Love life: Is he really cheating or are you insecure?

Every woman’s experienced it. That moment when you have a sinking feeling in your tummy that your significant other is up to some mischief. Maybe you felt that he was running around with yet another youngling, was drinking more than he was admitting, or that he was gambling that money you have been saving to put up a mortgage. You felt it and you turned out to be right.

Women are encouraged to trust this gut feeling, especially in relationship scenarios and as a result, they believe that this little voice at the back of their heads could never go wrong. Case in point, 33-year-old Beatrice Muleya.

Mid last year, she got a hunch that her husband was stepping out on her.

 “Not that he changed how he treated me, it was more of a deep feeling that he was sneaking around. And I am not the kind that keeps their men on a short leash, by the way,” she says.

Convinced that her husband of seven years was hiding something, she began investigating him. First, she paid attention to the little details, how often he was working out at the gym, how often he was buying new clothes and then his comings and goings out of their home. When she was sure that something was off, she bought an extra phone, installed a tracking app and hid it in his car.

Soon enough, her tracker unearthed what she thought was evidence at the time. Most evenings after work, he would drive to a particular location.

“I was sure I had nailed him. I was so angry,” she recalls.

Armed with her hard ‘evidence’ she confronted him in a nasty fight. He denied it at first. When she kept pushing him, he admitted that he had just bought a home for them and was working on renovating it before he could surprise her and their three children. This house is where they live today.

“I felt very stupid. And I think my tracking him broke our relationship a little bit. He isn’t quite as accessible emotionally as he was before all this,” she says.

 “My radar sensed that something was off but my insecurities led me to mishandle the situation. Given a chance, I would do it differently,” she says.

Are you confusing it with something else?

 Intuition usually is neutral. Like in Beatrice’s case, emotions can affect one’s ability to accurately perceive your intuition. Intuition can be overridden by doubt and paranoia.

Beatrice traces her high antennae back to a bad relationship in her past.

“He was my first love. He is the father of my first born. That man slept with anything that moved. He slept with my friends, a cousin and even his mother’s house help. The interesting thing is that every time it happened, I sensed it before catching him,” she recalls.

In subsequent relationships, every time she had that feeling in her tummy, she believed that something must be wrong. The take away from her experience would be, gut feelings shouldn’t be ignored. On the flip side, do not use your intuition to compensate for poor communication with your significant other. Listen to your gut then communicate your concerns to your man. It could be your insecurities talking.