I (24M) have the suspicion that there could be something weird between my girlfriend (27F) and her father (58M) and it's driving me crazy - UPDATE
It's early morning here while I'm starting to write this, and she's asleep right now, and I dont really now how much time I have to write, so I'll try to be as brief as possible but I dont really know if it's possible.
**To summarize: it is what I suspected**. And I'm devastated and exausted mentally and emotionally. She's been crying all night long and I cried too. We've been awake all night talking since she ended up admitting it, but she did only gradually and she changed her version a few times. She has a tendency to try to make him look as good as possible and take responsability off him, which to me points towards deep manipulation over many years, but at this point she doesn't see it like that.
I really don't know where to start exactly. Yesterday we had already announced to everybody that we were leaving around noon and we did. Her mom (which is a lovely woman) kept insisting until the very last moment that we should stay at least a couple days more, but I lied and said my family needed me back home and we left. Curiously, her father didn't insist much, nor my gf either, which made me think that maybe she suspected I was uncomfortable since I saw them like that.
I had already booked a hotel (where we are now) to stop in the middle of the way and take a rest, and even if I had planned to not talk to her about it until we got home, as I was driving I became increasingly tense about it all, to the point she noticed I was too serious and asked me what was wrong. I just told her I didn't sleep well again and that I needed to rest.
While she was in the shower I did something **I know it's wrong** and I'm not justifying myself for doing it but I was nervous and questioning myself and felt like I ws maybe going crazy. With that said, I know I shouldn't have checked her phone specially after she trusted me with her PIN code.
No trace of the cancelled Teams meeting at all on her calendars of email. I then checked the messages with her father and it's definitely not like a chat between lovers at all. Most was the usual "miss you" "happy birthday", a few funny pictures... But I also noticed there where a lot of deleted messages from him, and at weird hours. Like maybe 3am or 2 am. There were also lots of deleted messages the day I saw them on the couch. The messages she deletes leave no trace but his do, like "Dad unsent this message". I kept scrolling until the last time she visited them, last April, and I saw many deleted messages in different days and then one that said "Garage" at 0:30am or something like that and her reply was "I'm sleepy you will have to be quick". That unsettled me out a lot. I scrolled until her visit on Christmas and it was the same patterns. Lots of unsent messages but also, on two different days, one from him that only said "come home" and one from her that said "red tide, sorry". Remember I'm translating from another language, but red tide is what she jokingly says to me when she is on her period.
My hands were shaking at this point. One, because I know I shouldn't be peeking on her phone and she could catch me and two, because of what I just read. Why would her father have to delete all those messages in a normal situation? And why text her that late? Why does she have to go to the communal garage that late? Or why she has to apollogize for having her period? I didn't, but I wanted to cry and to vomit, I felt like my stomach was turning out.
So went downstair for cofee and settle a bit, but I couldn't hold it anymore and when I gor back I talked to her about it. Someone more mature would have probably done it better, but I did as best as I could, and also, I'm not good at manipulating people so I just talked to her in a pretty forward manner without much strategy unlike many of you suggested. Possibly wrong on my part, perhaps I could have done it in a more progressive way so she didn't get so shocked but as I said, I did what I could, I have never been through something similar and I'm also suffering.
I told her first of all that I love her a lot, and that I want to be with her and be by her side nor matter what, but that for me trust is absolutely essential and necessary (I know it makes me a hypocrite saying this after checking her phone), and that what I saw the other day with her and her father unsettled me and made me worry about her. Told her that I also saw him grabbing her ass when they were in the other room. Asked her how would she feel if she saw my mom like that with me, and told her I'm on her side and I want to know her completely, and that I could feel she was holding something back from me by the way she reacted when I saw them. That I have nothing against her father, but I need to know what's going on and told her I am not judging how she acts with her family at all, etc
Her reaction at first was terrible and first she laughed histerically and said that I am sick, and how can I even suggest something like that, that it's disgusting and that his father would never do that to her, and even less she allow it. Called me a pervert and a degenerate and remarked many times that her father is a good man. And said that If I wanted to dump her I should just leave her and then started crying. I tried to confort her and hug her as best as I could, and felt terribly for being the cause of her stress, but what the fuck could I do?
Then we started talking again, and now I tried to do it softly and with sweetness, so she started explaining to me how it maybe was wrong to straddle him like that but that she was just shocked to see me because she expected no one to be around and nothing else. And swore again and again that of course, there was nothing going on between them and that her father is a good guy and would never touch her that way, and she is an adult and would set limits in case he tried to.
So at this point, seeing that she was more calmed, I admitted having checked her phone and she freaked out, with a reason this time, which made me feel bad and apollogize for doing it. She got up and checked the conversation herself this time and after scrolling a bit she said "and what? There's nothing to see here, you think I'm sexting my dad? What is wrong with you?" I told her what I read in the most calming manner I could, and tried to stress as much as I could that I'm not a judge, and that I care about her and her safety and that I need to be certaing that everything is ok. This took an amount of ime of her calling me a bad person and that kind of stuff for violating her intimacy
Then I asked her about all the deleted messages, and about texts during the night, and why did she apollogize about having her period and the garage thing in the middle of the night. She came out with the most diverse arrange of excuses. That her dad doesn't know how to use the phone properly and deletes stuff randomly, that he has insomnia and texts during the nights, that the period thing was about going her not wanting to go to a spa, and the garage thing was just that they needed to wrap up her moms Christmas gift without her noticing, and how can I think something sexual about it. But that garage message wasn't during the Christmas visit, it was in April, so when I told her this she froze for a second. I also bringed up that there was nohing on her work calendar nor invitations for any meeting that day. I could sense I was cornering her and her eyes where filling with tears again so I tried to loose things up a bit and told her I'm neither judge nor executioner and that it was not about blaming her or him, nor finding the culprit. She hesitated for a moment but then her lips started shaking, she sighed and went to the bathroom.
I could hear her cry from the other side of the door and I felt just terrible. Devastated, for me it was already confirmed, so now my goal was to try to confort her enough to at least move on a little and talk about it without lies and know what is actually going on and how.
Then she got out sat on the bedroom, and said, in an kind of defiant way, "I have done stuff with him some times, so what? I'm a grown woman, it's no one else's bussiness, I'm hurting no one" And she started to cry again. At this point I already knew it, but it felt like somehow was stabbing me and I hung my head for a moment. I felt like I needed to cry but I couldn't. Not very manly of me, I know, but I am absolutely overwhelmed but this whole situation. I left my house thinking about having a fun vacation with her and knowing her family and now I live in a nightmare, so try to understand
We hugged for a while and then we started talking again. And basically spent 8 hours straight talking and made love also. And she almost cried for the whole eight hours. And with this recounted, I really dont know where or how to start, because this is very disgusting and obscene, and I haven't slept all night and have been a few days without sleeping properly.
So the day I caught them they just had sex a few minutes ago, that's why she had a shower and she was sitting over him because when she was going to grab a comb in her bedroom he called her (so the comb thing was partly true) and sat her over him to have sex again, presumably. She cant recall exactly if he grabbed her ass the first day, but says he probably did because he does that stuff when no one is watching and sometimes he's too bold. So I wasn't crazy.
Her family knows nothing about it, none of them. She says her brothers are very protective of her and would probably beat him up and never talk to her ever again, and that her mom would not be able to handle something like that and would divorce him and spit on her face and ostrasize her. He blames herself much more than him, which is wild and, to me speaks volumes about the kind of manipulation she is subjected to.
As I said earlier, through the night she changed aspect of her version of the story as time passed, because she was starting to feel a bit more comfortable to admit certain things. Today we're gonna inevitably keep talking about it. I've been as comprehensive as I could, but at a certain point, I told her, that I'm only going to keep being her boyfriend if this ends. And with ending I mean her family knowing about it and she never seeing him again, I'm not going to visit them on Christmas and sit by his side like nothing happens.
According to her last version, this all started when she was 18 years old and she wanted a car (in our country you can't drive until you're 18). According to her she was a very rebellious girl and got herself and her family into lots of trouble, which I kind of knew about already. Apparently he knew she wanted a car, and when they both made a trip to Germany to go to the Champions League Final (they both love football), they spent a few days there, and when they were drun they made a deal of him buying her the car in exchange for "a few" sessions of sex. She gave me a few more details of how they got there and how it all happened that I'm gonna spare you, but for me this version is just too inconsistent and I believe that, even if it is partially true (maybe when she was that age he promised her a car if she had sex with him), I think it has to come from somewhere else earlier. It makes no sense to me that out of the blue my mom would say something like that to me just because I want it and I'm rebellious and we had a few cocktails.
But I didn't really want to press her more tonight, I guess if she hides it it's because it's painful, and just the fact that she admitted it is enough for now. I don't know, it was very hard and I'm emotionally drained and tired. She promised she is going back to therapy, that in the past it didn't work because she hid her true relationship with him. She says she wants to keep me no matter what and that she'll never again see him if it's necessary but I felt she was hesitant about denouncing what was happening. She fears her family will blow apart, and I understand the fear, but she can't keep living like this, with or without me, it's not human or dignifying.
Excuse possible mistakes or grammar. And again, thank you all for the kind words
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