This is why you check his phone

I remember it so well. I had fresh traffic with my current love. My great love that preceded a really nice man, but someone who took marriage fidelity a bit less seriously. Let alone if you weren't married. Anyway. That trust of mine, it had a dent. A dent. A ravine.

As if that wasn't bad enough, he coached presenters. Sylvie Meis, Renate Verbaan and so on. All part of the young, beautiful, and stunning group with unlimited access to the coolest clothes and always perfect hair and the right eyebrows (because they were of course in makeup all day, I thought). I could see green with jealousy. At a music event where he coached the host, I was there. The presenter had temporarily stored her suitcases in his room because her room wasn't ready yet. Completely logical, I think now. The sign that she wanted to sleep with him that night, I thought then. After the recordings, we went for drinks together. The presenter in question turned out to be super nice. And beautiful. And lesbian. By the way, these are questions you shouldn't ask if someone is a lesbian.

Then I decided that it had to stop with my behavior. He was with me, he had chosen me. We had (and have) a great time and if he were to become unhappy, I would notice.

Yet it's typically something of us. Asking questions: ‘Who were you with?’ ‘What did you talk about?’ or the deadly: ‘What are you thinking about?’. As if he would seriously answer that question if he was really thinking about a threesome with your best friend and the neighbor at the same time. In Happinez, relationship therapist Esther Perel writes about this phenomenon. Because luckily you are just as bad as I am if I have to believe Esther. That these questions don't help your relationship seems clear to me. But what should we do then?

Esther's advice:

1. Ask yourself where your suspicion comes from

Has your partner ever cheated? Are you perhaps open to others yourself? Was your father a cheater? Your ex? In short, try to distill where your feeling of insecurity comes from.

2. Name it

Say that it may come across as very unkind and distrustful, but that you feel a certain form of jealousy within yourself. Explain the situation in which this occurred so that he can alleviate your distrust. Maybe there is indeed something, but probably everything is based on a misunderstanding. Keep it to yourself. You are jealous, don't blame him for that. In my case, my love could alleviate it and he also found it somewhat cute. Apparently, I was afraid of losing him.

3. Don't want to know everything

As Esther puts it: fire needs oxygen, a relationship does too. Accept that you don't know everything about your partner. That simply can't be and by asking these kinds of questions, you don't make it any more enjoyable. So keep your mouth shut and cherish the mystery, that will only keep the love burning.

P.S.: If you really have hard suspicions, then you may go investigate. Phone check, email: everything. But usually, we are just rambling and whining.