I (M32) and D (F28) have known eachother for about 3 years now and have been dating for the majority of that time in a casual sort of matter. She was someone’s fiance prior to us starting a relationship so they’ve had things between the two that they still share between the two like a pet dog.
I’ve been aware of this and have for the most part let her do her thing, I have no idea what that situation is like and didn’t want to be in the way of it assuming it’d become less of a thing over time. I told her that I did not want to be caught in the middle of anything.
Being passive about it for so long has proven to an issue for me, contact between them hasn’t really decreased, nor has our casual dating developed into anything more than that, despite me wanting something more.
Towards Christmas, D wasn’t driving her own car, driving the other persons car. I got a handful of non-answers about why, or why their own family didn’t help him if he needed a car to drive. His car was not broken, they just…switched cars for multiple days.
I had eventually had a conversation about these things D after explaining that he still visits her apartment to talk from time to time. I expressed that this sort of arrangement with him seems to be more than just splitting things still. She mostly conceded and agreed it might be too much.
Which brings me to most recently… I was assisting D with a computer problem over a remote session. Troubleshooting a problem and doing it from her PC so she could see what I’m looking at. We ended up clicking on a reddit link. She made a semi-paniced comment about how she was still signed in. My curiosity got the better of me, and I looked at her username afterwards.
On her username I saw a post from a month ago (about the time I talked to her about them splitting things after these years) which referred to him as her husband.
I know for a fact they aren’t married, so I’m concerned on why she would type out her post this way, and has damaged my trust.
I know I’m likely in the wrong for looking in the first place, I did that to myself, but I can’t help but feel a bit justified in doing so because of what I found.
I’ve not mentioned this to her at this moment. She has since deleted the original post.
Aita? Any advice?
I dont think you’re an asshole, but what happened does appear to be a privacy violation. She didn’t want you to read that post.
That’s a problem, but probably not the big problem, which is that you appear to want a more committed and exclusive relationship than she wants. In this lop-sided relationship you long for more than you are getting and there is some sort of chronic pain that you’ve hoped would go away over time but it isn’t happening.
If you want more from the relationship you need to make that clear to her. If she doesn’t want what you want, that’s a compatibility problem and you might need to face the possibility that you’d be better off looking elsewhere to get your intimacy needs addressed as she (in that case) would be holding you at a distance, possibly forever. Three years is more than enough time for intimacy to develop if it is going to develop.
The big problem as I see it is that you have accepted less than you need for some reason that isn’t clear from your post. Your need isn’t weird; its an entirely natural within normal limits sort of need so you’re not asking for too much. She just appears to not have the same need for exclusivity and intimacy, or is getting her needs met from the other relationship which clearly never stopped happening.
Why are you putting up with less than you want and need is the big question? Are you worried that you could not do better?