Dear Queenie,
Recently, I discovered something about my partner that has me feeling uneasy. Quite by accident, I found out he is learning another language. Now, before anyone says I am being unreasonable, let me explain. The language has absolutely nothing to do with his work. Nothing to do with our family. Nothing to do with our travel plans. Nothing to do with his heritage. As far as I know, there has never been any interest in this particular language. What made my ears perk up was how I found out. He accidentally mentioned he was learning it. When I asked follow-up questions, he became noticeably uncomfortable. He stumbled over his explanation, became vague, and suddenly seemed unable to explain why he had taken up this new hobby. Eventually, I learned he has been practising with a "friend" through an online platform. Now my imagination is working overtime. Is he learning a language because he enjoys learning languages? Or is he learning a language because of the person teaching it? I am not accusing him of anything. But I know the difference between someone enthusiastically sharing a new interest and someone carefully managing information. Queenie, am I being paranoid, or is it reasonable to question why a grown man suddenly develops a passion for a language that appears to have arrived packaged with a friend? —Lost in Translation
Dear Lost in Translation,
This is one of those situations where the language itself is probably not the issue. The secrecy is. If your partner had marched into the living room announcing: "I've decided to learn Hungarian because I find the grammar fascinating!" you probably would have rolled your eyes and moved on with your day. Instead, what caught your attention was the hesitation. The stumbling. The sense that a simple question somehow became a complicated answer. That is what your instincts are reacting to. Now, let us be careful. Learning a language because of another person is not automatically suspicious. People take up hobbies because of friends all the time. Golf. Yoga. Cycling. Pickleball. The difference is that most people can comfortably explain how they got interested. When someone becomes evasive, our brains naturally begin filling in the blanks. And the blanks are almost always worse than reality. So before you conclude that your partner is starring in an international romance, consider another possibility: He may have realized, in the moment, how odd the situation sounded and became nervous. Unfortunately, nervous people often look guilty even when they are not. What concerns me more is that you seem less troubled by the language than by the feeling that you are not getting the full story. That deserves attention. Not because of Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish, or whatever language is involved. But because trust relies on openness. My advice? Stay curious rather than accusatory. Ask: "What made you interested in that language in the first place?" And then listen. The answer may tell you far more than the language ever could. And if he starts conjugating verbs every night while smiling at his phone... well, then perhaps revisit the conversation. —Queenie
