Q: I suspect my partner is cheating, but he denies it. I saw a text on his phone that looked flirtatious, from a female friend. She is telling him that he looks good in the new suit he is wearing. He didn’t reply, or at least I didn’t see it – I can’t help thinking that maybe he deleted it. I’ve met this woman a few times at mutual friends’ parties, and she’s never really warmed to me. He usually has normal working hours, but has had a few late meetings over the past few months. Sometimes I’m sad, and other times I feel angry and want to throw all his stuff out of the house. I’ve been cheated on before and I feel like I’m going crazy. He knows my ex is cheating and he swears he didn’t do anything, but I can’t help thinking that when he gets home late from work, he’s cheating – and that text doesn’t help me. trust where he really is. he said he is. I was walking around and he just denied everything and said I needed to trust him. I do not know what to do.
Dr West replied: There are several possibilities for what is happening here.
He could very well be cheating, but he could also be innocent. Are you allowing previous experiences to adorn your thinking and reading more about this really there? If you find yourself distrusting him and always guessing about what he’s doing, you’re going to sabotage the relationship through this insecurity. Your previous negative experiences will stick their claws into the current relationship and kill its potential. Maybe he deleted a flirty reply or maybe he just ignored his friend’s text — you’ll probably never know, and his words are your only source of information. If you can’t trust him on this, can you believe anything else he says? If not, what future do you envision if you try to maintain this relationship? If he’s not cheating and this is your problem, how will you work to resolve this insecurity? Which of his behaviors makes you feel insecure and you can try to objectively assess whether they are untrustworthy actions or whether your reaction really matters? topic? If you don’t address this, it will continue to show up in this or future relationships.
If you’ve never gotten along with this woman, it’s easy to make her the villain in this piece. She can easily become a source of predictions about your anger, insecurity, hurt, and betrayal. Of course, if she cheated on him, some of those feelings are justified, but the real source of your pain is your partner. He is someone who is committed to a monogamous relationship with you; he is someone who is likely to lie about his whereabouts and behavior; he is the one who should value you the most instead of possibly betraying you. It’s hard to think that our loved ones would cause us such pain, so our cognitive dissonance makes it easier for us to blame an outside partner.
You will have to make a decision about the future of the relationship. If he cheated, is this something you can forgive? That means you have to put in a lot of effort – for you to forgive him and for him to regain your trust. Is the relationship worth it? Couples counseling, relationship conscious, vulnerable – you’ll have to decide if you want to commit to that process, which can take months or years.
Of course, this cannot happen if he cheats and refuses to admit it. That denial is an affirmation that he doesn’t respect you enough to acknowledge his behavior and the harm it causes. That is not the basis for a healthy relationship with respect, love, and compassion at its core. If he cheats and lies about it, he is treating you with contempt and cruelty, because he knows you will be hurt by this. You deserve better than that.
If you decide to break up with him, allow yourself time to work through the relationship. Revenge isn’t a dish best eaten cold — or at all. Revenge leaves us in a constant state of anger and can make us do things we wouldn’t normally do, and things we might regret. Instead, focus on healing. This doesn’t mean you can’t feel angry, but it does mean not acting on that emotion. Allow yourself to feel your emotions because repressing them means they will surface in other ways. Breaking up is a grieving process for the future you thought you would share and mourn the good times in the relationship. You will go through the usual stages of grief, and it’s important to let yourself experience this without distracting yourself with new things. There are many lessons learned from your experience that you can use to improve your emotional literacy skills for future relationships.
Whether he cheated or not, this is an unsustainable situation. All your energy goes into trying to figure out what’s going on, and it will drain you mentally and physically. Your anxiety will leave you in limbo, trying to figure out what’s going on at an uncontrollable level. You have three choices: you believe his protest that he’s not cheating and let it go, or he admits he’s cheating and you decide to stay or go, or in the end, he Still refuses to admit it and you don’t believe him. All of these choices involve hard work, tough conversations and decisions, but either way, here’s the hope for a chance to deal with the past to build a future. for the better – whether this happens to this person or not.
Dr. West is a sex educator and host of the Glow West podcast. Send your question to drwestanswersyourquestions@independent.ie. Dr. West regrets that she cannot answer questions privately
Video of the day
https://www.independent.ie/style/sex-relationships/asking-for-friend-my-partner-swears-hes-not-cheating-but-hes-staying-late-at-work-and-i-saw-a-flirty-message-on-his-phone-can-i-trust-him-42148552.html Friend Request: My partner swears he’s not cheating, but he’s late for work and I see a flirty text on his phone – can I trust him?
