Leaping Sickness

I thought I was happily married. Recently, I found a cherry Chapstick in my husband's coat pocket -- a kind he'd never buy. He claimed he randomly grabbed it at the drugstore checkout. Last week, he said he'd be visiting his mother at the nursing home, but I later learned he never showed. I asked him about it, and he said work ran over. Additionally, our sex life has picked up, and he's been extra thoughtful lately. Doesn't all of this, put together, scream that he's cheating? How do I confront him?

--Nightmares

You don't expect marrying the man of your dreams to turn your actual dream content into all-night notifications of impending disaster: dozens of inch-high coal miners in tiny hardhats and goggles scaling you and repeatedly jabbing you with cupcake toothpicks topped with little red flags. Are you right to pile these infobits into the verdict your husband's cheating? Maybe -- but maybe not. Evolutionary psychologist Martie Haselton explains that we evolved to be protectively wrong: to err on the safe side, meaning make the least evolutionarily costly error. Suspecting cheating where none actually exists is less genetically costly than shrugging off signs that seem to point to it -- and then possibly losing your man and/or having him funnel his resources away from your kids to those he'd make with some hussypants he's seeing on the side. Confronting your husband -- accusing him of cheating -- is a risky tactic. If he is cheating, he's likely to deny it. If he isn't, your accusation could destroy your relationship. A possibly less risky tactic is evoking his empathy: telling him that, collectively, these infobits triggered fears of losing him. The subject becomes your seeking reassurance (which, P.S., may or may not be truth-backed). If he has been straying, he might be inspired to reevaluate and stop. Might. Over the next few months, observe your husband's behavior -- including that which suggests he loves you and is faithful. Your observations are likely to be inconclusive (compared with finding him in bed with somebody), but if you amass enough information over time, it should begin to point you to some sort of understanding. I personally make peace with the freakouts of life that way; for example, a new mole that (apologies to Judy Blume) seemed to scream: "Are You There, Alkon? It's Me, Malignant Melanoma." One dermatologist visit later: "Hello, drama queen. I'd like to introduce you to your spider bite." ... For pages and pages of "science-help" from me, buy my latest book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence." It lays out the PROCESS of transforming to live w/confidence.