Dear Prudence,
I’m not sure how to resolve a conflict where neither of us are “wrong.” The other day, my boyfriend saw a mark on my ribs just under my bust that he thought looked like a hickey. He knew he hadn’t given it to me, and when he asked me what it was I didn’t know—it didn’t hurt and I hadn’t noticed it. This made him furious because in his words, he would have believed that it wasn’t a hickey if there was a reasonable explanation, but what was he supposed to think if I just shrugged him off? I got upset at being accused of cheating and said I don’t have an explanation for every bump and bruise on my body, but he should trust me enough to not assume I was cheating. We couldn’t give each other a satisfactory answer so we just redressed and went to sleep.
When I was getting dressed the next day, I noticed the underwire in my bra had snapped and the bruise was where the pointy end was sticking into my skin. I texted him a very short and angry message about whether this was a good enough explanation for him, but hours later I’m thinking from his point of view and I think I was too hard on him. The bruise kind of did look like a small hickey, and as an avid reader of this column, if he had written in asking if my dismissal and lack of explanation was suspicious, I could see it looking that way from the outside. But he’s not on the outside, he’s been dating me for more than two years and should trust me. Is this a red flag for our relationship or an overblown misunderstanding on both our parts?
—Snapped