Can’t trust my fiance since I found out he’s texting his ex
Dear Coleen
I recently found out that my fiance has been exchanging texts with his ex-girlfriend.
The messages I saw were innocent enough, discussing their group of friends from university and an upcoming reunion that’s planned for this summer.
But what really bugs me is he didn’t tell me about these conversations or even mention they’d been in touch, which obviously makes me feel weird. Why keep it a secret?
He says as they’re part of the same friendship group, he wants to keep things civil, but has agreed to stop the private messaging and just message the bigger group.
When I asked him why he hadn’t mentioned the texts, he said he guessed they might upset me, so thought it was better not to say anything at all.
I don’t know if I’m overreacting, but I hate that he’s hidden this from me and it’s even made me question our relationship.
We’re planning to get married next spring. It’s just thrown me and put doubts in my mind over whether I can really trust him, and if he’s actually committed to our relationship.
Do you think I’m making too much of this or do I have a point?
Coleen says
Well, I think you have to explain to him that deliberately hiding things from you makes you question whether you can trust him, and trust is everything in a relationship. It’s the secrecy around it that’s the problem, not the fact they texted each other.
However, I think you should give him the benefit of the doubt this time – in his mind they’re only chatting about their friends and the reunion, and he didn’t want you to get the wrong end of the stick, so he didn’t mention it.
But explain to him that if he’d told you he’d been in touch with his ex, you might have been a bit irritated, but wouldn’t have been left questioning your entire relationship!
The other thing to consider is that your boyfriend might be an innocent party in this text exchange, but his ex might have other motives, so it’s probably a good idea for them to stick to messaging in the wider group about arrangements for the reunion.
“He didn’t even mention they’d been in touch
Doing my daily rounds in The Dark Lord’s cesspit after she’d gone to school one morning, I found what looked like some sort of special breaking-in tool.
The sort a vintage James Bond would use on a secret mission to cut open a window 60 floors up in Dr No’s lair, only to find a naked woman conveniently waiting for him on the bed.
Now I know I should leave the teenager to clear up her own room, but the rats would take over before that happened, so it’s easier just to nip in and make the bed and clear up any breakages, mop up blood, or dispose of anything illegal.
But this time I couldn’t work out what I’d found, unless my teenage daughter had been doing house break-ins during lunchtime at school.
When The Dark Lord gets home, she’s quite used to me starting a sentence by saying: “What’s this I found in your room?”
And she normally sulkily replies: “If you don’t want to find anything, then don’t go in there.” But this time she just shrugged.
“It’s my skateboard wrench – look, it has all the sockets to adjust the kingpin.”
I was so impressed that my jaw dropped open. Especially since the last time I asked her to bring me a flat-head screwdriver from the tool box when I was rehanging a door, she handed me a socket wrench.
“No, you spanner,” I’d told her, desperately trying to keep the door on its top hinge from falling off on my head.
Anyway, that’s when she got a ‘toolbox talk’, which was obviously as riveting as it sounds.
Apparently, a recent study by Toolstation found that when asked to correctly name everyday tools, the average teenage idiot got only six out of 13 right, and most were unable to identify an impact driver.
I only remember this because I thought: “Blimey – what’s an impact driver?”
I know we expect a lot from our kids, but I defy anyone who isn’t a mechanic or DIY expert to be able to name one of those!
■ Email me at siobhan.mcnally@mirror.co.uk or write to Community Corner, PO Box 791, Winchester SO23 3RP.
Yours, Siobhan