“After 21-years I found out my wife cheated on me with a single man I thought was my friend. She also got pregnant and had his child. When the child was small everyone said he looked like me. Her lover was the same nationality as myself so that was not hard to misjudge. As the child got into his teens he resembled her lover. The child is 23 now. One day I asked my wife if ‘my friend’ had ever made a pass at her and she ignored me. About a month later I asked her again. She said he tried to kiss her once. Then I remembered I come home early from work sometimes and he’d be at my home. They said he was waiting for me. Neither she nor ‘my friend’ knew I would come home early. I recently came out and asked her if she had an affair and she got upset but did not deny it. Weeks later I again asked her and then she denied it. I stay with her because she was my first real love. I have always loved her.”

Although you have not said it, I will assume your son has brought you both much joy.

“My girlfriend says she loves me and would never cheat on me. The problem is she has had a lot of casual intimate relationships in the past but says she has changed and wants to be with only me for the rest of her life. I would like to know what she does when I am not around. I can’t be around her all the time and when I am not I feel as if she is going back to her old ways. I ask her to call me and to text me every hour or so when we are not together just to be certain she is ok but she doesn’t want to do this. I want her to stay at home with her family when she is not with me just to be safe. Whenever I confront her about this stuff she starts crying. She says I don’t trust her but there is so much that has happened in the past that I think she should do what I ask so she can regain my trust.”

While her past torments you and while you monitor her behavior you will not find a mutual, trusting, and respectful relationship. It is you that has the trust issue.

“My in-laws are the most fantastic people who’d give my husband and me the shirts off their backs and they’d do anything for our children. When I read about families who are cut off from grandparents or from in-laws it makes me so sad. We would live together if it were convenient – but we try to get together as often as possible. I thank God for my husband’s parents who have taken me as a daughter and have given me what I could not get from my own due to sad circumstances that I will not go into here.”

“My wife’s father is really one of my best friends.”

“I call my mother and my step-mother ‘mom’ since they both do the same things.” (Peter, 11)

“My husband is the kindest man I have ever met.”

“The best gift my father gave me was the appreciation of hard work. He played hard because he worked hard and I find myself wanting to do the same.”