[Anonymous]

Hi all

my filipino boyfriend with whom I have a one year old daughter is currently living with me. I am also 7 weeks pregnant.
As he is away from his home country he often has friends calling him to chat. One such friend is a married female living in Canada. She is an old school friend of his. My problem with this friend calling is that she calls him everyday and talks for usually about an hour each time. She calls very early in the day (7am) and sometimes late at night(1am). I’m not 100% sure but I believe it is her calling and puting the receiver down when I answer sometimes. I have spoken to her once on MSN and she was friendly then. But when she calls she does not speak to me just asks to speak to my partner.
When I tried to discuss this with him saying I thought it a bit inappropriate to be calling him so much he disagreed and said I should be pleased that he has friends from his own country to talk to as he is homesick.
This I understand but told him that this girl doesn’t really speak to me or make an effort with me. Plus there’s the calls where I answer and no-one speaks. I know for a fact that he would be very annoyed the other way round! And I’m sure she wouldn’t be keen on a woman calling her partner constantly regardless of being an old friend. Is this woman bored? She told him she gets some free calling card from Canada and wants to make use of it. I do trust him but feel I needed to make point about this situation. It ended in a bad row and he took her side.
I feel that i he can’t see my point of view on this, how can we move on? He is not currently willing to discuss it and is ignoring me! Because I am pregnant I am finding it all quite stressfull. 😡
Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you.

[Ask April Masini]

You’re in a pickle. 😕 Your boyfriend is putting his private phone calls ahead of your concerns about his fidelity to you.

My only suggestion is to take a different tact when you discuss his secret phone calls and the phone calls you pick up where there are only “breathers” on the other line. Rather than tell him that what he’s doing is inappropriate, and acting like you’re the arbiter of what is right and what is wrong, you can tell him how it makes you feel, instead. You can tell him how vulnerable you feel, and what your fears are.

He may respond a lot better to you being soft and vulnerable than to you being adamant, shrill and “right”.

In addition, if he truly is homesick for his family and friends, something you can do to help with his problem that may avert his phone calls from old friends, is to build your social life together, here. Have parties at your home. Invite lots of men and women that you both like, and start building a home for him here.

If his family is at all able to travel, invite his family members to visit you during the holidays or at any other time, so that you can, again, build his life for him here, so he doesn’t need those other phone calls from far away, that make you so uncomfortable.

I hope that helps — please let me know. 🙂

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