SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Its been a year since I first found out he wasn't being true. The wounds feel just as fresh as the day I found out. Findind a few pictures on his phone of a "mutual" friend turned my entire life upside down and has dragged me through hell ever since. I lost my trust in my bestfriend and still can't seem to regain it. I guess I just don't know how to let go of what he's put me threw over the year. In the past year I've found the picture the friend sent him, half nude sexy photo's he claimed she sent him on accident, messages between the two of them along with a few other girls, sexually hitting on them but never anything to say it got physical. Nothing has proven anything has gone past emotionally/verbally cheating but that doesn't make it hurt me any less. He says he loves me but makes stupid choices whenever things get bad between us, he turns to drinking to drown out the pain then looks to them for comfort..all while I sit at home alone feeling the same pain he's drowning out all while remaining faithful. I feel stupid for doing so, stupid for not letting go long ago and ending the pain I endure daily just by staying, always wondering if he's finally stopped, finally commited or am I just blind because he'll never change. He'll never tell me the truth if he is cheating, I can only find out by searching his phone. He'll deny it until he's blue in the face but still tell me he loves me.

He came home tonight after being at his friends all weekend, I look at him and hold back the tears, its a reminder of all the doubt I have in him..as he sleeps in our room I now sit in the hallway typing this out as tears run down my face struggling between him telling me I'm not putting effort into us by not being next to him, and the overwhelming feeling of sickness of the thought of what he was really up to this weekend. How do I let go or either him or these feelings? If I walk away can I do so and not feel like I ruined my family and took it from our kids? Do I stay for them and ignore what he's done and may still be doing? All these questions constantly fill my head...

I'm trapped within a broken heart </3

Why is your husband at a friends all weekend. That's ridiculous. No wonder you don't trust him, he doesn't behave in an even remotely trustworthy manner. You can't move past it until he clearly stops being untrustworthy.

He's there for work..but during the night they sometimes go out.

Moving past the broken trust has been a very big deal for me.

A couple of months ago I decided that I simply had to accept that I would never get over the pain and I would never trust him again..end of story. I tried to just accept that that was a fact and carry on. It SO did not work for me! I was in constant pain and was obsessed about whether fWH was doing stuff behind my back. It was agony.

About 2 weeks ago I completely flipped out. I just couldn't take it anymore. I was feeling quite suicidal and it was at that point, literally the lowest point of my life that I realised 2 things: If I am going to stay in this marriage I cannot cling to the pain, I have to let it go, release it. And if I am going to stay in this marriage I have to take a giant leap of faith and decide to trust my husband. I have been working SO hard on those things the last couple of weeks and it has made a HUGE difference to me, to our family and to our marriage. It's still a work-in-progress, I still have wobblies now and then, but I am working on it and I really do believe that, for me, this is working and it's what I need to do to reach some degree of happiness again. I will NEVER forget what happened, and I will still process any thoughts and feelings that come up about the A, but it is time for me to let go. Having said that, I can only contemplate doing these things because my husband is completely remorseful and working very hard at doing the things I need him to do - if he wasn't I wouldn't be at this point.

ETA: I just wanted to add that the trust I am working on having in my fWH is something very different from the blind, naive, unshakeable faith I had in his unconditional love for me and his faithfulness. I now KNOW that he has weaknesses and is flawed and that he will always have the potential to stray. The trust I have now is trust in his intentions right now to be faithful and to work on his flaws. I will always be on the look out for signs of wayward thinking and behaviours etc in the future. But I choose to believe RIGHT NOW that he is CURRENTLY being faithful to me and has the intention to continue to be faithful to me and while he is trying so hard I am happy to give him that trust.

[This message edited by ItsaClimb at 4:11 AM, June 3rd (Monday)]

Personally I don't believe broken trust is something we can "just get past." Trust is earned, and as Itsaclimb said:

I just wanted to add that the trust I am working on having in my fWH is something very different from the blind, naive, unshakeable faith I had in his unconditional love for me and his faithfulness.

For many the trust will never completely return. We continue to struggle because we now have seen it with our own two eyes, our loved ones are capable and willing to betray us. It is not something that happens to someone else anymore, our loved one cheated on us.

Now with all of that being said I do believe that we are capable of trusting again. Maybe not the 100% "you can go to the lake with John Holmes" cause I trust you kinda trust, but trust none the less.

The trust will slowly come back as a result of your WS's actions. Actions are what rebuilds your confidence in the R and your WS, I believe this will lead eventually to the return of trust at some level.

At this point it does not appear that your WS is providing any actions that would help you rebuild any type of trust. The lies, drinking and hanging out with his friends for the weekend are all poor choices when the foundation of your relationship is so badly damaged. Is he in IC? Have you told him that these things he is doing are hurting you?

Trust may come back some day, it will be a long road in the best of scenarios, with a non-committed spouse that road will also be unpaved.

For work? How's that?

I have found that regaining trust had less to do with my WW than I originally had thought. It had a lot more to do with me.

I needed to be sure within myself that I was OK and would not tolerate her behavior anymore. In other words, I could walk and be fine. IMO, make a plan to be able to do that, keep that plan up to date and you will feel a whole lot better.

Regarding you WH. His behavior does not sound like someone whom I would want to be M'd to. He does not tell you the truth, he is not open and conceptually him being gone for a weekend to "work" seem ridiculous.

I don't know your d-day nor your sitch, but read in the healing library here, establish the rules of your M for you H and be ready to enforce those rules if he breaks them.

take care...

He says he loves me but makes stupid choices whenever things get bad between us, he turns to drinking to drown out the pain then looks to them for comfort

Perhaps this is part of the issue. Your Dday was a year ago.....and yet you didn't write the above sentence in 'past' tense. You used 'present' tense.

Has your WH done the necessary work on himself? Has he learned new coping skills? Is he still liable to make stupid choices when things get *bad* between you? Does he still drink to 'run away' from his issues?

If you walk away, it will be because you can no longer tolerate the way that your WH is treating you. By feeling as if you will *ruin* the family if your choice is to leave you are allowing yourself to be held hostage.

Being trusted is not a "right" that a person is entitled to, it is a privilege. You extended your trust to your WH and he abused it. Now he has to earn it back....and it sounds as if he's doing a pretty poor job of it.

My husband did the same thing, texting, chating on dating sites and exchanging pics. It did lead to him having an affair!! He lied and lied intell I started texting the girls my self and got my proof. Then I had a gut feeling he had also had slept with more. The only way I got most of the truth was making him take a polygraph. He confessed everything before I took him. Trust your gut feelings!!!