for the whole day. She'd been studying since morning after you saw her and was also with him for a few hours while studying? Sounds to me like she wasn't studying at all

To be honest, she's royally having you on - make no mistake. Almost no-one is that good of friends with an ex because there is a resounding reason they are not still together which changes how you view the person post-relationship. On the rare occasion that one WOULD be that friendly with someone they used to date, it would be more than sensible to make that clear at the start of a new relationship.

Alf Veedersane

Just going to thrown this out in a Devil's Advocate type of way....

She hid the fact that she was meeting the ex, who she no longer has any romantic designs on, thinking it was a better option than opening up a can of worms that might create more problems than it was worth.

Not saying it was right but I can sort of understand the kind of thinking behind hiding it.

I was in a similar situation except she told me the ex had asked to meet up. We were about 4-5 months together at the time, or thereabouts. She didn't meet him as it happens but if she had I know there would have been nothing in it.

But I also don't think I'd have been ok with it if she had said she wouldn't and did meet him.

I completely understand why people say to get out before you get hurt but I'm just saying I understand why she thought that she took the better option by hiding it even if it was the wrong thing to do.

But I say that not knowing what I'd have done in that situation

ShaShaBear

Alf Veedersane wrote: »

She said she hid the fact that she was meeting the ex, who she no longer has any romantic designs on, thinking it was a better option than opening up a can of worms that might create more problems than it was worth.

Operative words added in there.

Alf Veedersane

ShaShaBear wrote: »

Operative words added in there.

You misunderstood what I was saying. I painted the picture that that's what she did.

I'm not saying its what the case was but it's not not implausible.

And I'm not defending it.

Clampdown

Not too hard to figure out what going on. I think most of us have used the old 'studying' line, but usually on our parents not our partner.

retro:electro

I wouldn't be so sure that this was the only time she met him while he was home either

Augme

I'm friends with a good few of my ex's and see them quite often. Some people have found it too much of a problem, which is fine with me. But I'd never lie about it or not tell them that I'm not meeting them because if you do that it's game over. As people have said once that trust is broken it makes for a very unpleasant relationship. Next time she says she's going to doing X, are you going to believe her? Or are you going to be sitting there thinking she's lying? Having knot in your stomach questioning her and what she's doing will drive you insane. Get out now and avoid all of that.

ShaShaBear

Alf Veedersane wrote: »

You misunderstood what I was saying. I painted the picture that that's what she did.

I'm not saying its what the case was but it's not not implausible.

And I'm not defending it.

Apologies, I thought you were running with the notion that she was telling the truth and you could understand her reasoning.

Alf Veedersane

ShaShaBear wrote: »

Apologies, I thought you were running with the notion that she was telling the truth and you could understand her reasoning.

I was offering the alternative view that it is possible that she did something stupid where it's possible that she thought she was doing the right thing.

I think it's possible and I don't think it has to mean there's no hope but I did add that I don't know how well I'd react to it

leggo

Augme wrote: »

I'm friends with a good few of my ex's and see them quite often. Some people have found it too much of a problem, which is fine with me. But I'd never lie about it or not tell them that I'm not meeting them because if you do that it's game over. As people have said once that trust is broken it makes for a very unpleasant relationship. Next time she says she's going to doing X, are you going to believe her? Or are you going to be sitting there thinking she's lying? Having knot in your stomach questioning her and what she's doing will drive you insane. Get out now and avoid all of that.

Out of interest, and feel free to shut me down mods if you feel it's dragging too far off-topic for PI, but do you feel that when people have said it's too much for them that it's wasteful to burn bridges on a potential future because of some people from your past?