What is going on here?

[billybookcase]

Hi everyone,

I am new to this forum and I would really appreciate your advice on a situation that is going on between myself and my boyfriend of 5 months.

My head is quite fried and I don't know if I am being totally unreasonable/paranoid or if he is actually showing signs of being bad news...

Anyway here goes..

Like I said, I have been with my boyfriend for only 5 months. It was very much a whirlwind romance, with him declaring that he loved me very early on in the relationship (something that I was not comfortable with and told him so). We get on fantastically well most of the time but we have already had some rocky times and have split up twice so far.

The most recent time we split up was actually only a couple of weeks ago. Whilst he went out of town to visit family in his home town, I was invited out to a picnic with some friends. I didn't think of telling him about it before going but when we chatted later on the phone he got very annoyed that I had not told him before that I was going, interrogated me about all the men that were going (they were platonic male friends who to be honest, I didn't really know that well nor pay too much attention to - I was there to chat with my female friends). Anyway, my boyfriend got very upset about all this which set alarm bells ringing for me as it came across as being quite jealous and possessive. He had previously shown quite jealous behaviour before such as telling me that "I smelt of man" when I arrived at his house (I had been home alone all day and had showered before I got there) and also interrogated me about former boyfriends etc. So I dumped him.

Anyway about a week later, we got back together again. He assured me he only reacted that way because he had had a bit to drink that evening and had had a difficult day. Things went really well for a few days until he let slip that we could not meet up on a particular weekday night this week when we usually meet up (due to us both being free from work) because he had been invited to dinner by a female former colleague. It had been arranged whilst we had split up. I asked how well he knows this woman but he said that he doesn't know her that well, that she lives round the corner from him and bumps into her all the time. She keeps inviting him round for coffee but one time a couple of weeks ago, she invited him round for dinner which he accepted. Apparently today a female colleague who he still works with who knows the lady in question told him what she was cooking him, she is cooking him something quite fancy.

I instantly felt a kick in the stomach about this. It sounded to me like it was a date, it was arranged during the short window of him being single. He said he doesn't really know her that well so its not like she is a platonic female friend at this stage. He has platonic female friends whom I have met and have no problem with him seeing by the way. I personally, as a woman wouldn't invite a man I didn't know too well round to mine unless he was a good friend or that I fancied him. I told him that this made me feel really uncomfortable but he is still going.

I am really churning my guts up about this. I have never been the jealous type in other relationships. To me, it sounds like a date and it also feels like he is playing games with me i.e. he wants to make me jealous too.

I would be really interested to see what the male opinion is on this. If you get invited for a meal to a woman's house, would you consider "a bit more" to be on at least on the cards? It also makes me wonder because I remember him telling me once how he finds it amazing how women can be so naive when men do things for women thinking "oh what a nice man" as he said that a man always has sex on the mind when they do anything for a woman.

Thanks in advance!

[Incognito030707]

Ok, first, if you've broken up twice during a 5 [month] relationship then it simply isn't worth it. Second, he sounds very possessive and sounds like a douche. I'll pass on a bit of advice from a friend of mine, "a relationship is as good as its gonna get while you're dating". It is true because whilst dating both people put their best foot forward to impress the other. If right now he is totally disregarding your feelings to have dinner with another woman then you can only expect worse in the future. He very easily could have told her that he wasn't coming. If she didn't mean anything to him then he should have done just that.