I always think relationships are a trusted space. For being open to each other, not for control, not for suspicion. Oliver and I had been together for three years and everything seemed perfect: we planned things together, even nights out with friends, and traveled together. On the surface, a fairy tale. One day something changed…..
First Oddities
Oliver started acting weird. I saw he had his phone always on him, not just putting it in the pocket he was hiding. Work was taking up more time, there were more evenings alone and when I did try to get him to tell me what was going on, he swore it was alright. He’d just say, “You’re just worrying too much.” “I was not feeling well today, so I just wanted to be alone.” I felt I was not being told everything and his words became less and less every single day.
Once, I watched him walk out of the house with someone I didn’t recognize. They were talking about something important, and the man was obviously older than he was. Oliver said shortly when I asked him who it was — ‘Just an acquaintance’. I didn’t argue, although my suspicions were still hanging on. He stopped speaking to me, and when I asked him questions he would shut me down. I could tell it was more than simple fatigue.
Maybe I’m Just Exaggerating?
A few days later, I met Carla, Oliver’s friend, at a coffee shop. She and I didn’t talk much, but we always had a good relationship. Carla began to tell me how Oliver had started acting strange. “It’s not that he’s different, but he’s kind of… aloof”, she said. “He has his phone in his hand all the time, hiding all the time, avoiding conversation”. I was even more wary. Carla wasn’t really someone to discuss personal matters with, but what she’d said made me wonder.
We started talking more often, and Carla admitted that she’d noticed some strange things about Oliver before. There was something in her words that stuck with me. Especially the way she remembered that Oliver often avoided meeting certain people. And then the thought crossed my mind, “What if he’s not so clean with me?”
Turns Out It Wasn’t…
One foggy evening, when I noticed Oliver hiding his phone again and saying he needed to be alone, I decided to take a step that might shed some light on the situation. I remembered a service called ClarityCheck phone lookup that I heard about from a coworker a long time ago. It allows you to check who a phone number really belongs to. I wasn’t going to investigate, of course, but I just needed to find out something.
I downloaded the app, entered Oliver’s number, and a couple minutes later I was surprised to see that the number he’d given me wasn’t his. It was a number assigned to a completely unknown person, and as it turned out, it had been used before Oliver had even become my partner. I began to realize that my boyfriend might be hiding a lot more than I thought.
I decided not to keep it to myself and talked to Carla. I told her what I’d learned. Carla confessed later that she’d had her doubts about Oliver, too. She said that the last time she’d seen him, he’d been acting strange, too. When she asked him a question about old acquaintances, he became nervous and immediately turned the conversation to another topic. We both realized that the situation wasn’t as simple as we thought.
On top of that, I found out that Oliver had past relationships with people I didn’t want him to be in a relationship with. He tried to hide it, but something about his behavior didn’t add up. He mentioned one man’s name more than once, but every time I tried to question him, he changed the subject.
The Denouement
That night, I decided to talk to Oliver. I told him to his face that I knew about his secrets. I told him that the phone number he was using didn’t belong to him, and I found out that he was involved with someone I didn’t know. He tried to justify himself but couldn’t. He told me that he used to be involved with some group of people who were involved in fraud and that this was before he started a relationship with me.
He said that he had changed, that it was a long time ago, and that he had completely broken with that world. But somehow I still felt that he wasn’t telling me the truth. Even though I couldn’t believe what he was saying, I decided to give him a chance. After all, we all make mistakes. But I knew I could no longer trust him the way I used to…..
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