'My GF catfished me to see if I'd cheat. I'm furious. I don't know if this is grounds for a break up.' MAJOR UPDATE

"My girlfriend [24f] basically catfished me [28m] to see if I'd cheat. I'm furious and don't know if this is grounds for breaking up or not."

Me and Samantha have been together for 4 and a half years. We live together and have a generally great life, and are very happy together.

I did however just find out that she's been essentially catfishing me for at least 2 of these years.

She has made an account on Instagram, which she proceeded to use to follow me and try to DM me as this catfish. And same with Facebook. Two different woman's photos, but both are Samantha.

I found out from her best friend who told me in private, and said she's been doing this for two years and can even show me the real woman. She said she did it to see if I'd ever be unfaithful. But, two years???

I'm unsure what to do from here on out. She doesn't know I know yet, and I don't know when/how to bring it up. I'm honestly furious. I've been great to this girl for 4 years and wouldn't hurt her, but she obviously still doesn't trust me and has basically had a whole made up life, as someone else, trying to get with me??? What would you do in this situation?

The comments did not hold back their comments and questions one bit.

cousinbebop wrote:

OP, as far as I'm concerned this is third hand information. Trustworthy source or not you deserve to have this conversation with your girlfriend before jumping to any conclusions. Only then is it worth getting annoyed about. It may just all be a misunderstanding.

throwawaynewday wrote:

First, allow for the (remote) possibility that her friend is actually the one doing the catfishing / made up the story to break you up. Friend might not like you, or she might like you a lot, lots of weird people out there.

Second, now that you allow for this possibility, you'll see the most important part is confirmation and understand the reasoning. If she can't communicate either of these, break up for sure.

Once you've heard her reasoning, then you'll have to decide yourself what's the next step. If she says something that sounds like nonsense, break up. If she's got some traumatic insecurities, you could make the relationship conditional on her receiving individual therapy.

You are right that you can't have a solid relationship without trust. She appears to have violated your trust. It's up to you to determine whether that's something she could earn again. If not, then yes, I would say break up. But don't do it in the heat of anger or you might regret it. Do it after calm and civil discussion and you've had time to process it.

uncledrewkrew wrote:

You really did not explain what these accounts have done. Was it just a friend request from these accounts that you never even accepted and never got messages from?

Were you f#$king talking to these accounts for 2 years? What's going on here? You say 2 years but, but there's no way she was actively messaging you from these two accounts for 2 years without you engaging in the conversation. Why wouldn't you just block a random stranger that kept bothering you?

labrys71 wrote:

Question: Why would this so-called bestfriend suddenly tell you now, after 2 years? That in itself seems odd, and is a bit fishy.

Are you sure it's not the best-friend cat-fishing you? Is she telling the truth about the length of time? I'm not saying your GF didn't necessarily do it, but why are you blindly believing her friend? Did she actually give you irrefutable proof that it was your GF doing it?

You absolutely need to talk to your GF about this before you even decide whether or not you're going to break up with her. You, at the moment, have no idea if this information is even true and how much of an idiot would you feel like if it turns out this best friend was tricking you? Just do your homework before you place all the blame.

Days later, OP shared an update.

I'll answer some questions I remember being asked, and in bold will be the actual update. So, after posting that originally, I honestly went with the first few responses and decided to just confront her. A lot of people were asking me how I know it isn't the best friend, or to make sure it isn't her first - which is understandable. But I know this woman, and she's happily married and a mother of four.

I've known her forever. So I had no reason to believe she'd lie, or to believe she'd be doing the catfishing. And also, she told me that my girlfriend told her about it to "get the secret out to someone she could trust" but that she felt I deserved the truth, and my girlfriend wasn't even totally honest with her either.

I was also asked multiple times about the two woman my girlfriend used to catfish me with, and why I talked to them for so long. I am a social worker, and she kinda used it against me and pretended to be women that were in need of help, or were in a#$sive relationships.

And I work with this on the daily, so it was no surprise to me to have them contact me, as I'm very public and open with my job. Never once was I inappropriate with these woman, in fact, I actively talked about my girlfriend very positively especially if they were going toward trying to flirt with me, or be inappropriate toward me.

So for the update. I confronted my girl, and she broke down immediately, not admitting anything at first, but just crying without saying anything. She then told me to please not be angry, but that two years ago she met a guy at work, they immediately fell in love and she knew she wanted to be with him. She said they slept together and spent time together while I was away, or while I was working.

She decided to catfish me to get me to cheat on her, so she wouldn't be seen as a cheater who left her boyfriend for no real reason. She told me she didn't think it'd take long, and I'd fall for something and I never did. She admitted it wasn't even just those two woman, and she even tried to get her new man to help out to somehow make me unfaithful.

Her best friend told her that I got an engagement ring and was planning to purpose, which apparently freaked my girl out because she absolutely didn't want to marry me and then be stuck. So I'm 99% sure she told her friend about the catfishing, hoping she'd come back to me with the new found news, and I would end it.

If that's the case, she got her wish. She's in the process of moving out her things, and although I'm staying calm, I'm extremely hurt by her actions and hurt that she betrayed me. So for now, I'll stay single and focus on my work. And in the future I'll have an amazing girl to give this engagement ring to. And until then, I'll be healing I guess!

I wanna thank everyone who responded and offered advice, and also apologize for taking so long and not answering questions, my job is very demanding, and I didn't expect much advice anyway!

The internet was deeply invested in the outcome.

lonnielee3 wrote:

That is about the weirdest thing I've heard, your gf's avoidant tricks trying to get you to cheat. But good luck on your life free of her. One piece of advice : sell the ring. don't give any future fiancee a ring you bought for a cheater.

OP responded:

Ah, thanks. I will definitely take that advice and do that :)

rainb0wsprinkles wrote:

She was cheating on you for half your relationship and in all that time couldn't find a way to break it off with you other than to f with you? Words can't express how abhorrent she is. Congratulations on moving into a much better phase of your life.

Ake4455 wrote:

More bizarre is that the other guy stayed with her for two years waiting for the OP to break up with his girlfriend so they could be together...WTF?

ArabRedditor wrote:

If the guy is sleezy enough to cheat and help frame OP as a cheater he is probably the type of dude to enjoy the last two years as less of a relationship and more of a fwb, he can talk to her and sleep with her when he wants but it's hard for her to actively have a relationship with him while hiding it I bet he breaks up with her in the next 6 months