Dear Diva Rebecca,

I am in a three year relationship with an older man. I had a feeling and checked my man's text messages on his cell phone. Sure enough there were some more then friendly messages to his so-called "female friend from college". He was saying how he thinks about her and so on! Now I am mad and want to flip but I don't want to look like a snooper! Should I just leave him alone and make up a reason or tell him what I found? He obliviously is not the one! And we have been talking about marriage lately!! Help me, I want to handle this in a Diva way! Thank you.

Sincerely,

The Suspecting Snooper,
New York, New York

Dear Suspecting Snooper,

What I have learned in these types of scenarios is to NEVER jump to conclusions.

Before I get into that, I should also inform you that snooping never helps a relationship. Actually, snooping is very bad. Usually, you will always find something you do not like. And it could be completely innocent. But because you are riled up and intent on finding bad news, it become easy to let better judgment get skewed and you see things in an irrational way. The reason why we snoop is usually because of two reasons:

1) You subconsciously or quite consciously know you are in a bad relationship and are looking for an easy way out. If you find evidence that he has been cheating or dishonest, you have a created a reason which can be blamed on him for the easy way out. This keeps us in the good light. This is actually the coward's way out. We should all be able to break up with our significant other based on our own feelings instead of looking for something to blame on him.

2) You are looking for positive reaffirmation that you are the one he wants to be with. If you find something that may challenge the relationship in any way, you have created a situation that calls for him to apologize and make it up to you. This is sort of a passive aggressive technique for attention.

In the end snooping will always cause more problems. Eventually you will find something you do not like and then you will have to bring it up to him. It is too hard to hold inside. He will ask how you found out and it will be understood that you were snooping. Snooping is the same thing as spying and it is just as egregious as lying. He will begin to trust you less and less and then there goes the relationship. With any relationship, there needs to be trust.

However, if you do snoop and find out for sure that he has been a dirty cheating son-of-a-bitch, dump his ass on the corner where it belongs and never look back.

With regards to the text messages you found, you did not say that it was anything more that the fact that he was thinking about her. But I might have misunderstood, it could have been worse than that. Okay, there are thousands of innocent reasons why he could have been thinking about her. This is why you can not jump to conclusions. When you find something like this, and it is completely innocent, your mind starts to build on the scenario. You imagine all sorts of horrible things and it get worse and worse. Pretty soon, in your head, they are having an affair when the fact is, it could have been something as simple as the fact that he was thinking about her because it was her birthday and she is a good friend of his. Conversely, there could be something going on as well and now that you already have this information in your head, you are going to have to say something before you explode.

Just do not immediately accuse. When you do approach him about the problem, be very sweet and all smiles, yet remain composed and be firm and decisive. If he acts evasive or tries to blame you immediately, he is hiding something and is probably being dishonest. If he stutters and tries to think of a plausible excuse or reason, again he is hiding something. If he comes up with a logical explanation very quickly, he is probably telling the truth. If he is cheating, break up with him cleanly and swiftly. You deserve better in your life. If you think he is being honest, apologize for snooping and then make it up to him.

Sincerely,

Diva Rebecca