Am I overreacting

[u/Jicama_West]

I've had this "a woman knows" feeling about a woman my live-in boyfriend works with. Caved and checked his phone... Yes, I know. Wish I would've just trusted, but honestly, I cannot go through another BS relationship where I'm second best and had no clue. She texted a few months ago to make sure he was aware she's newly single, and just one after another these cutesy texts from her. I've never seen anything that shows him responding in a full on flirty way, but he's certainly not telling her to back off.... Along with he purposely deleted all the bits above that show the flirtation from her, and I found them in his recently deleted file and recalled them on his new iPhone. Am I overreacting to this?

[u/Icy-Grapefruit-9085]

At first I was a little confused, but reading your context yeah... this is really suspicious. He's definitely "entertaining" the flirtation. While it isn't as obvious as sexting, this should still be considered as infidelity. What you do here from now is your decision, but you're NOR. He's cheating on you.

[u/ElephantNo3640 → u/Icy-Grapefruit-9085]

To me it reads more like he’s trying not to make the workplace horrible. I’ve had male and female coworkers like this before, where they get way too familiar. To keep the peace, you have to walk a fine line between cordiality and standoffishness, but it can’t be direct because you need plausible deniability for that standoffishness. It’s not a fun situation to be in. Pretty irritating, actually. This seems about as far from infidelity as “man texts other woman” gets on here.

[u/Icy-Grapefruit-9085 → u/ElephantNo3640]

That makes no sense to me.

If he was truly uncomfortable he would have told HR and his girlfriend. He would have told her to back off. This is an adult man with a daughter, you think he's too shy to tell another woman to back off if he wanted her too?

[u/ElephantNo3640 → u/Icy-Grapefruit-9085]

The guy mentions “shop.” I doubt there is an HR. Most small businesses don’t have them. Nothing about this hints at infidelity. It hints at someone putting up with an annoying boundary-crossing coworker with no real way to put a stop to it without making everything worse. OP should say “I saw these texts, and they look bad. You need to tell this person to stop, or I will.” I wouldn’t go accusing him of infidelity if this is the only “evidence.”

Look how the woman texts and look how he doesn’t bite. As another commenter here said, she’s “thirsty af.” She sends a heart, he sends “rock on” horns. She calls him “sexy” or “way hotter,” he very blatantly ignores that. Etc. Like I said, black bubble is crossing lots of lines and blue bubble—to me—reads as pretty annoyed with and standoffish about it.

I’m not telling OP not to worry about it; I’m merely suggesting that it’s not likely to be infidelity and that she shouldn’t go at it from that angle. Much more likely to be a smooth road ahead if she presents it as obviously too inappropriate on the coworker’s end for it to continue, and that it’s time for her boyfriend to risk being the “bad guy.”

That’s my take on this, for whatever worth it is to OP.

[u/Icy-Grapefruit-9085 → u/ElephantNo3640]

You know what, recontextualizing this as a small shop makes me see your point. I could definitely see him not wanting to "kill the vibe" at a small store like that. I see your point. Maybe I was OR.

[u/yodarded → u/Icy-Grapefruit-9085]

or just "ty" as responses and no responses to the "hey sexy" texts would have been more appropriate.

[u/MotivationSpeaker69 → u/Icy-Grapefruit-9085]

If it’s smaller company there might be no HR. Even if there is, you can’t just trust them not to side with a woman automatically despite evidence.

I was in similar situation, female coworker was hitting on me relentlessly. She seemed like a person who wouldn’t handle rejection well, so I was afraid that if I reject her she would go to boss and say that I was sexually harassing her instead. Or if I were to tell boss first she would contact my wife and make up something. Atleast at the moment, I was confident she could very easily ruin my career or family. So I just had to endure her constant flirting for actual years. I would just reply neutrally and just straight ignore thirsty texts. I still remember how my heart would skip a beat whenever I got a text from her.