Submitted on Sunday, December 30, 2007
By Doll, 24, from UK:

EX WANTS ME BACK - WAS HE CHEATING????

I was with a guy for about 8 months - I'm 24, he's 34. All of a sudden he started acting a little shady/distant...he was having work problems.

One Saturday morning he told me he was busy with a few things - I happen to see him (no joke) walking on the coast with anohter woman (quite a bit older than me) and her dog. I flipped out and approached - he said there's nothing going on - he had just been made redundant the day before, the girl works in recruitment/human resources and he was asking for advice. Turns out she's married and does work for the company he said in recruitment.

Still, he lied to me, and I still don't believe his story - get the niggling feeling he was cheating?????

He then said he needed a break to sort himself out and was going to Europe - turns out he never went.

So, given the above, all the lies, I told him where to go and we're over.

In the past couple of months I've found out he was in some serious family/criminal trouble - obviously didn't want to tell me.

Just last week he sends a massive bouquet of flowers to my house (I still live at home with my parents) and a hand-written letter saying he loves me, misses me, has so much to explain but doesn't know where to start

I've ignored it - threw out the flowers - but it's so hard. I loved this guy, we had spoken about marriage etc, just don't know what to do.

VictorM's advice:

A relationship is not a court of law; you don't need proof of anything to make a decision. You were lied to and now you are following your gut. Good for you. So what if he loves you truly? What good is the love of a man you don't trust?

But, I have to tell you, one of the biggest blows to a man's ego is the loss of a job. It doesn't surprise me that he didn't want to tell you about that and was out looking to find another job. He went to one person who could help him. It just turned out that person is a woman. He could very well be telling the truth about that. However, I suspect you have other reasons to doubt his story, such as the trip to Europe. And family criminal activity? Fishy!

There seems to be enough smoke there to worry about a fire. In a case like this, I tell you: follow your gut.