Dear Coleen

MY ONE-NIGHT STAND SENDS HIM IN A RAGE

My boyfriend and I have been together for two years. Just before Christmas we had a huge argument and broke up for a few weeks, and during that time I had a one-night stand after a night out.

I didn’t feel good about it afterwards because I was still in love with my boyfriend, but we weren’t together at the time.

We did get back together and I told my boyfriend about my night with this other guy. At first he was good about it – he understood and said he could move past it.

However, he’s been giving me a really hard time over the past few months and being together in lockdown has been difficult. We’ve had a few rows and he brings up this one-night stand every time.

He says he’s over it, but he clearly isn’t. How can we move on if he won’t let me forget it?

Coleen says

He made the decision to try again, so he can’t keep throwing this one-night stand in your face if your relationship is to survive and thrive in the future.

However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be able to talk about it and what led to you breaking up.

You have to be honest about the issues in your relationship or they’ll keep bubbling to the surface because you haven’t actually worked through them.

You could try sitting down and thrashing it out, being honest about how you feel and listening to each other. And explain it’s not fair to bring up this one-night stand every time you row.

If you don’t think you can discuss things without it erupting into an argument, then couples counselling might be the answer. But I think the real issue is whatever led to you breaking up, and not the one-night stand.