‘I just found my fiancé on an online dating app. What do I do?’
My fiancé and I have been together a year and a half, we moved in with one another a few months ago. Lately he has been a bit distant. I’ve been cheated on in the past and have been really insecure with his change in behavior. He has assured me he is just stressed about work and because his car broke down a couple weeks ago and he hasn’t gotten a replacement yet.
I couldn’t let the nagging feeling go, so I did a little investigating. I didn’t snoop in his phone or personal accounts, but I made a fake profile on a popular dating site and found him there. He was last online July 1st. I don’t know what to do. How do I confront him? What do I say? Can our relationship be saved? Do I even want to save it? I feel like I am a wreck right now…
Here’s what people had to say to OP:
hopingtothrive said:
Don’t marry someone who is still out there “dating” unless you are okay with an open relationship. If you confront him, he’ll say, “it belongs to a friend”, “it was just a joke”, “I forgot I even had it.” Test him out on the website and see if he is active or if it really does belong someone else.
tfresca said:
Maybe have a conversation before you jump to conclusions. Talk to him in person and ask him to pull up his profile and see what’s cracking. IF he refuses then bail. These online dating sites aren’t exactly honest regarding profiles, activity and all that. Maybe he logged on to try to deactivate it and couldn’t figure it out.
oceans09 said:
I strongly suggest you communicate with him before assuming anything. Idk your situation very well but do you think it maybe possible that the profile is from a long time ago which he didn’t delete cause maybe he isn’t aware of it anymore?
shortstack_infj said:
Leave him. He’s a cheater.
ProbablyMyJugs said:
I’m really sorry OP. Confront him. Trust your gut. Screenshot the evidence. Talk to your friends, your family, and enjoy some time with them. No one can tell you what you want or if it can be saved, but I will ask you this – Can you picture yourself letting this go? Do you want a marriage that has all this turmoil before it has even started? Do you want to always be wondering and questioning?
kdmkittn said:
I have said this a lot. Do not fall in love with this man’s potential. Review his behaviour and the person he is RIGHT NOW. If nothing changed would you stay? If no. Leave.
After reading some of the comments, OP edited the post to include:
Thank you everyone. Further investigating is leading me to believe that it is an older profile. The pics aren’t recent and I can positively date 8/9 of them to before our relationship the last I am not sure on the date.
I think that means a hacking/signing in to try and delete the thing scenarios a little more plausible. I don’t think that in itself is enough to break up over… So I guess it is time to either confront or catfish. I will post an update thread to let ya’ll know the outcome whatever that may be.
EDIT 2: Well…people here are kinda split on it, but I took the advice to catfish. I need to know for sure. Will update when/if anything comes of it.
EDIT 3: Kind of a major update – his profile is gone. I will be confronting him when he gets home from work.
UPDATE:
A few hours after I set the bait, I found that his profile had been deleted. When he came home from work I showed him the screen shot and asked him what was up. Long story short, he was hanging out with his coworker and the coworker was frustrated with figuring out how to navigate the same dating site.
My fiancé signed into his old account (opened in 2013) to try to help his friend figure it out. Apparently a lot had changed on this particular site and he realized that his knowledge on the site was too out of date so he logged out and that was it. A few days later he saw in his email that he had gotten a message from a woman on the site and he then deleted his account.
He obviously couldn’t show me his dating site account, but he did volunteer to show me his email account with all the alerts from the site, the only woman that had messaged him recently was clearly my fake account. He also realized when we were looking through his email that he had an unused old profile on another dating site, he signed in and deleted that one in front of me.
I fessed up about catfishing him. He wasn’t upset at all. Said he understood completely considering my history. He was more upset with himself for not realizing that his behavior would make me so insecure.
I apologized for not trusting him and catfishing. He apologized for being so distant lately and not deleting his dating profiles ages ago. He offered an open phone/social media/email policy between us, in case we ever stumble across another “trust but verify” type of situation.
Here’s what people had to say to OP about the update:
walk_through_this said:
This is the best ending. More endings like this please.
Legodog23 said:
Just tuned in for the update. Be cautiously optimistic, I think you two communicated well and this turned out as best as anyone could have hoped for. Just continue to be wary and make sure you guys are doing the best you can to meet each other’s needs, and remain communicative throughout the relationship. Best of luck!
WeirdGrowth said:
Glad this turned out to be so benign. I suggest you take it as a gentle kick in the butt however for the two of you to work on your connection & romance, it sounds like you’re both settling into ruts a little.
People often assume that relationships are not work and that long terms ones are just boring and routine. They only get like that if you allow it, a little mindful effort together and you two will be giving each other butterflies and feeling the honeymoon romance again as part of your every day.
HOLIDAY– said:
I’ve been cheated on recently, with my wife actually having a 3 month affair with a married man 3 houses down from where we live. After going through everything up to this point, what I suggest is open communication.
100% transparency at all times. If there are lies and secrets, the relationship is as good as over in my opinion. Both parties need to want to be completely transparent in order to have trust from one another. Again, this is just my two cents, I hope everything works out for you.
dallasdarling said:
Best possible outcome. He’s a keeper.
paymeinskittles said:
Super relieved to hear this. Sometimes communication is best. I agree that it is okay to do a little snooping because you want to be smart enough not to fall for bs or be blind to deception. But it is also good when your partner can talk to you so openly and you can work things out and get through a misunderstanding.
So happy for you! I had a similar situation with my boyfriend. We met on a dating site and a few months ago we were a little distant because of stress and him finishing school. I got insecure and went through his phone and found dating app messages.
I confronted him about it and it turned out that it was just spam and he proved it to me by logging in and showing me that the last activity was a month before he met me. I was really happy he handled my crazy girl side so gracefully. I wasn’t in the right but it felt good to know that we can be open about anything that bothers either of us.
