My boyfriend (45M) was lying to me about the woman (39F) he told me (27F) not to worry about

First of all, he is now my ex as of Tuesday. But these boundaries were set when we were together

I fell very hard for this man, we had an 18 month relationship. We are coworkers, I know what everyone says about not hooking up with coworkers and I shouldn’t have done it.

When we met at work, our relationship started off fun and light hearted, at first it was just casual sex and then feelings developed and we became exclusive. It was going really well to start with, for the first 9 months. We did keep our relationship quiet at work because at work people love to gossip and we were a bit concerned about how our boss would react.

Then I started to notice him becoming very chatty with our other female coworker, she has always worked there, she wasn’t new, and I never noticed anything out of the ordinary before, so I was a bit confused where their sudden closeness came from.

At first I did mention to my boyfriend I feel a little unsure about her, I noticed she had taken a liking to him, confiding in him more than other coworkers, lingering around him a lot, popping upstairs to his office to see him for a chat, he would email her “xx” and they often had “moments” between them where they’d hold eye contact for too long for my liking. This kept happening more and more and my boyfriend didn’t shut it down. This caused daily arguments and caused me to feel anxious at work whenever she was around him.

My boyfriend claimed he “wasn’t attracted to her” yet his behaviour was very different, he was sending memes to her work phone (he doesn’t do this with anyone else), lying about the times he did message her work phone and I caught him checking her out multiple times (he denies this) and just the way he would laugh at all her jokes and be more chatty with her, my gut was telling me something else is going on. Even when she stood next to him he got noticeably short of breath and really flustered and fidgety.

Now, 3 months ago she handed in her notice at work and she told everyone she was moving overseas (she told my boyfriend before she told anyone else, lol). Of course I thought amazing, she can be gone and we can move on from this, but I made it clear to my boyfriend to set a boundary that I did not want him to stay in touch with her because our relationship could not continue knowing she is still in his life. He promised me for 3 months he would not contact her in any way shape or form, he would give her a fake number if she asked him etc. I wasn’t sure if I believed it but I tried my best to.

She had a farewell party work and he touched her leg to get her attention. She also said “as I have your number now. we will keep in touch!” when she said goodbye to him at the end of the evening. This sent me to spiral and we had a huge argument on the way home, I demanded he gave me his phone, because he denied having her number.

I have her personal number already as she is my line manager and I don’t think he assumed I did, so I typed her number in on his contacts and of course, he has her number saved on his phone under a fake name. He told me he had planned to keep in touch with her on a “friendly basis” and they exchanged numbers a few months ago, even after telling me for months he didn’t want to keep in touch, still trying to tell me he wasn’t attracted to her and he just found her “endearing and her heart is in the right place” and thats why he wanted to keep in touch. at this point I was done. I already know they are texting because he told me the next day she had messaged him to ask if he was ok, and at that point I was like nope, I am done. He told me I was being controlling by saying to him I didn’t want him keeping in touch with her.

He would rather risk our relationship, by texting a girl who’s moved overseas, who he will barely ever see. I do not get it.

I am struggling to come to terms with this. It’s causing me so much anxiety, I have to see him at work everyday, knowing they’re texting. It’s hell.

I should’ve left way before I found out he had her number but I wanted to believe him because I love him.

TL;DR He made me out to seem like I am crazy and it turned out I was right all along??? Was I crazy or was he just being an asshole all along?