It’s your problem to fix - not hers!

DOM SAYS:

SO, YOU’VE been together for five years. well, five years is nothing to be sniffed at — it’s half a decade, a long time to have dedicated your life to one person.

At this stage in any relationship, you’re seriously tied in and I think what’s happening here is that you’re becoming scared of losing your girlfriend to someone else. It is, of course, understandable, to worry about losing her, but you have to get a grip.

This issue has raised it’s ugly head and it won’t go unless you make it. You have to accept that taking in lodgers is her job. It’s her business — how she makes her living — and it means that there are going to be men, be they young or middle- aged, passing through her door.

You say you’re a few years older, but don’t say by how much and, from your letter, age certainly seems to be a touchy issue. But, really, I think this is about our old friend the greeneyed monster.

Fundamentally, you are upset because your girlfriend is sharing her time and affection with men who are not you. They may be strangers, they may be friends, but the point is that they are not you! This is bringing back memories of her behaviour with her ex. now, she was wrong to lie, but it’s possible she did so because she knew you’d read too much into it.

I believe it’s perfectly possible to be friends with an ex, but I know not everyone agrees with me. I believe she knows how you feel on the topic, so she lied to avoid causing you offence.

I would suggest that jealousy is an issue for you and for your girlfriend. when she says ‘just trust me’, I imagine she doesn’t say it happily.

The current situation in which this chap chats up your girlfriend every night is being created in your mind and you must deal with it. This is for you, not your partner, to fix. Have a little faith in yourself and the woman you love. without that, you don’t have much of a relationship.

It’s time to give yourself a talking to. You’ve heard a rumour about his reputation and it’s ruffled your feathers, that’s all.

Don’t forget, if you are to be usurped — at any point and by anyone — there is little you can do about it. we all choose to be in the relationships we’re in — and we keep on choosing.

You are creating a problem that doesn’t exist but, in so doing, you are building a very real one, too. no one wants to live with the shadow of jealousy in the background, so stop bringing it up.

My feeling here is that all will be well, if you let it.

■ WATCH Steph & Dom’s Couples Therapy, their brilliant new video series, tomorrow on mailplus.co.uk/stephanddom

■ IF YOU have a question you’d like Steph and Dom to tackle, write to: stephanddom@dailymail.co.uk