Discovering that your partner is keeping secrets can be a devastating blow to any relationship. Trust is the foundation of any strong partnership, with both parties needing to have faith in each other’s honesty and fidelity.

However, one woman has found herself questioning her trust in her boyfriend after receiving an unsettling message from a stranger. The woman, who has been in a blissful relationship for about a year, was thrown into doubt when she received an online message from an unknown man alleging that her boyfriend had been trying to “get with” his wife.

In a post on Reddit, the woman explained that she initially trusted her boyfriend enough to dismiss the stranger’s claim as a case of mistaken identity. However, her boyfriend’s strange behaviour, followed by his admission that he had recently exchanged birthday greetings with the man’s wife – an old school friend – raised her suspicions.

Warning: The media below contains explicit language

After messaging the stranger back for more evidence, she asked her boyfriend if she could look at his phone to see the messages herself – and was left stunned by her partner’s defensive response.

She explained: “He gets all defensive and won’t let me look through it, only showing me while he’s looking through it. He tells me he deleted the messages with that girl because he’s always been accused of cheating in past relationships and didn’t want me to assume. I tell him I have never once even accused him of anything ever nor looked through his phone, so that’s odd.”

The man insisted he was just “good friends” with the other woman, yet the girlfriend had never met or heard of her. To add to the confusion, the other woman contacted her, claiming her own husband was “jealous” and wrongfully accused her of infidelity when she had done nothing wrong. Now, torn between trust issues and lack of concrete evidence, she’s left questioning their future together.

She confessed: “I’m not trying to be naive. This looks so bad. I have been with cheaters you always see the signs leading up to it. I have noticed nothing. His behaviour when I accused him of it and asked him to look at his phone is what’s worrying me the most. This all looks so bad. I’m freaking out. We were going to get married. I have never ever been more confident in anyone in my life before.”

Users commenting on the situation advised the woman to reconsider her romance. They pointed out that even though it’s possible her partner is simply overreacting and not having an affair, his defensive refusal to share his phone seems suspect.

One person voiced: “Your boyfriend’s reaction – getting angry, defensive and refusing to let you look through his phone – is highly troubling. I’m sorry, but it doesn’t look good for your relationship. Your boyfriend could have easily fixed this by showing you his phone had nothing to hide, but he obviously couldn’t.”

Another commenter observed: “If your boyfriend had nothing to hide, he should have given you his phone. He didn’t. Sorry, but he is being very deceptive and is certainly hiding something he definitely doesn’t want you to know.”