[Carlys955]

Hi April-

My boyfriend and I have been together for about a year and have lived together for 8 months. Recently, I’ve started to feel a bit paranoid that he might be cheating. I noticed he was getting emails from a swingers website about parties and confronted him about it. He does real estate on the side and said it was spam from all the ads he posts on Craigslist but this got my mind spinning. He works nights and I work days so we have a lot of time apart. The other day, I came home from work and his beard smelled faintly of aftershave (which he rarelt puts on). When I asked him about it he said he had put it on for work and the scent must be lingering. I didn’t think much of it until last night- I had purchased some lingerie for valentines day and put it on for him- he went downstairs to freshen up and came back up smelling of aftershave. I asked if he had put it on to smell good for me and he said yes. So this makes me wonder- should I be concerned about him smelling of it last week? Could he have put it on to smell good for someone else? I have been cheated on in the past so definitely have some trust issues so I’m not sure if I’m letting past experience make me paranoid here. Please help!!

[AskApril Masini]

Gee, you haven’t really convinced me that he’s cheating. 😕 Lots of men wear aftershave, and anyone with an e-mail account, will eventually get spam from weird sites. Even if he was just looking (guys do look at these things, and that’s normal), it doesn’t mean he acted on the e-mails.

Instead of looking for a smoking gun, look at the relationship you have with him. Are there problems in the relationship that would cause him to look elsewhere? Is he someone who’s cheated in the past? Unless you can fill me in on something more incriminating, I’m inclined to tell you to focus on what’s good, and don’t look for problems that don’t exist. 😉

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[Carlys955]

Thanks for your response! Overall, the relationship is good, but we do tend to go through spurts where we fight quite often. He has a child from a previous relationship and most of the fights revolve around that and trying to figure out what works best for us as a family. He also has some difficulty seeing his fault in anything which makes some arguments blow up more than they should. As far as past cheating goes, he cheated on the child’s mother but said it was because they werent really in a relationship and that she was doing it to him as well. He told me he wouldn’t do it to me and that I have to trust him but I just don’t know. Does this help to give a better picture?

[AskApril Masini]

Got it — and yes, you filled in some blanks that I didn’t know were there! 🙂

When there’s infidelity in someone’s past, and that person is the cheater, you have to look at them and ask yourself if they are a person who cheats chronically, a person who cheats as a way to exit a relationship, a person who cheats in order to feel good – in spite of another relationship he’s in, etc. In other words, cheating isn’t black and white. It’s fine for him to tell you to trust him, but trust is earned, and you’re wise to keep your eyes and your mind open. You should allow him to earn it, but be open to problems, too.

It sounds like you know of one incident in which your boyfriend cheated on a woman in his life — but he says conflicting things in regards to that incident: that she wasn’t in a relationship with him (which doesn’t make sense because if he admits he cheated on her then he would have to be in a relationship with her to have cheated), and/or that she cheated on him, so I guess he cheated as revenge, or says that was the reason. What this says is that he may consider the times you fight with each other as a time you’re “not together”, so it’s not cheating. I’m guessing because you mentioned that you fight a lot when you do fight — and I don’t know what really means in terms of the quality of the fights or how long these fighting periods last. (More blanks for you to fill in!)

His inability to “see his side” or his part in anything, indicates an inability to empathize — or see someone else’s point of view. This is a relationship tool, and the more you’re able to see the way your behavior affects others, the more successful you’ll be in life, so you may want to keep your eye on this.

I don’t know old the two of you are, but I do know that it’s pretty speedy to move in with someone after dating for only four months, and although you’ve been together for a year, it’s a good idea to stay focused on what you want for yourself, and continue to take the temperature of this relationship to make sure it’s serving you (and you, it). 😉

Like I said before, on the surface, his wearing aftershave or looking at e-mails that are about threesomes isn’t a red flag, but I get the feeling from your e-mail that there’s more going on, than you’ve been ready to look at, up to now. 😉

I hope that helps!

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[Carlys955]

With the past cheating he said that he wasn’t in a relationship with her anymore and that they were living together and “co-parenting” (as he called it) for the sake of the kid. He said that they hadn’t been intimate in close to a year and he knew she was out fooling around so he did it too. He has also in the past said to me “I won’t cheat on you as long as you don’t do it to me”, which sounds like it is a revenge thing.

When we fight they’re usually pretty heated arguments that end quickly (so if they happen at night, they’re usually resolved by the next morning) and there haven’t really been instances when they’ve lasted longer than a day.

He’s also made comments that he wouldn’t bring me into his child’s life if he was just going to hurt me and cheat on me Bc that would impact that child (to have my around and then not).

I love him and things for the most part with us are pretty good, but like I said I’ve been hurt by this in the past and don’t want to have it happen again.

[AskApril Masini]

It really sounds like he is justifying his cheating on his ex with whom he has a child, instead of taking responsibility for his part in the relationship. 😳 When you have a child, and you’re living with the child and his mother, as a family, it’s not the best idea to cheat on his mother just because you think she’s out fooling around. Whether or not they were having sex was not any of the child’s business — and that’s a two way street in most cases. But when the relationship broke up and he moved out, that absolutely affected his child. 😥 So, his not wanting to bring you into his child’s life if he was going to cheat on you because it would impact the child doesn’t really hold water because that ship left the dock a long time ago — if he was really that concerned about impacting his child, he wouldn’t have cheated on the child’s mother — as revenge or otherwise. I know he wants you to think he hasn’t cheated — at the same time he told you he did, so you have to do the math here.

Like I said, the examples you gave me, on the surface, don’t seem to indicate he’s cheating. But if there’s more beneath the surface, that’s something else to consider.

I hope that helps. 😉

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