Is my boyfriend cheating on me or am I just being hormonal?

Question:

Hi,

I'm having trouble figuring out if I'm being paranoid, or if my soon-to-be husband is cheating on me. I'm 8 months pregnant.

I had an episode of angina several days ago. My doctor said it was caused by excessive stress and it could happen again. Now my fiance is being careful with his words and doing anything I ask. I fear that this heart problem will make it even harder for him to admit to doing anything wrong because of the effect it can have on me.

After I found out I was pregnant, we broke up for a month and he got with someone. He said it only happened once and never again. It happened the day after we broke up, or so he says. The person he got with had a boyfriend and I was friends with the boyfriend. After we got back together I still kept checking this guy's Twitter account for some reason. He was always posting bitter stuff and I kind of wanted to see if he found out anything new because I knew he'd make a tweet about it. My fiance found out about it and asked me to promise I wouldn't go on it again. I still go on it occasionally. My fiance wanted me to add him back on Facebook, but I had to block the other guy and everyone he knew on my Facebook, in case someone told him we were back together. When I asked why, he said he didn't want him to know we were having any kind of communication because he thought he'd try to ruin our relationship as revenge -- that he was capable of it. I just don't believe him, I don't know if he wants to keep it hidden in case the guy tells the girl he's with me again, and he doesn't want her to know that.

I've told him I'm paranoid and have openly asked him if he's cheating or not. He gets really angry every time I bring it up, is incredibly defensive and tries to make me think I'm paranoid or crazy, but it doesn't work. I don't believe him. Sometimes he'll work for an extra hour because he got to work late or because he's having problems with his work. I noticed that sometimes, when he says he'll be late, he doesn't try to initiate sex that day. I brought that up to him. We don't live together, and he wants to marry me before the baby is born, but I surely can't even think of that now. For the past two weeks or so, he's been extremely affectionate and tries to initiate sex a lot more often. I don't initiate it, which he hates, and complains that he needs to convince me. The point is that I don't want it, most of the time. I don't know if it's his attempt at making me give up on the idea. I'm just more suspicious.

He keeps repeating that I have no idea how much he loves me and keeps talking about how attractive I am. Could this be because he knows I'm onto him? He does spend his time off work with me. We generally spend a lot of time together, but there have been times when he got a message on his phone or an email and he always says it's from work, but I don't see what it says. If I ask who it is, he'll give me a long answer with work terms he knows I don't understand, such as company names, and I think it might be to make my questions stop.

What I don't understand is that after our breakup, he was desperate to get back to me. He was willing to do anything I asked and nearly went crazy when I kept saying no. After we got back, he would get really worried that I'd leave him after any disagreement we had. If I wasn't with him he'd stay up till crazy hours trying to make me stop being mad and asking me not to leave him. Even now, he gets scared easily, thinking I'll call it off and saying that he needs me. I don't know what to make of it. Why would he want to be with me that badly if he was cheating?

Do I have reasons to be paranoid or am I just hormonal and unstable? How do I act? I don't know the right, Christian way to approach this. The fact that he got with someone who was already in a relationship a day after we broke up (hopefully not before) makes me think he's more morally reprovable than I thought. What would stop him from doing it to me?

Final question, is there a way to talk to him that will make him more likely to tell me, or should I just call it quits? I can't handle the stress of it already, and soon when the baby arrives, I'll have a lot in my head to deal with relationship problems. I fear I can't take it all.

Answer:

You asked about handling this situation in a Christian way while living a life that is against Christ's teachings. "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God" (I Corinthians 6:9-10). You have been committing fornication with this man and yet are upset that when you broke up he continued his fornication with another woman. He is immoral but consistent.

You act as if a declaration of being boyfriend or girlfriend is equivalent to the vows of marriage. They are not. That is why having sex prior to marriage is wrong. When you reprove him, you are condemning yourself as well. "Therefore you have no excuse, everyone of you who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things. And we know that the judgment of God rightly falls upon those who practice such things. But do you suppose this, O man, when you pass judgment on those who practice such things and do the same yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God?" (Romans 2:1-3).

I know you had plans to get married, but you still continue to commit fornication and talk as if it is something expected for unmarried people to do.

Thus, I don't know what to do with the basis of your distrust. You distrust a man for doing with another woman what he has been doing with you -- something he did while he believed you no longer wanted him. What I can say is that the two of you have not developed a foundation of love. True love does not take pleasure in sinning: Love "does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth" (I Corinthians 13:6). True love would forgive a wrong done and no longer bring the matter up: Love "does not take into account a wrong suffered" (I Corinthians 13:5). True love would choose to trust the other person: Love "bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things" (I Corinthians 13:7). These do not describe your relationship.

In regards to the stress, it appears to me that it is of your own making. You are looking for problems and worrying about problems that have no evidence of existing. It appears no matter what your boyfriend does, you manage to find a way to view it as something negative.

If I may, both of you need to reset your relationship first with God and then with each other.

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