I fear my long-distance girlfriend is cheating on me with her best mate

DEAR DEIDRE: I FEAR my my girlfriend is cheating on me with her male best mate.

Our relationship became long-distance earlier this year, and I reckon he moved in on her even before our bed was cold.

I’m 28 and my girlfriend is 27. We’ve been together for five years. Her best mate is 29.

Earlier this year, I was offered a great job opportunity with a much better salary a couple of hundred miles away — and we agreed I should take it.

We’ve been saving for a flat deposit, and doing this new job for a year will mean I can save enough to help us buy somewhere together.

My girlfriend couldn’t move with me because of her job and family commitments.

Since we’ve been apart, we’ve spoken every day, and visited each other every few weeks.

My issue — and it’s become a serious one as the months have gone by — is that she has a male best friend, who she’s known since childhood.

At first, I was jealous of him — particularly when I found out he’d been interested in her years ago and they had even kissed.

But she told me that even though everyone — even her mum — said they should be a couple, he wasn’t for her, and she loved him just as a friend.

Eventually, he and I became friends, too. But over the past few months, I’ve become more and more suspicious about them.

I feel there’s a growing distance between me and my girlfriend, and every time I call her he is there.

Sometimes she doesn’t pick up.

She’s told me he’s stayed over a couple of times, and I feel really uneasy about it.

It was fine when I was around, but it feels wrong now I’m not. I’m sure he wanted something to happen with her, and now I’m out of the way, he has the perfect opportunity.

Am I just being jealous and insecure or do I have reason to feel this way?

DEIDRE SAYS: It’s hard not to become jealous when your relationship is long-distance.

But her not picking up the phone immediately, or letting her best mate stay over – which he’d done before – and telling you about it, should not be giving you reason to feel so anxious.

This is about your own insecurity and the fact, as you say, that you sense a growing distance between you and your girlfriend. You need to talk to her and get her reassurance.

Perhaps you’re feeling lonely because you’re so far away from her, or maybe you feel the job isn’t working out.

Be honest with each other about your feelings and see if you can arrange to see each other more often.