Friend needs to confront husband
Q . I suspect that my friend’s husband might be cheating with his co-worker.
They’ve been married for seven years, together since they were teenagers. Over the past three years, his job has legitimately required him to work closely with this other woman.
She even ended a relationship and has been single since around the time she started working with him.
My friend’s tried to befriend the co-worker, but she feels like the odd one out since he regularly invites this woman to their house. He’s invited her to gatherings that I’d consider “couples events.” It used to be myself and my husband and him and his wife before his co-worker showed up. He’s told his wife that he doesn’t want her showing up at his workplace, which seriously raised our eyebrows. Also, he’s extremely twitchy when the other woman’s name is mentioned innocently.
My friend’s at her wits’ end. She doesn’t know what to do and I’d love to advise her.
I hate to see her stick with a deadend relationship if he’s even emotionally invested in another.
A. Your friend needs to find out for herself what’s going on.
If he’s cheating, he’s unusually blatant about it, having the “other woman” as a frequent guest at his home and among close friends. Or, it can be interpreted as much as a sign of innocence as of guilt.
Your friend needs only this advice: To stop discussing suspicions with you and anyone else, and talk directly with her husband.
She must be open, saying how his overt closeness with another woman makes her feel, even if they’re just friends. She must ask if he loves this woman, and if so, how he intends to handle the situation. Then she must decide and state, what she can and cannot accept.
She may need help with that decision, but not from you. She’d need legal information to know what to expect if she opts to leave him, and counselling help to make a choice she can live with.
Q. I come from an educated and slightly wealthy family, with a strict upbringing. I recently married a man from a small town and humble background. I like his family, who’ve shown that they care for me and accept me into the family.
Recently, my brother-in-law met a girl and they soon moved in together. She’s young, has a child from another relationship, and is now pregnant with his kid. She isn’t mean, but her behaviour screams out about someone whom I feel hasn’t been brought up right. It isn’t nice to admit, but everything she does is a sore sight to me.
My mother-in-law is kind-hearted and loves her just as much as she does me. What can I do to stop getting irritated with her actions?
A. I’d call them your “judgmental” feelings, but for the positive fact that you recognize them in yourself and would like to feel otherwise.
It’s not that hard. Be friendly. Get to know more about her. Recognize that she may even be exaggerating her differences from you, because she feels your reaction.
It’s possible that causes her to form her own judgments — seeing you as privileged, snooty, and unaccepting.
Try to find some common ground through simple things, such as playing with her children, going on a family picnic, etc. Think of all the positives of being as kind-hearted as your motherin-law. This girl isn’t mean, and you don’t want to be, either.
Q. If someone’s dismissed and terminated from a former employer, and doesn’t disclose it to a future employer, does this constitute a breach of employment? Can you just say, “They let me go because of downsizing?”
Isn’t how I left that company really my personal privacy issue and the new employer has no business in it?
A. Never was hiding the truth harder than in today’s world, where even your grade school misbehaviour can be traced. Honesty and trust matter hugely to most employers; omitting the fact that you were terminated with cause, is seen no differently than a lie.
It’s far better to be upfront about whatever happened.