I love him but can't trust him

Dear Pastor,

I am having a problem. I am 25 and I have a good job. My boyfriend is 23. We have been friends for over one year. We are not living together. He lives with his mother and sister, but on weekends he stays at my house because I am living alone and my parents are living abroad. I have the whole place for myself and my parents do not want to rent out any of the rooms. My boyfriend generally comes to stay with me from Friday evening and sometimes, if I come home early, I would tell him to come over. He is a good cook, so he cooks and even helps me to wash and clean. The only thing I don't want him to do for me is to wash my panties. However, he has washed them a few times. The first time he went into my laundry basket and took out my panties, I told him he ought not to do it because if people knew that he did so, they would call him a 'maama man'. He said he did not care because I am clean. Pastor, he drives my car. One weekend he was at my house and he told me he wanted to go to a party. One of his male friends was getting married on the Saturday and the guys were having a party for him. I wasn't interested in going because it was just guys who were supposed to be there. I allowed him to use my car as usual, but he had other plans. I went to bed and about 1 a.m. my cell phone rang and I woke up and a female voice said, "I am with your man", and the person hanged up. I called my boyfriend and asked him why he wasn't home and he said he was still at the party. I could not sleep again. He came home at about 2:30 a.m. and he looked so guilty. He denied that he was with a girl, but there were girls at the party. When he took off his pants, I noticed that his underpants were on the wrong side. He couldn't give me a good explanation why that was so.

From that time I don't trust him anymore, but I still love him. I asked him if he used a condom and he said he didn't do anything. I told him I would forgive him if he told me the truth but until now, I can't get the tru vbth out of him. I don't know what to do.

G.R.

Dear G.R.,

It seems to me that you caught this young man and he might as well come clean. If he did not have sex with another woman, why did he have to take off his underpants? He is afraid to tell you the truth. You trusted him, but it seems as if he has misbehaved with another woman. Evidently, wherever he was with this woman was dark and he could not see very well, so he put on his underpants the wrong way. One can say that he has betrayed your trust. Fear is his big problem now. He is afraid that if you were to know the truth you would end the relationship with him. The woman who called you knows about you and when she gave you the news that she was with him, it was her way of testing you or encouraging you to leave him so that she can have him totally. I am not telling you to leave this young man. He might never tell you the truth, but what you need to do is to cease having sexual intercourse with him and demand that he does tests for HIV and all sexually transmitted diseases. The second step is that you should insist that both of you make an appointment to see a family counsellor.

Pastor