Q: I'd like to know what your opinion is of my husband of almost 20 years. He's in his late thirties and has become good friends with a younger female who named him her child's godfather. He only talks to her when I'm not around, and I've never even met her. I've confronted them both on the phone and they lie about who called who. This secret friendship, as I call it, has been going on for several years now despite my hurt feelings and suspicions that I've voiced to my husband. In your opinion, would you think that they have been intimate? -- Amy, 42

A: I'm the suspicious sort, having experienced a lot and having heard it all via this column. So, yes, I would suspect your husband and his young female friend have been lovers. If they weren't doing something they didn't want you to find out about, there would be no need for all the secrecy and lies. He also would have introduced you by now to this mother and the child for whom he is godfather. I would be very suspicious, in fact. "If you love me and want to stay married to me," I would say, "I want to meet this woman now. I want the secrets and lies to stop." The husband of a friend of my mother's just died at age 80, and his life-long non-questioning wife has discovered a secret life he'd been leading with other women for a great many years. It's very sad. You owe it to yourself to push for more openness, or else be prepared to feel like a fool.