SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

How do I learn to trust again? I feel I can't trust him as far as I can throw him. He hasn't done anything that I know of since then but sometimes there's suspicious behavior with the Internet, which was a portion of the affair; secret emails. I tried to suggest we get rid of smartphones trying to play it more of a financial reason since I'm out of work. He didn't say no but there was hesitancy. I want to have his phone checked but I don't know how. That would tell me a lot. Not everything but maybe a piece of mind or a giant finding.

We are in therapy and we went back because dust was settling and we moved and I was starting to have trouble. So we started the counseling and every week it was a fighting issue and we weren't dealing with the affair issue. Well now he's given up drinking, he's on meds for his anger, we haven't been fighting for a few weeks so now I'm trying to get back to the root of the why my life has been completely uprooted. I can tell he's starting to get agitated because I want to revisit issues of affair so I can try to move past and he just wants to be in the we are now working why go back to that? He's a rug sweeper. I need to get through this.

Anyway, anybody out there help with the rebuilding of trust? I understand time but anything else? How do I trust him?

You don't just learn to trust again. He has to earn that trust back by being honest, transparent and consistent. He can't rug sweep and he must face things head on and with an open mind/heart.

I wish I knew how to rebuild trust also. I know the saying is that trust is earned, but at a family meeting in a drug rehab, the counselor said that trust is a gift, you can't earn it.

She said that for example if you say if you don't cross this line, I will trust you. So the addict doesn't cross the line, but you still don't trust them, you make another demand, if you don't cross the line and jump through the hoop I will trust you, so the addict does as you ask, but you still don't trust them. Again you make another demand, as in, don't cross the line, jump through the hoop and let me set it on fire. By then you are at a point where the addict says oh well, that's too much. You aren't going too trust me anyway, so they stop trying to earn your trust because they can not do it, you have to give it to them when you are ready.

I know we are not talking about addicts here, but to me that makes perfect sense. Although I don't know how to give this gift of trust to my addict son, much less my cheating husband.

Here's my problem with the transparency. This was a workplace lunch thing although it did Happen twice while I was out of town. There were no real signs that were obvious at the time. No money was missing. There was a time he was dressing up for work but he said he was trying to impress to get a better job. He always came home after work. I actually told myself at one time there's no opportunity only to find out the lunch hour was the opportunity. But what's perplexing is why this woman who claims he was going to leave me for her put up with it for two years being a back seat *****? He didn't buy her anything because I do the bills. There was not a lot of extra money for things when I wasn't working. Nothing makes sense to me but I guess it doesn't because I can't fathom doing that or being that awful. I'm just at a loss of how I can trust someone who was able to pull this off with no real signs.

I think you both are right you eat it but it at some point has to be put out there that you do. But it's a hard thing to give when it's been taken away.

These days its impossible to check everything. Too many avenues for communications and too many ways to hide it.

Have you seen the Capital 1 commercial on the tele where you can now erase travel and hotel stays off your bill? I can not think of any reason WHY you would want to do that other than to cover up a LTA.

Disposable pay per use phones. Tablets. PCs at home and at work. Smart phones. PMs on forums. You can send PMs on Linked In and any chat blog forum out there. Easy to get yahoo, msn, hotmail, rocketmail, live, gmail, and god knows what other free email accounts that can easily be hidden.

Trying to monitor and keep track of them all is like playing whack-a-mole at the circus.

IMO trust in this day and age is a fools sanctuary.

All any of us can do is to trust ourself. Trust that if it happens we will eventually find out. I journal WW activity now and reason through all her actions to see if they make sense. Thats all I do to monitor her. If she starts another LTA I will eventually discover it and I trust myself enough to know that I will handle it in the appropriate manner.

Trust yourself. Thats all you can do.

(((Coz))) You're obviously working really hard at this and trying to be clear eyed, which speaks so well for you. But you're still taking too much responsibility on yourself.

The first step is realizing/figuring out who you married. Really seeing them; not just what you want to see, not just who you thought they were, not just who you trusted them to be, but THEM.

It's like establishing a baseline. In my observations, that shock, that immediate pain and disconnect we all feel when a DD hits is a natural step for reestablishing that very thing: "Who is this person?" It's a terribly hard step, but vitally important.

After that, after we move past the confusion of who the person standing in front of us is (THIS MAY TAKE SOME TIME) we've done our part in the trust process.

Literally, everything else is up to them. They have to earn the trust. They have to establish themselves as people that can be trusted, that should be trusted.

Part of this whole process is learning what people choose for themselves, for both the WS and BS. Does your WH choose to be someone you can trust? That's what you should be asking yourself, Coz.

[This message edited by Reality at 5:30 PM, September 6th (Friday)]

Transparency is the only way to trust again.

Oh, and hire a PI that specializes in computer forensics. Send his phone and computer in. It will cost. Maek him pay.

You cannot change him if he continues to rug sweep. I hope he doesn't, but if he does, what are you willing to live with?

Believe it or not, you have all of the power. God Bless and hugs to you!