The original poster wrote on a relationship advice forum that her boyfriend told her that while walking home one night, a woman approached him and asked if he would walk her home. She told him she was scared to walk alone. The boyfriend’s version of events is that he agreed, and as they were walking, she proceeded to put her arm around his. She then asked for his phone number, but he told her he already had a girlfriend.
The woman replied, “oh, so you can’t have friends?” The boyfriend then allowed her to put her number in his phone to avoid giving his phone number to her, with the intention of deleting it afterward.
Although the girlfriend says that she believes him since he came forward on his own, it does bother her that he saved the women’s phone number instead of having a backbone and refusing to do so. She reached out to the forum to ask if she was being silly for overthinking the situation. He insisted that the interaction was really nothing.
Initially Some Readers Were Supportive
Initially, the first commenter came out and said the following:
“It sounds like he was just trying to avoid conflict. He told her he had a girlfriend, she got pushy with her number, he immediately told you all about it and deleted it. She will get it through her thick head when she notices him not calling her, no worries about that and that will be even more humiliating for her than if he had caused a scene.”
“No problem here that I see. How many women give fake numbers to avoid making an interaction turn unpleasant? He was just taking the path of least resistance to have the interaction be over with no fuss.”
“No problem here that I see. How many women give fake numbers to avoid making an interaction turn unpleasant? He was just taking the path of least resistance to have the interaction be over with no fuss.”
“He helped a scared person (who legit might have been in danger walking alone). He told her he wasn’t interested. He chose an easy option instead of getting into a protracted discussion. Then he came home and told you. He sounds like a great guy which means in the future other women may be interested in him. And telling you is a way to hold himself accountable. And to remind you that he is coming back to you regardless.”
Some Did Question His Story
“Him telling u on “his own”. means nothing. believe me. i used this exact logic to say “well he didn’t have to tell me so he must be telling the truth. cause why else would he bring it up. There needs to be boundaries and her number needs to be blocked. u should express to him how u would like him to keep to boundaries if ever in a situation like this. As in, the inappropriate physical touch and putting number in. why is he acting like he cant say no?”
“The arm linking part has me scratching my head a little….. more than a little.”
“I think someone OP (original poster) knows saw him walk arm in arm with this girl and now he’s “volunteering” information that makes him look good. I bet he was cheating or planning to cheat, and now he’s scrambling to come up with a story that OP will swallow, which it looks like she did.”
One Reader Did Their Homework
One of the earlier readers came back and edited their comment to add more:
“Just saw your post history. It seems about a year ago he was betraying you. And you caught him making inappropriate comments about wanting to get with other girls he knew. Then sometime after, you were awfully suspicious that he cheated on you during a drunk night. This makes me now wonder how he came to be in the company of the young lady in question, and allowing arm in arm walking with her. Although I do think he did the right thing in this case, just keep your eyes open, maybe he just wasn’t all that into this one.”
Another poster promptly replied:
“Ooo…this changes things.”
Many readers agreed that it didn’t seem like the boyfriend did anything wrong, and perhaps he took the number to avoid further discussion. However, after learning about the history of the boyfriend’s behavior through previous comments the girlfriend made, the story no longer seemed believable.
When going back to her previous posts, which honestly sound like cries for help, the original poster wrote about her boyfriend twice before in one year about his inappropriate behavior. When she did write about a different situation a year ago, she still insisted that he would never cheat. One poster wrote:
“Girl he doesn’t respect you one bit and you accept it, it’s not normal guy talk. Of course you can’t trust him he’s given you a bunch of signs not to. The longer you’re staying with him you’re allowing yourself to get hurt.”
Yet here she is, a year later asking for advice on another issue with the same boyfriend.
After the first poster revealed her boyfriend’s past issues, it changed the tune of the comments:
“From your past posts, he’s back at it again. And a liar. But hopefully y’all worked through it and this was a weird outing that he cleared up before you could hear from others around town.”
One reader summed the situation up nicely:
“Looking at another person point out past infidelity by the boyfriend, this is unfortunately one of the destructive facts about a couple staying together after such events. Even if the betrayer completely turned around and learned from their mistakes, the betrayed can never fully be at peace again in such interactions because the body doesn’t forget the pain it once got. And it is indeed unfortunate, for both people even. On one hand the wayward partner doesn’t deserve to live their life being constantly reminded of a grave mistake they did in their past, especially if they learned from it, and on the other hand the betrayed deserves to be in a relationship with complete peace of mind about their partner.”
Should he have taken the women’s phone number? Should she continue to trust him?
This article was produced by This Mom is On Fire
This post was originally from Reddit.
Image credit: © simonapillollatnf via canva.com