I will try to keep this short but explain my history. I have been married for 9years and living together 3years. This is my first marriage my h second. About 2years ago my H said he didn't want to be married anymore he wasn't happy. We went through marriage counciling and I was crushed. We have two daughters, so I was also scared. He didn't have one happy thought about us. I tryed and tryed to fix it and it was a nightmare. He also talked to two diffrent women on the phone. One was a exgirlfriend and lives out of state. The other was his ex wife!!! I was very hurt that he would betray me like that. I was to blame because I wasn't feeling his love bank. Well one day he started to work at our relationship and decided he wanted to stay. The marriage counciler said we would be fine. He now say he loves me so much and couldn't imagine his life without me. My problem is I have trust issue now because he went behind my back before how will I know if he will not do it again. I don't want to keep harping on this and miss out on a happy life. How do you move on and trust again. Any advice on in sight. I feel if I talk to him about my insecurity he will say I try so hard to make you happy and here we go again.

I'm sorry that you're in this position, and I'm glad you're here! Unfortunately, this type of thing takes time. I've been cheated on (albeit a long time ago) and have been the cheater, so my sense of trust is knocked completely out of whack. In fact, more recently, I even find myself go on a distrust-frenzy (i.e. rooting through my H's emails, mail, vm, etc. to try to find some shred of evidence that doesn't exist) when all the while I was the dishonest one. But, if your H and your M is as good as you say and the 2 of you continue to work to get it even better, in time, you'll get that trust back. I know. I've been there.

In the meantime, try this ... the one thing that my IC taught me when the ugly distrust-frenzy rears its ugly head is to repeat the following phrases over and over in my head until I can focus on something else: "I don't want to think about that right now" or "I choose to live a fun, happy, honorable life, I choose my marriage." The logic behind these phrases or affirmations is that no one can think 2 thoughts at 1 time. Plus, it's a matter of mind over matter. Read a book called Sense Ability by Doris Wild Helmering. It's very easy reading, and I think it will help tremendously.

Good luck,

Whisper

Welcome to marriagebuilders. As you read here, you will see that lots of marriages go through what yours did. Now it seems like your husband is back on track. That is very good.

It will take some time, and some work, but you can get your positive feelings back. Just stick with us. Also you might do some reading on the recovery board. There is a lot of help there too.

Believe your over the trust issue, tell yourself your bieng silly, but also never ignore your intuitions. If you feel it then it may just be. Forgiveness is not about turning a blind eye, its not beliving he'll never do it again, trust is knowing that he doesn't want to do it again. Ask yourself if you are 100% sure if you'll never hurt your h again! There's your answer.
So if he's saying he doesn't want to ever hurt you again then that is what you have to trust, don't rely on him never hurting you again just believe he never wanted or wants to.

We as people are not in the business of knowingly hurting our spouses we just do. If we could buy the perfect relashionship pill we would have taken it faithfully along with our marriage vows but as people we make mistakes, we get sidetracked and lose our ways, haven't you?

He's telling you he couldn't picture his life without you and that he loves you so much, is that not what you were wanting before? Trust him, love him and keep doing all the things that have helped him get to this point. Keep up the hard work and forge your new lives together!

ladyone, it is not up to YOU to rebuild trust, but up to HIM. He has to earn your trust in order to get it. What has he done to earn your trust back?

this is what worked for me.....

visualize the rebuilding of trust as building a pyramid

the first level must be the base of your trust .. a solid foundation you can rely on

this is your trust in your personal God (higher power, whatever this means to you personally)

the second level of the pyramid is your trust in yourself and your ability to survive the hardships that life will bring

the third level of trust is trust in others
others who have earned the honor to be a part of your trust pyramid by their consistency of honesty and right behavior

if you cannot trust your H it may be because you do not fully trust yourself

if you do not fully trust yourself it may be because you do not fully trust the God you believe in

that's how I worked it out for myself

you can make any modifications that suit your particular needs

Pep<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

Ladyone,

It isn’t enough if your H just reassure you that he won’t betray you again... He must first dig deep inside himself to discover WHY he did what he did and what lead him to make these poor choices in the first place… But before I go further, let me say the following:

IMO WS’s stray and become vulnerable to affairs because of the following reasons:
1) Unmet EN’s and/or problems in a M
2) Pure selfishness and/or a character flaws and/or lack of morals.
3) For reasons/ circumstances other than problems/issues within the M e.g. personal problems/issues and baggage a person bring into the marriage and/or personal weaknesses & vulnerabilities and/or failure of WS to protect themselves against their own weaknesses/vulnerabilities.
4) Combination of the above.

Your H needs to discover (through intense introspection and/or with the help of IC) what of the above is applicable on him (you can’t begin to fix something until you know what is the problem). After he has discovered the above, he needs to share these information with you and lastly but most importantly, he needs to take pro-active steps to correct the things that lead him to have the A's (as I've outlined above) and/or put personal boundaries in place to protect himself from his own weaknesses/vulnerabilities. If your H are not going to do these things, he can become vulnerable to an A again (no matter his good intentions, reassurances etc.).

Also (and to help you with your recovery) your H must also be willing to answer ALL your questions about the A honestly and openly. H must be totally open about his daily activities, e-mail, cell phone etc. In other words, he must become totally transparent.

Only if your H starts to do these things, you can begin to trust him again and rebuild your M. I believe personal recovery come before marital recovery and that’s the other reason why your H needs to discover why he did what he did and take corrective and/or preventive actions.

Hope this could help, <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
Suzet

Ladyone,

To add to Suzet great post above, the late Dr Shirley Glass PhD [author of the book 'Not just friends'] stated repeatedly that even spouses who considered their marriages good and happy ones prior to their affairs, still fell into affairs when they crossed marital boundaries [i.e. spend too much time alone with another man/woman, confide your personal life with another man/woman, confess your attraction to another man/woman, lie to your H/W about your friendship with another man/woman, etc.]. So one good way for your H to start regaining your trust is to:

1. Become aware of the marital boundaries and do everything in his power to avoid crossing them.

2. And report to you of situations that arose when he was away from you in which he had the opportunity to cross them but chose not to.

3. Follow the points 2 and 3 yourself for it would be foolish for you to beleive that you cannot fall into an affair of your own at some later time when you have left MB and forgotten all it's wise knowledge [it has happened to quite a few BS who were once MB regulars]. Not to mention, you would also be showing to your H that what you ask of him is something that you also ask of yourself as well.

TMCM