Hmmm. You said that he has the potential of robbing you of the love of your life. Of course you would be concerned if she's going to be spending the night with him. Any normal person would be.

No answers, just lots of questions....

1) Can you trust her?

2) Even better, can she trust herself?

3) I don't remember reading it in the post, but were there any romantic inclinations between them in her past?

4) Can your relationship with her survive the weekend?

Even if you pretend everything's ok as Huttog suggests, in YOUR mind you will always wonder what really happened while they were together.

I don't pretend to understand the female psyche, but I do know they have a way of manipulating a situation so it ends up being the guy's fault. If you say something about it, then she says you're insecure, but if you don't say anything, then she says you don't really care about her. It's the darned if you do, darned if you don't dilemma. (Hmmm. Kind of sounds like a paradoxical oscillation doesn't it?)

If she's as intuitive as you say, then she must know that you're uncomfortable with the mere mention of him. And if she knows you're uncomfortable, then she's disrespecting you every time she does it. Have you considered the possibility that by bringing him up in conversation that she might just be testing you? And by going to spend the weekend with him it's an even bigger test?

If the roles were reversed, do you think she would let you go alone to sleep in a cave with another woman? No way! Most women would threaten to end the relationship at the mere thought of it.

Maybe you can do something right before her trip that will etch YOU in her mind so if she even considers anything with this guy, she'll think of you first. A really memorable evening perhaps? I don't know exactly how you would go about it, but as an example, to get children to self-monitor, I get them to volunteer to give me something they consider important in the event they they should misbehave. That way if they even think about doing something wrong, they have to consider the loss of something they really enjoy first.

One final question. If the two of you are in a relationship, and it's supposed to be just a casual friendship with this other guy, then why aren't you going with her? Going camping in a cave sounds like fun, so maybe you should go too! Not to play bodyguard, but because the trip sounds like a good time and you want to do fun things with her. Not only that, it would allow you to finally meet him. It's the perfect opportunity. He could see that she loves you and once you get to know him you might not be so threatened by him. You might even become friends!

At the very least, hopefully you can agree to full disclosure for the weekend. If she comes back and appears distant or obfuscates, only then is it really time to be concerned.

[This message has been edited by Glenwood (edited May 16, 2002).]