You’ve seen celebrity clinical psychologist Dr. Sherry Blake, author of The Single Married Woman: True Stories of Why Women Feel All Alone in Their Marriages, keep the Braxton sisters calm on the hit show Braxton Family Values. Now it’s your turn to sit in her chair…
Q: Dr. Sherry, this year will make 10 years that I’ve been married to my husband. We have been together for 15. Well, our marriage has not been great, but it has not been bad either. (Hey, we are still together.) I have young stepson that I have welcomed into my home, my marriage and my heart. Now, I have recently had these intuitions that my husband may be stepping out on me again and I found out that he has been talking to someone else quite often; a young woman who lives nearby. He says that the relationship is not what I think it is and I am overreacting. I believe that the relationship is exactly what I think it is, and I feel like I should leave him because of yet another affair. Do I take his word for it, when I know in my heart that the relationship is more that what he says? Or, do I sit and wait for another baby to show up? In my heart I really feel like our marriage is over. — Anonymous
A: If your intuition is telling you that your husband may be stepping out on you again, it is highly likely that he is. Most women know when their mate is cheating. Sometimes women live in denial rather than deal with the issue. In your case, it sounds like you have more than mere intuition to support your suspicions. You know that he is in a relationship with another women, regardless of how he is defining it. When he says you are overreacting and it is not what you are thinking, it sounds like he is really playing you. What does he expect you to think? It seems as if you have already been down this road before with him. (He has had an affair and a baby!) What more do you need in order to believe you desire more?
He has disrespected you more than once. What is going on with you that you continue to accept his behavior? You must trust yourself and demand more! While you are still legally married, you are very close to being emotionally divorced. I would suggest marital counseling if both of you are willing to work on the marriage. Otherwise, unless you are willing to become deaf, blind and dumb, you are right, your marriage is over. — Dr Sherry
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