SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I am 5 years out from finding out, but even more from the actual affair. My WH has been absolutely wonderful, has done everything to make me feel special. He said he never stopped loving me (we are high school sweethearts) and it was not my fault at all just a terrible time in his life. What I am struggling with after all this time is can I ever REALLY trust him ever again? I read something that said if you can not fully trust it will never work. How can you really ever completely trust after something like this? I feel the Pandoras box has been opened. Sometimes I feel this is my problem that I have to work out. He has been absolutely wonderful. What is wrong with me? I should be happy that I finally got the husband that I have always wanted. Any thoughts?

One thing that has personally helped me is coming to grips with this is the idea that I can't trust anybody on this planet 100%. I have a certain measure of confidence that my wife will never cheat again, but I can't definitively say it will never happen again. That being said, I've weighed my options, and I have chosen to give her my heart anyway.

So I guess I personally don't follow the theory of "if you can not fully trust it will never work."

I'm definitely interested in hearing other people's thoughts on this subject as well.

Move over I'm sitting on the same bench.

In fact I was coming on here to post something along similar lines.

Here's what I think. I trust him, but it's not the blind trust I had before. There's no way I can completely protect myself. So I trust until he gives me a reason not to.

I decided I can't live my life in fear. I do worry it might happen again, but he hasn't given me a reason to think it will. He gets it.

I also like to think I'm smarter now. I know what cheating looks like. I'll never be blindsided like I was. I wish I'd have been this wise back on dday. Things would have happened a lot differently.

I know that no matter what I can make it on my own. I won't like it, but I could do it. H knows that. He also knows what a gift I've given him and how hard I had to work at giving that gift. I'm pretty sure he knows not to throw it back in my face.

Here's my question to you: How do you know if you started all over with someone else, they wouldn't do the same thing? There are no guarantees in life.

I don't know...I feel maybe I'm reaching. My youngest just left for college so I feel all these bottled up feelings are coming out. ( we never told our children ). Maybe I never dealt with it properly. Never did counseling. WH did everything right from the beginning. Don't want to feel this way when everything is so good but really can't help it.

We're 6 months away from 5 years out. I'm still not "sure". I can't say H has been absolutely wonderful. I can't say I've been either. It's been a roller coaster for both of us with a whole hell of a lot of learning curves. I can say H is trying. And trying as hard as I am. I can say that we're dealing with loads more imperfection than perfection.

That all being said... I just recently figured out that I'm struggling with giving myself permission to heal. I'm still working it out, but it seems to me that I'm ok in a lot of ways but I'm not ok in a lot of others. I don't know, but somehow an epiphany came to me that I won't give myself full permission to heal. Only partial.

I kind of figured out that I really have no control over what the future will bring for me with regards to FWS, our M, or even life in general. What I do have control over is how it effects me. If I ever want to "survive" what could be another dibilitating blow I need to be "healed" from this and everything else that has wounded me. I don't know, it's like understanding that kicks are going to come and they are so much less relevant when you are up than when you are down.

Clinging to some kind of "but" or "what if" or living in doubt isn't actually protecting me from from a probable future "blow" of some kind (life is full of them, many non-infidelity related). It is actually ensuring I'm not at my best to handle it. And ensuring I will be kicked while I'm down.

Whether my future holds more "kicks" for me or not, I think I've figued out that my future is better served by figureing out that the best thing I can do for it is to give my future a healed, well and strong, loving me. That's my job in the now. To heal.

So it just makes sense to give myself permission to fully heal. Inhibiting it won't protect me from anything, but permitting it will put me and my loved ones in the best position possible to handle all of my/our future. Ability to find joy in the good and ability to handle the bad.

First of all, there's nothing wrong with you.

I have had a similar realization to integritymatters.

I know this is super trite, but I've been thinking a lot about the serenity prayer, and it's given me great comfort. (Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to tell the difference.)

Applied to my particular situation (my WH is similarly wonderful though my dday is much more recent than yours), I think that if my WH is going to cheat again, he's going to cheat again. No amount of worrying about it, checking through his email accounts, obsessing about where he is and what he's doing, wondering if I can trust him, telling him to be honest, thinking about how devastated I would be if this happened again or how completely it would ruin my life, worrying that if it happens again later I'll be too old to find another partner, whereas if I just cut and run now I might have a chance, or tearing myself up about anything else is going to make a difference.

I can't control what he will do in the future. And you can't control your WS.

All I can do is try to recognize that no amount of worrying ever changed the outcome of anything, that the only thing I can do to help prevent a recurrence is to work on being the best, most healthy, strongest person I can, to put my effort and love into our marriage and into myself, and to be mindful of the now. This is, of course, way, way easier said than done, and I don't always succeed, but thinking about it often helps me move on from whatever I'm worrying about at that moment.

If he does do it again, that truth will come out. It *will* come out. Buried ugliness has a way of doing that. And you can deal with that if and when it happens. You can, as integritymatters said, deal with it much better if you've spent the intervening time cultivating inner serenity.

I'm not usually so hippy-dippy, and someone's probably already posted this a hundred times, but:

“Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow. It only saps today of its joy.” -Leo Buscaglia

I'm not trying to sound like an obnoxious quasi-guru. I'm absolutely not always able to embody all this stuff myself, but trying to think this way has helped pull me through a few rough spots so far.

At least I am not the only one who is coming to grips with the idea that pre-A trust is never going to return...I think I have accepted it and am learning to deal with it and move on.

Someone on here posted a different version of the serenity prayer I like...

Grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change, the courage to change the one I can, and the wisdom to know that that person is me.

I can't control what he says or does...only how I respond.

integrity...maybe it is because healing feels like letting our guard down and that means possibly being blindsided again and that means back to that horrendous pain...