DEAR EMILY,
My husband and I have been married for almost six years now, and I thought everything was going great. We live abroad, which limits our life to working, eating and sleeping. We go to the mall, but we haven’t even gone out of the city.
I have that nagging feeling that my husband is cheating on me. After he resigned from his job, he would go every afternoon to his former workplace to claim his settlement. But every day for two weeks? One day, out of the blue, I checked our condom box to see how many packets were left, and there were six. We stopped using them this year because we are trying to have a baby.
The next day, when I checked it again, there were only five. I asked him about it, but he said he’s not foolish enough to use our own condoms. I’ve never been at peace since. I started to doubt every single thing that I see, from the way the passenger seat in our car is positioned to the smell of his hand. There was a time when he placed his arm around my shoulder and I smelled a woman’s perfume on his hand. Another instance was when he suddenly held my hand while inside the car, which he had never done before. In another time, I’d find that gesture sweet, but now I feel scared and paranoid.
My parents and my husband are not on good terms, and for my parents to hear about my fears would be like adding fuel to fire. The scariest part of this is, I prefer not to have him near me because I can’t stand the sight of him now. I would rather stay quiet and pretend that I have put it behind me and that I am okay.
We have not talked about this problem since the day I confronted him. If women’s instincts are almost always right, then I wouldn’t know what to do next. I am scared.
CRUSHED
Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean he’s not doing it, one writer said once. And unless you’re also hallucinating on top of that, perfume is usually a dead giveaway. Everything he does or says will now be compounded in your confused and stressed mind. All the actions he’s never done before will be magnified and considered tainted. How long can you live like that? And you’re thinking of having a baby? Is that wise at this time?
The shortest distance between two points is a straight line—that we learned in geometry. Go to him and have an honest, no-holds-barred confession or confrontation of where this marriage is now. Ask him everything you want to ask, and tell him everything you want him to hear. Don’t hold back on anything. If you still feel he’s lying through his teeth, take time out to clear your mind.
The scenario you laid out is pretty clear: You have no children, he has no job, everything he says now is doubtful to you, his very presence near you is unthinkable. Truthfully, I can barely see the thread that’s holding you two together.
E-mail [email protected] or [email protected]. Do listen to my podcast at https://kalikasanvigilante.blogspot.com/
