Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Rocky Road Relationship

A close friend of mine has been married for about 12 years, and to say it's been up and down is probably an understatement, but I've tried to be supportive.

Yesterday, she called me from Arizona in tears, making me frantic because we're separated by so many states.  Her husband has been getting late night calls, which he refuses to explain, and every morning he takes his phone into the bathroom between 7:15am - 8:15am for God knows what.  Well later that day, he asked her to call his phone to verify that it was working properly.  As the phone was ringing, she observed him doing something strange.  When she asked him what he was doing, he admitted that moving forward, to make outbound calls or to receive inbound calls, he had to go through the extra step of adding a code.

I admit that I was stumped, and didn't know what to say.  Initially, my thought was that I didn't know you could even do such a thing with a phone.  Then I thought that he had to be hiding something, particularly based on his previous behavior of getting mysterious calls in the middle of the night, but perhaps there was something I'm missing.  All I could do was calm her down and let her know everything was going to be fine.  Part of me wanted to tell her to get out of the relationship because he clearly doesn't respect her, but I didn't.  I tried to share a funny comment, but couldn't. Still, what is the right thing to do or say in a situation like this?  What could be really going on? Thoughts?

5 comments:

  1. His behavior is suspicious, and putting a code on his phone is obviously insurance against her answering or looking through his phone. That's the only thing I can come up with. It's hard to give advice in these types of situations. If you offer your opinion, she may take it and be thankful. Then again sometimes doing that can cause them to be defensive and resentful to the person who offered their opinion. My advice.. Just be as supportive a friend as you can,and be there for her when she needs you. That's the only thing I can think of. Luck to you both.

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  2. Gosh. It's a tricky one. If she has the confidence, I'd say- confront him. But from a friend's perspective, all you can do is be supportive and be there for her if she needs you.

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  3. Thanks so much Deborah and Tawania! I appreciate you taking the time to respond with such awesome advice. Stay tuned...

    Hugs

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    1. There may be more to this story let's see how it plays out maybe he just thought it best to use the code to avoid drama what you don't know can't hurt you expecially if you are making false assumptions that in itself can be very stressful

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  4. Hey There Nook! Yes there may be more to the story, but if there are already what appear to be trust issues in this relationship, I would think the man would wish to reduce the stress and drama by allowing his life to be an open book to his partner, perhaps showing his commitment to regrow or save the relationship. Now it looks as if the wife is feeling the stress wondering what the man she loves may be hiding regarding his phone calls and the unknown. But, again, I'm not expert(lol) just concerned for a very upset friend. Thanks so much for your valuable feedback!

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