First this is being moved over from the just found out forum because I am not getting much in the way of replies over there. So I'll start fresh with all the details.

My wife and I have been married for 18 months now. After about the first 6 months I noticed she started withdrawing a little from me and thought it was just because her work demanded alot from her and she was just tired. This got better and worse in the next year but seemed to be better the last couple months.

Then 7 weeks ago I discovered a post on the Dr Phil forums made by my wife back in March of this year. In this post she detailed having a EA with a man at work and that they had made a date to turn it into a PA. She felt guilty about it and was asking advice but after 1-2 posts never posted again. I confronted her with it and at first she said it never went any further. She made up elaborate lies to cover her reasons why but those fell apart over the next 2 weeks.

For the next 2 weeks, with my eyes now wide open I started looking at every aspect of our lives very closely. I discovered that she had lost our life savings and had done some other things she knew were not ok financially or legally. We kept seperate bank accounts since she said it made her feel safer after her previous marriage ended with him taking everything. This enabled her to hide the financial problems. Her elaborate lies were to cover for all the things she had done, which had started a year before. She was ashamed of her actions and felt it better to lie than tell me she had made serious mistakes. Thus why she withdrew from me.

I also found out over the course of those weeks that she had in fact gone to his apartment and has gotten half undressed while he was undressed, but she then chickened out. Subsequently she says their affair ended but she remained in contact with him at least once per day through either emails or text messages as "just friends." Which continued until I found out.

I told her all contact had to end and she says it has. Even copying me on the email she sent him saying they could no longer contact each other. She also no longer works there so daily work contact no longer occurs either. So if there is any contact still going on she has learned to hide it much better.

From everything I can tell she is being honest with me now. We're trying to work on our marriage and fix the problems that got us so far off track. I have also been reading the book "His Needs Her Needs" and in just the 1st 3 chapters realized how poorly I was meeting her needs. We each filled out the needs, love busters, personal history and recreational activity questionaires from the main pages here.

The biggest problem we face now is more me than her. I can't seem to get what has happened out of my mind and many of our talks disolve into me getting frustrated and agry and bringing up her mistakes and this hurts her badly. I don't intend to do this and I know the taker in me is taking over at those times. But I don't know how to make myself stop.

I think part of the problem is I sometimes feel like I am the only one trying. This isn't true, but it still feels that way. She has already made comments about feeling like she is being watched all the time and not feeling like I trust her and it bothers her.

She has always been a very independant woman, so feeling like she now has to answer to me about where she goes and such makes her very uncomfortable. Sadly, due to the things she has done, I do feel the need to ask where are you going and with who and then verify it.

I am not sure whether I should just let it go and choose to trust her after all this or allow her to believe I do when I obviously can't yet. Part of me is saying let her do and go where she wants and don't question it. If she does cheat again, then she does and you'll know it's over. But part of me doesn't want to take that chance. Which is the correct route to take now? If I continue to show distrust she will grow to resent me? If I show trust after all this am I just setting myself up to be hurt again?

It does bother me that she tells me where she is going and with whom only because she thinks i don't trust her and not because she wants to rebuild my trust. When she does tell me she does so grudgingly, usually with some comment to the effect that she can't do anything without telling me first. This is part of why I still have doubts.

If she has nothing to hide why does it make her angry to tell me where and with whom she is going? Something I have always done for her out of respect and out of a need to make sure she has no worries about where I am or with whom. What i take for common curtesy to her, she takes as something she has to do only to appease me and actually resents me for it.

I am still so lost on what to do next.

Hi Mr B.

My situation parallels yours in several ways, primary among them my wife's reluctance to tell me where she's going, with whom and when she'll be home. I'm still working on getting us into recovery, but I feel I'm making progress.

One thing I said to her which seems to have broken through the fog is this:

"When I ask where you're going and when you're going to be home, I'm not questioning your independence or your ability to take care of yourself. I'm questioning the big, cold world around you. A drunk driver who crashes into you doesn't care how independent you are. Some a**hole who tries to rape or rob you doesn't care how good you are at taking care of yourself. I need to know these things so I know when it's time to start worrying -- when it's time to start calling the police, the hospitals, missing persons, etc. I love you and I care about you, and I need to know these things so that I can properly fulfill my role as your partner and your husband."

That's not verbatim as what I actually said was slightly more specific to our situation, but it's very close. I hope it helps in some way.

-- W.

Actually, I'd give her the blunt, honest truth. You don't trust her anymore. And you shouldn't...she's destroyed that trust by being untrustworthy!

But, she CAN rebuild that trust with you!

By SHOWING you that she's trustworthy NOW. By having you check up on her, so that you can SEE that she's being trustworthy. It's HER chance to rebuild things with you.

If she doesn't, that trust will never return.

Think about it. Did you automatically trust her with your money, your wallet, your house/car keys the very first minute you met her? Nope...but you did EVENTUALLY trust her with those things, when she showed you that you could depend on her to do the right things. Now she's violated that trust...so she's going to have to rebuild it by doing the same things she did to get the trust in the first place...SHOWING you that you can trust her. And it's harder to rebuid trust than to get it in the first place.

Don't get angry with her...but explain this to her openly and honestly. It makes sense if you think about it.

Her job requires her to goto conferances and meetings during the day out of her office. This is where my greatest concerns arrise. Not so much from her actions or things she does but from my own fears of her doing it again and this time she better knows how to hide it. It doesn't help any that she told me last night that some of the girls at her new job goto happy hour once a week after work and has implied that she'd like to go but can't because I don't trust her.

The truth is that during the two very painful weeks of discovery until the final big argument where I stood at the door with my bags packed, she had never been completely honest with me. She only admitted to what she felt I already knew or had pieced together.

On that day she told me she had children by her previous marriage which she hadn't seen in 5 years. Thier grandparents are raising them due to her being pregnant by her new boyfriend, who abandoned her and being unable to support the kids. their deal was they would raise them but she was to stay out of their lives. in return they would keep their drug dealing abusive son out of the kid's lives too.

Since then, and it's been almost 6 weeks, I have caught her in one more big lie over a credit card payment. Plus after a couple days of acting strange, she admitted that a new guy at her office had been hitting on her. She says she told him she wasn't available when she realized he was doing it, but it made her feel guilty and she worried I would think something is up.

This leaves me feeling like she will still lie to me as a first choice if a problem arrises she thinks I might have a problem with. As she puts it, she feels like sooner or later I am going to become fed up with her causing problems and just leave. Yes she has abandonement issues.

But what she doesn't get is that it's not the problems that will make me give up, it's the lies and half truths. Every time I catch one she didn't tell me about first, I have to start all over in trying to believe she is being honest with me. I'm back to square one on rebuilding trust.

We were doing good until last night when she made the happy hour comments. My reply was that she could go if she liked, but that if I found out something else was going on, she would be throwing away our marriage. To which she replied, ok i won't go, I can't if you don't trust me, you'll just think something is up.

Am I wrong in my approach here? The last couple months have been both good and bad. We've reconnected on many levels and are spending more time together talking and going out. But they've also been the most painful with viscious verbal fights and painful revelations.