By Aunty Julie

Dear Julie,

My husband and I appear to have the perfect marriage and family that everyone wanted. In fact, many people said so. The truth is, it was not as great as they or I thought. He is successful in his job and his colleagues speak very highly of him. By chance, I discovered that he had been sending sexually explicit photographs to a woman he works with. I had met her a couple of times but never thought she could rival me for my husband’s affection.

He says he has broken off contact, but I still think about her all the time. How can I trust him again. He would describe other people doing this sort of thing as very seedy, so why would he do it. If he had been going out with her, that would have made more sense. I hate the thought of him sending pornographic photos to another woman. I now ask myself, do I really know him. How can I move on.

Bidemi, Delta

Dear Bidemi,

If you and your husband are both completely, extremely, 100% serious about working on your marriage, then you need to get yourselves to couples therapy. It will be a safe place for you and your husband to healthfully explore what may have led and contributed to his emotional affairs. And yes, I do believe that he was emotionally straying from you, at the very least.By all accounts, you define his sexting as cheating on you and the thing about cheating that you must keep in mind is that sometimes, it isn’t possible for someone to forgive and forget.

You’ve asked a lot of pointed questions — “How could he keep doing that knowing how it affected every part of our life and was getting in the way of our supposed happy family? How can I ever look back on any good memories and be anything but sad? And how can I ever remember all the lies and be OK with them?” And the truth is ,you may not be able to move on from this, to recover from it, or to be OK. Your job is to figure out what you can accept, and move on from.

If you’re the kind of person for which cheating completely dashes your trust in someone; if it’s going to make you crazy with worry and suspcision; if you’re going to start snooping and lashing out; if it’s going to do negative things for your mental health, then you’re likely not going to be able to make a relationship work. Some people can forgive and forget. So ask yourself if you think you can. Can you not snoop through his phone?

Can you be at peace when you don’t know where he might be going or with whom? Will you eventually stop worrying about his straying? And, for his part, does he make a concerted effort to change? Can you tell that he’s dedicated to the marriage? Does he seem remorseful? Is he making strides to really and truly become a more evolved person in your marriage? These are questions you can answer through time, observation and in therapy. Your answers to them will determine whether or not you two can make this work.