Judgement

I found something today that upset me, though in the end in quite a different manner from how I'd assumed it would.

When your boyfriend receives letters from a woman he had an affair with before you met him, and then chooses not to tell you about these letters, but leaves them lying around in a place where you can easily come across them whilst searching for your missing water bill, what does that mean?

Was leaving them there an oversight?

Did he want me to find them?

Did he simply not consider the letter important, and it slipped his mind to tell me about it, or preferred not to upset me whilst I'm already under stress?

Knowing Andy, and knowing our relationship, which has always been characterised by openness and honesty, I landed on the final option (once I had calmed down, anyway) as the most likely. However, because I'm human, or just an insecure mess, I took another look just to be sure. I'm not proud of that.

Anyway, probably I was right in settling on option three. It's clear from the letter that the relationship is well and truly over, and that he hasn't made contact with this woman since before we got together. That's fine, and does indeed set my mind at rest.

Unfortunately the letter raises another issue, one which has been on my mind lately for other reasons. It appears that certain friends of Andy's would rather we weren't together. I'm being judged by these people as not worthy because I don't share their religious beliefs. And I'm going to hell. And taking him with me.

I suppose it concerns me because these are people he has chosen as friends. He - at least at one point in his life - shared their beliefs. It doesn't seem the same as my few distant relatives who may be unhappy that he's not Jewish. These are people he might well pay attention to.

So I'm scared, and threatened, not by a past relationship with a particular woman, but by the influence his past may have over our future. That the most important relationship in my life may well be built on shifting sand.