I'm having a tremendous amount of difficulty with the trust issue regarding my attempts to rebuild my marriage. D-day was May 11 and on June 19 I discovered my wife was still in contact with her partner in adultery and had been outright lying about it. I can only verify phone contact but who knows? Even if it was just over the phone the knowlege that my wife was continuing a relationship with the man who helped her destroy my life was devastating (just like d-day all over again) and the discovery of her lies has completely destroyed my trust in her. Oddly enough I realize now that I still retained that trust after d-day.

We are both in both IC and MC. She knows that NC is my boundary and that continued contact will cause me to separate. I am aware of the risks involved in plan A/B and I am plan A'ing my butt off.

So here's the dilemna. I want very badly to trust and forgive my wife. I don't think we can rebuild our relationship without trust. My wife has said that she didn't consider her actions a continuation of the affair but she understands that I do. She says and shows that she wants very badly to repair our marriage and make it better. She says that she has broken off even phone contact and it may be that this is true. If I can trust her actions and words then she is working VERY hard to make things better. My problem is that not only do I not trust her words, every act of affection and reconcilliation on her part is tainted by my mistrust. I don't want to miss an opportunity here but I also don't want to play the fool again. What to do? She says that she can think of nothing she can do to help me regain my trust again outside of simply telling the truth. She says trust will come back in time and my MC says it will come back when she behaves in a trustworthy manner. My trust in her doesn't exist now and my mistrust poisons all her efforts (assuming they are sincere) to heal our marriage and makes plan A doubly hard.

I'd really like to hear from the vets on this one, especially the ones who have come out the other end of the tunnel. I WANT to trust but I'm AFRAID to trust. Can anyone give me the benefit of their experience on this one?

Well, first off both of you need to remember that trust after an affair is EARNED, not deserved.

And that trust is earned through a set pattern of verification over a period of time. Your trust will NOT return this week, or next. It takes time for you to SEE that your wife is being trustworthy.

And THAT is why she needs to become an open book. No more lies of ANY kind. Even if they're not in any way related to the affair...if you ask her why her shoes are dirty, she should tell you the truth up front.

No more hiding ANYTHING. You should have full access to all of her email accounts, IM accounts, phones of any kind. She should EXPECT that you're going to be checking them...because it's that checking and knowing that there is nothing going on that will slowly rebuild your trust in her.

She needs to be willing to HONESTLY answer any of your questions about the affair. You need to clearly explain to her that it is the fact that she successfully and deliberately LIED and DECIEVED you that is the center of your pain, more than anything else. And so, her at least being open and honest NOW about what happened is a good first step moving forward.

Again, trust after an affair is EARNED, not given. She has to build back up that which was destroyed...and it takes work and time to do so.

At the same time, YOU have to be willing to accept her proof, and to work to keep your fears to a minimum. I know what that's like...I've been dealing with that myself for a while now. You are going to have to work to overcome your fear of trusting. But remember...you are still VERY early in this...it normally takes 2 or more years for a marriage to recover from infidelity...you're only a month into the process.

It DOES get easier with time. I'm over a year into recovery now, so I'm speaking from my personal experience.

You would be INSANE to trust an untrustworthy person. She is untrustworthy. Trust will return after she demonstrates trustworthy behavior over a long period of time. It will TAKE YEARS. That is what you signed on for when you agreed to stay with her.

She has to EARN trust and it will take alot of hard work on her part. She made it very hard by continuing contact after D-Day. Doing that often erodes trust more than the initial D-Day because after that she is doing it with the full knowledge of how badly she has hurt you. Contact after D-DAY is a double blow because it is like kicking a severely wounded person in the face.

And even when she does rebuild trust, hopefully you will have learned frm this to never ever blindly trust her again. Trust, but verify.

CD,
Haven't posted to you in a while. I am glad your WW is at least willing to work on your M. Mine hasn't got that far yet.

I basically agree with the above posts. I know about your feelings first hand after hearing WW and OM discussing their recent sexual escapades on my phone recordings just over a week ago. The pain of a second DDay was unbearable. But I'm coping.

I know what it's like to desparately want to believe she is telling the truth, but you can't. Not yet. It his her responisibility to prove to you she is telling the truth. There should be no question she can't answer. If you don't believe her, she needs to do a better job.

Eventually, you will have to trust her. I feel like I will know when that time comes, just based on the fact that I know how WW was acting wjile she was lying. If she is demonstrating to me that she REEEALLLLY wants the M to work, I will believe her. Until then, trust is not even an issue. It is not possible.

Hiya DKM. Sorry I missed you, I assumed you had stopped posting. Amazing and truly sad how fast these things get bumped back. I had absolutely NO IDEA how commonplace and prevalent affairs were! Good God, what the HELL is going on? Are we the ones who are crazy?

Anyway I posted to your thread. I kinda feel like we're in the same lifeboat.

CD,

I believe what you have been told is probably very correct especially by your counselors. However, there is something you can do and perhaps your counselor can help you.

Pose the following questions to your W. Ask her what she would expect you to do to earn her trust if this were reversed? Ask her what she would need from you to develop that trust (it has already been mentioned access to email, etc)? Ask her how she would interpret your efforts to show her love and being loving when you have so little trust this soon?

Now after asking her these questions, then suggest that perhaps you two need a plan of actions. Things each of you will do to allow her to prove her intentions and for you to do to give her access to your heart. THat really is the problem right now, isn't it? She does not have access to your heart you have built a wall around it to protect yourself.

Now some of the things are listed in Harley's books. Somethings will just take time and patience. And that is my last suggestion. In your plan acknowledge that this will NOt be a quick fix, but will take a least a year for the marriage to be repaired and likely two years. NOw this is not a year or two of misery but a year or two of improvement in baby steps. Agree to evaluate these baby steps every so often, say every two months. Agree to be honest with one another about your feelings, and when you do also offer a way for the spouse to react positively. Putting someone in a corner rarely does anything but build resentment.

And finally you both need to address the issue of resentment or how you two will handle it because
Those are my suggestions.

God Bless,

JL

JL, I like your suggestions and I'll give them a try. It might give the wife a new perspective and it certainly couldn't hurt. I'd be interested to see if she even COULD picture herself in my position. A lot depends on her feelings for me.

My question had more to do with me than with my wife however. I understand that she needs to come clean for me to start rebuilding trust in her but she isn't willing to do that. Of course, it might be because she's continuing the affair. And if that is so I will find out and I have already considered my plan of action. But my situation is complicated by her recent (four weeks) retrieval of long suppressed child rape memories. It has come out in counseling that one of her responses to this horrific event was to wall off her emotions both from herself and from others. One effect of this is that she has as yet simply no idea of the harm she can do to others by her actions. She cannot conceive of what she cannot feel.

I worry that I might be missing some significant emotional gains because of my feelings of distrust. As logical and understandable as my mistrust of my wife might be at this time it bothers me that I might be slowing or even, God forbid, preventing the rebuilding of our relationship. How can I know if plan A is working when I distrust even the touch of a hand or a hug?

As I said I'd really like to hear from others who have experienced similar doubts and who are somewhat farther down the road than I am. I have found a lot of inspiration in this place and I don't think I would have come this far were it not for MB. Posts tend to get knocked back fairly quickly here but if anyone wants to jump in you would have my heartfelt gratitude.

CD,

My answer had to do with you. You see IF she will start to talk about this and IF she can start to see things from your perspective, THEN you will be able to make a plan to receive what she is offering if she is actually offering.

Don't worry about what you miss. You cannot read her mind, you are going to have to deal with and heal your own wounds. She can put some ointment on them, but you have to do the healing. Hence the idea of a plan that you both work on. I think you will find that IF she will help with the plan it will help both of you.

What you don't probably realize is that you won't fully recover until she does and one of the things that is likely to take her a long time is her guilt and remorse. The plan, asking her these questions gives her a way of starting to address these things and hopefully make some restitution via helping you.

Your path of recover is through her, and her's is through you. So ask her the questions, discuss them, don't get down if you don't hear what you like, just accept them as her feelings TODAY. Tomorrow they will change some more.

If you can become adroit at having deep even painful discussions with her and not LB when you hear these things, you will begin to hear deeper and deeper truths from her, and THAT will help you regain your trust of her.

Do you see what I mean. This stuff is so simple BUT... <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> it is surely NOT EASY. Recovery is not for wimps that much is sure.

God Bless,

JL