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Should Sienna stay or should she go?
Jude Law has apologised to fiancee Sienna Miller after admitting being unfaithful - but, asks
Emma Pomfret, is that enough to save their relationship?
21 July 2005
Ever since their romantic Christmas Day engagement last year, Hollywood heart-throb Jude Law and his actress fiancee Sienna Miller (right) have been dubbed the nation's hottest celebrity couple.
But the much-envied relationship has turned out to be less than perfect, after an 'ashamed' Jude was forced to apologise to his heartbroken lover following revelations of a month-long fling with his children's nanny - just 12 weeks after he proposed.
A shocked and angry Sienna has already been pictured without her distinctive diamond engagement ring, and the 23-year-old star has pulled out of her role as Celia in the West End's As You Like It.
Her 32-year-old fiance admitted seducing nanny Daisy Wright. Despite initially blaming Sienna's exhausting work schedule for the affair, in an official statement Jude said that he wanted to "publicly apologise to Sienna and our respective families for the pain that I have caused". He added: "There is no defence for my actions, which I sincerely regret, and I ask that you respect our privacy at this very difficult time."
The actor - who has three young children, Rafferty, Iris, and Rudy, with his ex-wife, fashion designer Sadie Frost - began the whirlwind romance with Miller when he met her on the set of Alfie in 2003.
"One of the reasons that Sienna didn't manage to spot Jude's infidelity herself is that the nanny was part of the arrangements with his former wife, and so probably wasn't really around enough to rouse Sienna's suspicions," says Relate counsellor Zelda West-Meads.
"Since Sienna was working very hard and was under so much pressure with her acting career, she was perhaps preoccupied with that and simply didn't see - or want to see - what was happening under her nose."
But, as West-Meads explains: "If he is a serial philanderer, then he'd be rather skilled at pulling the wool over his partner's eyes".
She adds: "It often comes down to a fundamental fear of commitment - it doesn't mean that they never want to commit, but part of them is frightened to get too involved."
West-Meads says that there are some common give-away signs to look out for if you suspect your partner of cheating on you.
"Your partner can become quite critical of you," West-Meads explains. "In fact, blaming your partner, as Jude did with Sienna, is also a common strategy used by the unfaithful party to assuage their own guilt about the affair.
"They can also become rather remote from you and start coming home later than usual, make excuses when you try to arrange to do anything together, or go to the gym or the bar after work more often than normal.
"As soon as their mobile rings, they jump to answer it and will often conduct the conversation outside the earshot of their partner."
West-Meads says your partner may also either show a diminished interest in sex or, conversely, begin to initiate new sexual techniques.
"And, although trust can be rebuilt," she adds, "it is never quite the same again and there is always what I call a tiny 'credibility gap' - if trust can't be rebuilt to a reasonable degree, the relationship will fail at a later stage. You also need to look at your partner's track record and, if there is a consistent pattern of unfaithfulness, you need to be wary."
However, West- Meads says that although talking things through can help to rebuild trust, it takes a lot of time and effort.
"But," she warns, "if, like Sienna, you've only been engaged a short time, you are very young and the man has been unfaithful within a year, you should think very, very carefully about whether that relationship is actually worth saving."