Is He Cheating?


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Dear Darcy, my husband has a best friend and in the last 6-months he’s been spending more and more time with her. I’m not a jealous person by nature but I feel like my understanding is being taken advantage of. 

They’ve started going away one weekend a month, alone.  When she’s at our place, they cuddle on the couch under the blanket. Last month, they got matching tattoos. 

I’ve told him repeatedly how I feel and he responds by saying I’m making something out of nothing and that he has no room for jealousy in his life.  

Even if he’s not physically cheating on me, I feel emotionally cheated on. And I don’t know if it’s reasonable to set a boundary around that. 

What should I do? I don’t know if I’m being naïve, paranoid, or gaslighted, but I can’t go on like this!


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In a married / adult monogamous relationship (which I’m presuming is the kind you signed up for), there are certain boundaries around how we interact with our “friends.” 

Even if those friendships pre-date our relationship to our partner, we make modifications to our platonic relationships that include (but are not limited) to the following:

  • We don’t repeatedly go away with a friend for the weekend, alone, unless both partners have voted YES. 

  • We don’t cuddle with a friend who is of a gender that we could be attracted to. Again, unless our partner has OK’ed it. 

  • We don’t get matching tattoos with our friends, unless there is some extraordinary purpose to it (we both survived a near-death experience, for example).

Your husband’s choice to respond to your feelings by invalidating them and essentially threatening you to keep quiet or risk he’ll leave you because he “has no room for jealousy in his life” is disgusting. It’s silencing.  

At best, he’s being unfair, unkind, and manipulative. At worst, he’s a narcissist who’s betraying you. 

To me, whether he’s fucked her or not is irrelevant because he’s knowingly hurting you by continuing to engage in behaviors that are COMPLETELY outside any reasonable expectations within a monogamous relationship.  

Which brings me to you:

You’re being gaslighted. 

There isn’t a monogamist on the planet who would condone his behaviors or describe them as normal or your response as unduly jealous. And just to prove it, I’m opening comments to my blog, which I almost NEVER do. 

So, fellow monogamists, I want to hear from you. Is the writer crazy? What do you think she should do? Leave a comment below. 

Back to you: 

Your relationship dynamic is beyond unhealthy. Either he’s provoking you to end the marriage or he’s getting off on hurting you. Either way, it’s abusive. 

Here’s my advice:

  1. Tell him he’s got to go to couples counseling. 

  2. Tell him that his “friendship” with what’s-her-name needs to go on ice until or unless the couples counselor OK’s it and the terms of it. 

If he says no to either, I’d rent a U-haul and get out. 

Writer’s Demographics
Female
Straight

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