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Dear Breakup Girl,

I have been happily married for two years, and I'm a stay-at-home mom. The other day, I happened to glance (well...I admit I picked it up!) at a pile of paperwork that my husband had left on the kitchen table. I read some writing that he had on the back of an envelope, and it was hard to decipher, although what I did see was unsettling. There were several "sexual" words, and they sounded like they were possibly directed toward someone at work. I also saw "find out" and "do both at same time." He claims it was all nonsense that he was writing to look busy, yet he refuses to read it to me or tell me all that it all says. I don't want to seem paranoid or jealous, and I really do not think he is cheating because I talk to him often during the day, and he is always at home when not working. Help! Do I trust him and believe it was taken out of context, or should I try to find out if there is more going on that I don't know about?

--Tifany

Dear Tifany,

I know many people scribble To Do lists in their spare or must-look-busy moments, but not that kind of To Do list .

Now, I don't want to overreact either, but what's stuck in my craw is the fact that he's not scrambling to take the stand in his own defense and explain it away -- or heck, even to lie ("No, sweetie, 'gazongas' is one of those new corporate buzzwords!'"). This means either that he has absolutely nothing to hide, or something.

Still, even "something" might be -- relatively -- nothing. Let's say, gulp, he is fantasizing about someone at work. Well, sex/marriage experts will often say that any fantasies -- even ones a partner might not want to see the Cliffs Notes of -- are healthy...as long as they don't intrude illegally into real life. A relationship with one doesn't preclude fantasies about others, nor vice versa; some say they even enchance. So in theory one can, as it were, "do both at the same time."

But this thing is a Thing now, no matter what pushed his pen that day. Do a general check-in, with each other and yourself. Everything okay? Do you guys need more stuff going on in your lives, married and separate, than work and home alone together? Have things changed since you became parents? Did you flip through those papers in the idle random way one opens a party host's medicine cabinet, or because something was already niggling? Do/did you trust him without confirmation of his whereabouts? This may not spell disaster, Tifany. But do think of it as an opportunity to read between the lines instead of squinting at the words.

Love,
Breakup Girl

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