Dear Pastor,
I am a reader of your column and most times I find you give good advice based on your faith and experience. However, in a letter that appeared January 26, entitled "Waiting for the next bite," I found your response to be so wrong. It was about a woman who thinks her man is cheating. How could you tell her time will tell?
EXPERIENCE
Come on now pastor, this woman clearly stated that she has had the experience before and if she has been there she knows the signs. So, she shouldn't sit there and wait for him to confess. Should she wait two or three years for him to say that he had an affair? She should, of course, talk to him. I agree with you on that, but if he is indeed cheating, how many men do you know who will admit it? Very few of them. So she will have to find out for herself. She will have to "snoop," as you call it.
If a lot of women were snooping then a lot of them would be in better relationships. I am not saying women should snoop for no reason. When there are signs and you have the itch, you need to scratch it. Very rarely is a woman's intuition wrong. I am not a counsellor, nor am I qualified in giving advice on relationships, but I can say that if you see the signs, don't ignore them. Don't be a fool, open your eyes and look.
L.L., Kingston, Jamaica
Dear L.L.,
Thanks for your response. I insist that it is unwise for anyone to try to get a confession from his or her spouse.
If one continues to cheat, it is likely that one would be found out. But it is unwise to accuse one's spouse of doing something that one cannot prove. As a counsellor, I cannot encourage people to snoop around.
I have known people who believed that their spouses were cheating and have paid private investigators to watch them and when those who were being watched found out, they were furious and the relationships were strained.
A particular lady could not believe that her husband was speaking the truth when her husband said that he was always at the office working late. The private investigator proved that he was right. One of my professors divorced his wife after he found out that she was always spying on him and accusing him of infidelity.
Pastor
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