Dear At the Fence:
My fiancé and I have been together for 2 years and recently had a baby together. He
loves to hunt, and likes to go out of town with some of his friends a couple of times a
year to hunt. This season, which was only 2 weeks after our baby was born, he went
away for a week. Then he went back every 2 weeks for a week at a time until our baby
was 2 months old. That last week he had gone hunting, I had a really bad feeling the
whole time. He hadn't called home like he usually did, and every time I called his
cell phone I got his voice mail. Finally, I decided to check the voice mail and
heard a female's voice from the town he was staying in. She told him to call her at
home or on her cell, that she didn't feel like getting cleaned up because they were out so
late the night before. I called her and confronted her, but she hung up on me.
Then, he called me and when I asked him about it, he denied having anything to do
with her other than friendship.
We had a really trusting relationship before that, and I
would have never had a problem with him having a female friend, so I didn't understand why
he wouldn't tell me about her if that's all there was to it. He still swears that
there's nothing to her at all, but just the other day one of his friend's wife called me
and told me that her husband had told her about my fiancé buying this woman things, and
taking her out by himself. He said that the only reason my fiancé hadn't had sex
with her was that she was on her period. I still don't feel confident in what he's
telling me, but don't know how to talk to him about it and still save my relationship for
my daughter's sake. What should I do, and how could I tell if he's really been
cheating or not?
Hurt in love
Dear Hurt:
I have to agree that if this was innocent, why didn't he
mention it? The timing is also alarming - he goes off shortly and repeatedly after your
baby is born. It could be that fatherhood overwhelmed him - the responsibility, or the
fact that your time was not his alone anymore. Even if he isn't seeing someone, the two of
you need to talk about his frequent hunting trips and the change in your lives since the
birth of your child. I suspect that he is not really ready for parenthood and is
frantically trying to hold on to his 'freedom'.
Probably the best approach is to get him to go with you to
counseling where the two of you can examine this problem. If he won't go, you may have to
insist that the two of you find a way to work this out. Problems don't just go away, they
usually get worse. Communication and trust are two very important issues in any
relationship, so for the sake of the relationship, you have a right to insist on his
cooperation.
Best Wishes
© 2003 Nora Penia All Rights Reserved
