My boyfriend and I have been living together for the past year and I just discovered that he has been texting another woman. I’m so upset and don’t understand why he’s doing this. I really love him and have invested a lot in our relationship.
Should I ignore it and hope it’s nothing? Should I confront him? Should I email her? I’m so confused!
Transcript:
Welcome to Let’s Get Real! Today’s episode is about what to do when he’s texting another woman.
Carol from Sarasota writes: My boyfriend and I have been living together for the past year. I just discovered that he’s been texting another woman. I’m so upset and don’t really understand why he’s doing this. I really love him and have invested a lot our relationship. Should I ignore it and hope it’s nothing? Should I confront him? Should I email her? I’m so confused!
Darlene: Well Carol, we could answer those three questions for you, but really, the important thing is your answers to those questions, so let us see if we can help you get clear on that.
David: Actually, I want to answer the questions. Carol, in our opinion, or at least, my opinion, should you ignore it and hope it’s nothing? No. Should you confront him? Yes! Should you email her? No!
Carol, the reasons we come up with those answers is because you don’t want to just ignore this, you don’t know what it is, and if you just ignore it, you’re gonna constantly have that at the back of your mind that something’s going on, so really you need to get to the bottom of what’s going on with him. You don’t know what’s going on. This could be a family friend. This could be a business partner, a trusted confidante, a sponsor, or it could be your worst nightmare, it could be an emotional or physical affair. But you just need to find out.
So, what to do? Some strategies to consider are, first, get the facts rather than being reactive. Or, what you really need to do is sit down and have a truth-telling talk. So find out from him exactly what’s going on. And whenever you have a serious talk with somebody including him, pay attention to his reactions, his body language, his facial expressions, not just his words, because non-verbal reactions will give you all the information you need. Is he receptive to your needs? Does he appear concerned or is he defensive or dismissive? But you’ve got to be careful about this too, Carol, because if you if he feel likes you’re attacking him when you’re asking him these questions he’s gonna naturally be a little defensive even if nothing is going on.
So it’s very important to be non-judgmental when you have a truth-telling talk. Certainly, share your truth, but do it without judgment because you don’t have the facts yet, and you need the facts first before you can decide what they mean and then create judgments about that.
So, third in our strategies to consider is to discuss and negotiate boundaries. So assuming that you’ve got the facts, you had a truth-telling talk with him about the facts, then discuss and negotiate boundaries of what’s okay and what’s not okay in your relationship or texting. You might have some agreement that he can have female friends as long as they are both of your friends, but it’s a red flag and it makes you uncomfortable if they are just his friends and you don’t know who they are, you don’t have any interaction with them. So,discuss and negotiate boundaries in your relationship. So that is really important because to him maybe nothing’s going on and he feels like you’re overreacting. Like, “What’s your problem?!” but, that’s the point of making boundaries or sharing boundaries with somebody is that they don’t know what you’re gonna be uncomfortable with, unless you let him know.
So if you’re watching this video and you have an idea, a suggestion or a comment for Carol, please enter it in the comment box below and let’s help her to deal with her boyfriend texting another woman.
And please do remember that telling the truth has consequences. It really is the only way to have a fulfilling relationship but not all relationships can handle the truth. So if this is your situation, please do get the support you need from a qualified therapist, counselor, or coach. No one is successful alone and just a little bit of support can go a long way in helping you live happily ever after.
So thanks for watching and bye for now.