Dear Readers: Following is a disturbing other side to the issue of a married person’s constant “innocent” texting with another person (March 30):
Reader: My now ex-husband (together 21 years) also constantly messaged and communicated with his female co-worker.
People said he was having an affair. I said that their work group was unusually close because they worked under heavy pressure.
She lived in a different country, married with two kids just like us.
He hinted that she thought him wonderful. He never left the house at night or weekends, so an affair wasn’t happening. I trusted him as an exemplary moral person.
Then I innocently picked up his usually-locked phone at 7a.m. and saw this co-worker was already asking how he was that day. Odd.
I threw him out when I learned the truth. He’s been married to her more than three years now. I later learned (from women who’d cheated with him and assumed that I knew!) that he’d cheated from the start of our relationship. The internet and texting makes affairs so easy now.
Reader 2: More on suspicious texting (March 30):
Why did the husband use his free hours/days off, which should be family time, to keep connected to a female colleague? This is cheating — maybe not physically, but emotionally on his wife.
My former son in-law constantly texted with female colleagues wherever he worked. He showed little respect for my daughter by doing this and even flaunted to her that he had a “work wife” to whom he told all his issues and had lunch with. My daughter was very upset but he continued to do as he pleased.
My daughter was found shot dead in her home. Her husband refused to help us query the police to find what happened to her. He said she took her own life.
She was afraid of guns and coming into a large award of money two days later from an auto accident a year previous.
We discovered he had a work-colleague mistress a year before our daughter died. They went on “work trips” together, but our daughter had no idea.
His many actions towards my daughter were forms of domestic emotional abuse.
Your letter-writer should ask herself what her overall relationship is like with him.
If he’s so self-centred to bond and have companionship texting or physical from a female where the wife is excluded is a BIG RED FLAG.
Reader’s commentary regarding family estrangement (February 25):
My oldest son is early-40s, married with a pre-school child. He purchased a tablet for me to video chat with them but I didn’t hear back, so inquired why.
He texted that we didn’t have a normal relationship, so I shouldn’t pretend that we do.
We’d been estranged for years before the baby was born, but it had seemed he wanted his son to have Grandma in his life. I thought that he’d grown more mature and was stable
But he blames me for his problems and shuts me out. I have only one grandchild.
What can I say without worsening the situation?
Estranged Son
Say nothing now. Occasionally send a simple gift to your grandson — e.g., a cuddly “stuffy” to introduce some memory of you in his life.
Also try non-intrusive gestures like sending birthday/anniversary cards for him and his wife.
Seeking therapy may contribute to your peace of mind about the past.
Hopefully, it’ll also be helpful toward a relationship with your grandson and maybe your son.
Feedback regarding the woman faithful to her jailed boyfriend who learned he’d been freed and had a gay lover (March 29):
Reader: Waiting for many years for someone you love, and then they turn on you, must be beyond upsetting.
However, one hears terrible stories of violence/rape perpetrated on prisoners.
If it happened to her boyfriend, he likely repeatedly questioned his sexuality because of the events and no longer feels he can be with a woman.
According to reports, most men who are raped tell of feeling embarrassed that they weren’t tough enough to stop it.
The woman still feels wronged and, for her peace of mind, it might not hurt to reach out to him once more to see why things went the way they did.
Ellie: We can’t assume that he’s been “turned gay” by rape. He may have recognized what he now feels confident about and identifies as gay.
Ellie’s tip of the day
If a partner’s constantly texting with someone, look closer at whom and why.
Send relationship questions to [email protected].
Follow @ellieadvice.
