I want to start by saying that this website and the great advice I received really helped and actually saved my marriage almost 5 years ago.

With that said, I need you guidance again.

My wife and I have been married for 23 years. Not all good times, but is has always been worth it. I love her, and I feel she loves me. We have two adult children, young twenties. They both are at home going to college and working. We both are self employed. This lends to the reality for us to be apart from almost 80 hours a week. But we usually have the weekends and up until recently always made time for each other. Date night and Sunday out to breakfast, just the two of us. Sometimes weekends away. I mean really just a good relationship.

Late last year, She out of blue while Christmas shopping together on a Saturday morning, announced that one of her clients invited her to a Tattoo party. She had known about for weeks and had not decided to go until that day. Mind you we are both very busy and this Saturday had been set aside just for the shopping. I expressed my opinion, and let her know that I didn’t understand the importance of this party, especially given the circumstances. She decided to cut our day short and go to this party. She left about 4pm and said she was going to check it out for a couple of hours. She explained her curiosity about getting a tattoo, and thought this was great way to check it out. We had talked about a tattoo in the past; she wanted to get a tattoo of our children. This we assumed would happen one day, someday, who knows. It was just talk. Any way , when she wasn’t home by 7pm I starting calling her , I called her about once hour , and send text messages to her as well , up until I went to be at 1am. I was very upset, wondering what she doing out so late, and why would she not call me back.

I did not fear for her safety as she often does not return my call immediately, but this was crazy. She arrived home at almost 2am to wake me and said, she was sorry and the time got away from her. I was mad and just wanted to sleep. The morning I woke to find that she had gotten a full color tattoo that really meant nothing to her before the event. I was angry, not so much because of the tattoo but the way she did it. She had lied the whole time. She had every intention on going to the get the tattoo party and even had it in her calendar. She said she needed to do it this way, because I would have talked her out it. She was sorry for lying and so on. To this day I can not look at it, and it has become the big purple elephant in the room all the time.

Since this event there have been several other lies on her part. She has now explained theses lies as, it easier to deal with the fallout after the event, instead of arguing it before hand. My wife has not always been dependable and or reliable. She says she will be home at 7pm and she rolls in at 830pm for example, or she says I will pick it up on the way from work then doesn’t. This has always been the way she is and honestly I have given up on trying to negotiate or change her way. She just doesn’t see these things as important.

These lies have known grown into something that I can not let go. I have become convinced that she telling lies almost all the time now. She has a close friend, that I do not know that well, and she has taken up confiding in her, about everything including our marriage. She has been texting with the friend almost 8000, 9000 times a month. It drives me crazy. She is texting literally all the time. We are to dinner, we are watching a movie, it doesn’t matter she just keeps texting. Even when I have asked many times, and we fought many times, she does not care she just keeps it up. I have explained it makes feel like I am taking a back seat to this phone.

I know now she has lied about the texting trying to hide it because she knows it bothers me, but doesn’t want to give it up. It seems trivial to me many times when I think about it. But the truth is, I just don’t trust her. I do not suspect any infidelity or any thing like that. I just feel that the words coming out of her mouth are always a cover up for something.

This was proven when about a month ago when she was late from work. I needed to talk to her fairly urgently. I called many times to have her not call me back. I went to her business the receptionist said she had left hours ago. Now I was mad. I went home and waited. She arrives home drunk. She had gone out with this texting friend and a couple other clients. She lied to my face that she wasn’t drunk and not been drinking. Finally after a huge fight she tells the whole thing and comes clean.

Every time I start to trust she breaks it again. She tells me it is my problem and that I have no reason to distrust her.

I can not trust her! I don’t know what to do. I do not want this to be a deal breaker, but I have become very unhappy and feel it will not get any better.

Is this texting friend the same young guy from 2005?

No this friend is a girlfreind. She is a freind of a woman that works with my wife. This is how they met. I have met the woman several times. First at a christmas part 2 years ago and many times just saying hello in pasing.

Good.

Has she always been a liar? I mean, like going way way back? I'm married to one of those, it's frustrating as heck, with them demanding trust and doing ZERO about being trustworthy. With my H, it goes back to his childhood, where he learned to lie to avoid criticism and learned to lie to get acceptance. It's almost like he thinks, "If I did it, it must be wrong. If it's wrong, it should be denied. So if I did it, I should deny it. If I didn't do it, it must be right. If it's right, I should have done it, but I'll just say I did so this person will think I'm okay."

Maddening.

My best solution, to force him to see that it WAS a problem, and that it was HIS problem, was exposure. I can't say that it's been terrifically effective, it's a life-long habit that only they can eradicate, but making it harder to lie than to tell the truth has made a bit of difference in how my H deals with stuff now. That all depends on the kind of liar you're dealing with. Whether she just lies to you to avoid punishment, or if, like my H, she lies to everyone because it's 'what people do, right?'.

If it is your normal response to call, call, text, show up, etc. when she is late, you might try a 180, don't know if you tried that back in '05. It's a good wake-up. She'll get to the end of her night and think, oh, he didn't care that I didn't call. Then when you continue to say nothing (positive or negative about the night), she'll shorten the thought to He didn't care. He doesn't care. OMG, he doesn't care! Why doesn't he care?

I wouldn't say liar. I would say , not honest. I know it sounds like the same. But I mean to say , that anything that would avoid confrontation she would rather go that way. She just really does not see the pain it causes me. She feels and has expressed that she is the victim. Her first marrige was bad , cheating husband and abusive , controlling , down to the food she could eat. Her second long term realtionship she went right into it from her divorce and this guy was the same way.I am not, and in fact early on she was thankful for it. But now , she is trying to play that card on me.

I love her , but the fighting is too much. We can not talk anymore about it.The conversation turns to a fight almost as soon as it starts. I ahve always felt I needed to be happy in my marraige. You know not pretending everything is ok. I wnat to be truly in love and her feel the same. We ahve had that , but not now!

I think she is happiest to just let everything go by the wayside. Almost act like nothing is the matter. I know she witholds the truth to avoid any kind of problem. It's like what I don't know won't hurt me kinda thing.

The fight last night got bad. She was very mean and I am sure she feels the same about me. However nothing get's resolved , she does not wnat to negotiate.Why should she , she has done nothing wrong.RIGHT!

Hey I am not perfect , but I am in it. I have tolerated enough.

I don't know.

How can I trust her. Do I just wake tomorrow and trust her again , and take everything at face value? Just trust that she has chnaged overnight?

I don't know.

So you differentiate between dishonest people and liars?

Interesting.

Care to elaborate? What would someone have to do for you to label them a liar? Where is the line between not being honest, and lying?

WOW,

Calling me out!

She chooses to lie by omission. Some would say this is not a lie. I use to believe it to be. But I now see a lie as something that can be proven as a direct statement that contradicts the truth. I feel I have to pick my battles. Otherwise I have no chance at hanging on.

Back to the question! How can I trust again?

Can I trust again?

I am beginning to wonder if I can trust her.

I just don’t know.

P.S. Thanks

A lie (also called prevarication), is a type of deception in the form of an untruthful statement, especially with the intention to deceive others, often with the further intention to maintain a secret or reputation, protect someone's feelings or to avoid a punishment.

She is using a technique she learned in childhood to achieve her needs. She never faced a consequence for it (never got caught). As an adult, you can help her learn that there is a better way, by sitting down and discussing it. Letting her know your marriage cannot survive if one person lies. That there will have to be consequences. You will help her get to the point where she never has to lie anymore. If necessary, bring a professional into the picture.

That said, I think you might have a far worse problem than that on hand. She's known this woman for 2 years? If I had to guess, she has been getting sucked further and further into this woman's 'wild' life - the life your wife probably (by now, after her brainwashing) feels she missed out on. She needs to be doing these things; she's doing you a favor by not having to divorce you since she can live this double life - and it will get more and more extreme, believe me.

You've been married a long time. You're in a rut. How about sitting down and agreeing to change up your lives? How can you make your jobs less time-consuming? What can you do to find even a little time during the week to be together? She needs to start seeing being with you as a better alternative. Here's a list of things you can try together that might make your life less of a rut.

Read a book together
Take turns picking out a movie to watch
Bring out the board games, at least once a week
Start a solitaire club with some neighbors or friends, play solitaire against each other one night a week or month
Start gardening together
Grow herbs/vegetables/fruits
Take walks
Start a sport together; take classes at a community college, such as racquetball or volleyball
Get bikes and start riding bikes together
Sign up for an MS 150 and train for the bike ride all year
Plan some day trips, start taking one every month
Try out one new restaurant every week, take turns choosing and surprising the other with it
Go to bookstore and get a book like “52 great invitations to sex” in which you both have 26 invitations for a special evening to invite the other one, and you set it up, give the other the invitation (included in book) and then put on the evening
Join an online gaming community together (but don’t get addicted!)
Buy a Wii or Guitar Hero and play together
Give each other foot rubs
Take massage class together and practice giving each other massages
Go back to school together
Get a pet, take it to obedience school and learn to train it (if applicable)
Join a neighborhood dinner club or other club
Volunteer together
Join a church or get more involved in your church
Take a cooking class together and take turns cooking for each other
Go to HGTV.com and pick out a project to do for your house together
Take free classes at Home Depot on how to fix something at your house
Start a business together
Organize a block party
Organize a family reunion
Start working with a financial planner or learn about stocks together
Take dancing lessons together; if you like it, start entering in competitions
Go online for your city and look up 'activities' and 'family' and maybe even 'free' if your city is big enough; subscribe to those websites and go there every month to look for upcoming activities you can all do together; you can find plays, music events, art things, sports things, picnics, etc.

Hi,

I see your point. It is not to say we do not spend time together , we do. We are active together and do alot of these kinds of things.

I feel the friend is a problem too. This is a focus of many discussions.

We went to counseling together , years back to help resolve the other issue. But even then , I really don't feel anything was really nailed down. I am not sure if the problem with ther EA would be gone, if he had moved away.

The point is, that I can not trust her. This has got to be the biggest obsticle. It may be me , How do I start? What do I do?

I do not feel she lies to others , just me. I have to get beyond this. She will not change. We ahve argued this point for months. She feels she is doing nothing wrong.She has demanded she will not fight anymore she is done with the fighting.So I ahve tried to give her space over the weekend.

I have to trust , some how , some way. At least to get the ball rolling. But I don't trust.

How do I do it?

No. You do NOT have to trust. At this point, she has to EARN your trust.

The problem I see is that you are not mad at her. Just like everyone else in her life, you let her get away with crap.

IMO, if she is going to act like a child, she needs to be treated like a child. Make it uncomfortable for her to treat you with so much disrespect. GET MAD!

Here is a big secret hardly anyone knows. Women cannot respect their men if the men are weak. Biologically/psychologically/sociologically impossible. The 'nicer' (i.e., forgive all her bad behavior) you are, the more she will hate you and be convinced she needs more than just you.

Man up and tell her you will no longer accept the lies, and that you expect her to be accountable to you from now on, until she has regained your trust.

This sounds like it has turned from a wife/husband relationship to a quasi 'parent/child' relationship. She is not only punishing you for wrongs made against her in the past but making sure, in a very wrong way, that it won't happen again.

I am very confused , by your post Rainbow.

No you are wrong when you say I am not mad at her.

I am very mad and she knows it. The discusion we had friday night turned into a huge argument , that ended up way off point. That solved nothing. She left and came back hours later , middle of the night.

She admits to some of the lies and says she is sory for them. However she expexts that I forgive and forget.

I told her is does not work this way. My trust is broken , it is your job to make it right. This is the whole topic.

She will not move on this point. This is the problem.

I wnat to to just trust and quit the fighting. If I can not trust this will not end. I can not negotiate out of this.

I feel maybe I must just watch very carefully, not trusting and hope she does all the right things , so I am not dissapointed again.But I am sure it will end the same way me mad not trusting.

Mad .....I am very mad. I am controlled but furious and she knows it.This is for her reason to leave the other night . I had her backed into a corner , and the only thing left for her was to leave, this as she saw it.

I don't know. There just isn't any discussion , it just goes immediatley into a fight. From zero to fight in 5 minutes.