Okay, <p>WS has chosen ME....called the OM ended it. Moved home and everyone is excited about "us" working on our marriage. She has told her family and friends and clients shes moving home and seems very excited about it. She says the right things....even seems to show affection and care, we have good conversation....but how do i start to trust again ? How can i trust this is all true ? I have been lied to and betrayed for almost 11 months since D-Day and 19 months since their "A" started. I have heard MANY times i am not talking to him...only she was. <p>She says shes committed to me and our marriage. Like any other WS...IF they want to bad enough...they can maintain contact and noone will know it. I mean WHY make her give up her cell phone....she could call at her work or get a phone card and use that from a payphone or whereever. HOW do you start to trust her. I want to...but am so afraid to. I want to believe what she is telling me...but before we seperated...she also lead me to believe that things were great...but she was onl putting on a show. <p>How do i start to believe this is true ? How do i start to regain trust ? What things that she should do to regain my trust ? Why do i doubt EVERYTHING that goes on with us ? Sometimes i feel so paranoid and i hate that i feel that way. I haven't smoothered her so far since moving home, in fact often times she wonders why i am distant...i don't want to smoother her. <p>Any advice where / how for her to re-start gaining trust ?

Nothing but time and consistancy will help regain trust. <p>Guard your heart. Protect yourself. Your fear shows you are wise. Don't believe what she says, believe her actions. The truth always comes out. My prayer is always: Lord reveal anything in my marriage that needs to be revealed and give me peace if there is nothing. This puts your trust in God and not your W. He ALWAYS reveals.<p>You ask her to give up the cell phone whenever you ask. You ask her to give you passwords to any access you want. You ask her to call you when she leaves the office so you know when to expect her at home. In other words, you ask her to account for all of her time. Let her know you are doing this to catch her doing something right, and regain trust NOT because you don't believe in her. You are not doing it to punish her but to regain and recover your marriage. It won't be like this forever, assure her of that. BUT it takes 5 years to get over an affair and she needs to be willing to do what it takes to restore the marriage.

You sound alot like my situation. Only my husband will still not admit to an "affair" just that he made a bad choice during our separation and found a friend...well someone he thought was a friend. Turned out she really enjoyed contacting me at my job to say all the horrible things they were doing, which he has always denied. It makes it hard because, I have a hotel bill (which he says was her concellation prize to him coming back home to me)....he admitted to sending her roses for her birthday (same weekend as the trip) but insists that it was all him just being macho and trying to look like a man and hide his feelings. Of course, he would like me to believe "his love never ended for me", but yea, right....and I guess he was loving me when he was delivering roses to her. <p>LIke your statement on your signature says, "Happiness is a daily choice to be made !!"...unfortunately, we have now been added to a game our spouses enjoyed so much at one time. Now we are left to find out how to deal with the pain, how to find truth in their words and how to believe in a person we once put our heart and souls into their hands. The pain for me has gotten a bit easier, but I question at times if I am just keeping my mouth shut to avoid what may come flying out of his mouth. Am I just tolerating our marriage now? Am I truelly happy with this man? <p>I know your pain...hang in there and search for that little bit of happiness....you may enjoy it and may soon be looking for more. With time, the pain will ease and if your spouse is willing to deal with the truths of what she has brought to your marriage then one day the marriage will probably be stronger than ever. At least, that's my goal with my husband....sometimes....much easier said than done.<p>Hang in there....LETI

Sad Daddy,<p>Why don't you ask her?? This can be done in a non-Lb way. So ask her how the TWO of you are going to rebuild the trust which is necessary in a marriage. However, as Harley points out, it is foolish to trust completely. One should keep their eyes open.<p>If you ask this question, you need to have some idea what it would take from your point of view. But the short answer is you don't trust. You work on your marriage.<p>Let me explain my thinking abit. What is trust? It is the ability to look at past behavior and predict what will happen in certain situations in the future. How do you get this ability? From past experience. The more a person acts a certain way the more you can TRUST that they will continue to act this way.<p>So let's take a look at your situation. Your W was trustworthy for quite awhile so you trusted her. Then she had the affair and you can still trust her. You can trust from past behavior that what she says is not what she does. Take it to the bank. But, you don't want that sort of W right?<p>So the option is to explain to your W what sort of woman you want to be married to (just as you probably did when you were dating), if she agrees this is a good model, then the two of you set out a plan to produce behavior that leads to you being comfortable that when you trust you are trusting the behavior is something you BOTH want. It will take data for this trust to come, and she can produce that data if she so desires. It is reallly up to you and her.<p>But, be warned it isn't fair to ignore years of data that suggest that she is capable of acting a certain way, and hopefully years of data from now on, but recall only the 11 months of data that is now current but will become history as you two recover.<p>This discussion needs to be very passionless, but very direct. Both of you need to agree as to the type of behavior you want in your marriage, and then begin to build the data base so that accurate predictions can be made (ie you can trust her again and she can trust you to behave as you both have agreed).<p>Hope this helps.<p>God Bless,<p>JL

SD,<p>This is the very question that I'm grappling with right now too. I definitely feel your pain.<p>My W said something to me several months ago that threw me for a loop initially. She said that she couldn't trust ME. I couldn't believe what she'd just said..... she had an affair, and she couldn't trust ME?!?!?!<p>But then I got smacked around her on the boards, and talked to Steve about it and it really makes sense. I am 50% responsible, as are we all, for the state of our marriage leading up to the A (probably more). I wasn't being very trustworthy in the protection of our marriage and love, and for that reason, her needs began to be met elsewhere. In a very large way, >>>I<<< failed >>>her<<<.<p>So what do I (we) need to do? I need to identify what I did wrong (mostly done), and I need to consistently do better (and hopefully I am). It's just the same with our wives.... In time, with consistency, and patience, we'll believe in their trustworthiness again.<p>'Course it DOES help when she says things like she thinks we're going to make it. [img]images/icons/smile.gif" border="0[/img] <p>SadDad, if you find your answers, please share them with me/us. I, for one, would be very interested and I'm sure others are asking the same questions.<p>Thanks for the topic,
K

Kevco, <p>That's the thing though. I realize the things you are saying. I have changed me...so as not to repeat my same mistakes (marriage in the past). She acknowledges it. She does some of the right things. She tells me she loves me alot...something we never really did in the past. She told me she was sorry. She also thanked me for waiting on her to decide what she wanted. <p>I told her that once she moved home that there would be no in-outs...She responded to me."There will be no more outs in our marriage". She is making all kinds of plans on things to finish around our new house. She is excitedly telling everyone that she is home. She told a friend she was going home and the friend said something about how nice that would be for our kids. My wife confided in ME that what she wanted to say was "I didn't go home for them...i went home for Sad Daddy !! "...it even seemed to bother her that people would think she would go home strictly for the kids. <p>I guess my problem is that i don't KNOW that she isn't talking to him. She doesn't say. She doesn't show me her cell phone and i haven't asked. She said she would get rid of it if i wanted her to. Should i ask if she's had contact ? Could i even believe her answer ? I guess i am afraid that I have changed...but maybe she won't. I will meet her needs and she will once again ignore mine. <p>What about the fact that i waited all this time for HER...was the proverbial doormat for almost a year...and she comes back at her choosing...does she now think she can do anything she wants to me and i will take it ? <p>Whoever said this was easy was lieing !! LOL

I don't remember anyone saying it's easy. Before separating, I had my wife and I sit down and outline the "terms" of our separation. We put a final end date on it. We noted that the goal, the purpose of the separation is for me to sort through my feelings and put some distance between me and the affair. We noted that for her it was to reflect and figure out why she did what she did. We also made some goals for ourselves for self-improvement and asked if we had goals for the other person. We also put "Deal Breakers"... for both of us... contacting Them. <p>Since she has left, I have had nightmares and daymares about her calling him. I have been eaten alive with anxiety and several nights ended up taking sleeping pills because of it. When we talk, I try to gently remind her that if he/they call that she is supposed to hang up and call me immediately. Usually at that point, she reassures me that she hasn't called them or been contacted. But, I struggle believing her. I have also told her that it is my single greatest fear at this time and that if she is serious about rebuilding our marriage, it is important to me that she sticks to the deal. <p>She signed the cards and so did I. I suppose one of the hardest challenges for us is trusting our spouses in these seemingly "small" things.

SD,<p> <blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>That's the thing though. I realize the things you are saying. I have changed me...so as not to repeat my same mistakes (marriage in the past). She acknowledges it. She does some of the right things. She tells me she loves me alot...something we never really did in the past. She told me she was sorry. She also thanked me for waiting on her to decide what she wanted <hr></blockquote><p>I think that's a good start. That, with time, patience, and prayer, will hopefully payoff. I think that setting clear boundaries as Lyxa has stated is a good idea. COMMUNICATE!<p>If you're having feelings of anxiety, talk about them with your wife. Ask to see her cell phone, if for no other reason than to ease your mind. Ask her to please bear with you while you try to rekindle the trust.... that's the biggest thing with me too. That's the worst betrayal as far as I'm concerned, and it stands in my road too.<p>I have to go now, but I'll be checking back in later for more.<p>K