A Matter of Trust

I know, I know, Modern Manners is late … again. But, I have a great excuse: my sweetie unexpectedly came home from work early yesterday with a colleague so I had to spend the time I planned to use for blogging on entertaining our guest. It’s ok. It’s the right thing to do. But it did prevent me from finishing this up and getting it out to you yesterday. I’m sure you understand.

Anywhoo, this week’s lesson is about trust. Sounds cheesy, yes, but it was pertinent in my life this week. Here’s how:

I don’t know any woman who hasn’t, on occasion, taken a look through her man’s cell phone, email, credit card statement, etc. just to check-up on his activities and make sure there’s nothing that looks suspicious. I think it’s human nature to wonder from time to time. I don’t make a habit of checking up on my sweetie, really I don’t. I don’t know his email password. I don’t open his mail and don’t check his web history. I don’t do any of this because I truly trust him and his devotion to me. But we’re all tempted.

This weekend, he did something super rare and left his inbox open on our shared computer while he went out to run some errands. I’ll admit, I took a scroll through the contents. The “from” list was all friends that I knew, except one, PEG Enterprises. the subject line read something like, “receipt of purchase.” OMG. I had a sudden flashback to the day I discovered just how much money my ex had been spending on internet and mail-order porn (you would die) and my heart skipped a beat. Could I have been that blind again??

I walked away from the computer and debated with myself, knowing all the while that I had only a limited amount of time until he returned home. You see, my sweetie does not like to make purchases online. He still doesn’t trust the internet. He’s started making a few bill payments online, but that’s only because the vendors don’t charge as much if you do it that way. So, I knew this had to be an exception to the rule.

But, I thought, has he ever given me a single reason to doubt him?? I considered … the answer was yes, once: the day he went to buy my engagement ring. I was starting to feel like a bitch, but my past crept into the back of mind. In the two long-term relationships I was in prior to meeting my fiance, I was cheated on. And both times, somewhere inside, I knew it was happening.

With each of these slimeballs, I was obsessed with discovering them. I don’t think I even knew what I was looking for, but my gut was telling me something was wrong. With slimeball number one, I figured out his email password (honestly, Chevy, wasn’t that hard to deduce). With the second, I was constantly checking his phone call records. Too bad I didn’t think to suspect his calls to our mutual girlfriend, whom I assumed he was consoling about her own relationship woes.

Back to present day, what if it was happening all over again??!?! I caved, dear readers. My irrational fears got the best of me. I looked at the email. And do you know what it was? It was a receipt for a TomTom voice skin that he had purchased as a gift for me. Ouch. Can you say, “guilt,” boys and girls? I should have more faith in my honey, as is likely the case for most of us. But, then again, had I trusted my gut a bit more with those other boys, I may not have gotten burned Checking my fiance’s email was more by circumstance than suspicion … So, I suppose in the end this week’s lesson is that you have to trust your own instincts above everything else.

Have a little faith,

SPF

Tags: cheating, faith, trust

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010 at 4:59 pm and is filed under Modern Manners, SPF Perscpective. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.