(This post copied by forum administrator from MEMBERS board so people will see and respond.)


(Login alexmax007) How long to built the trust? June 18 2007, 11:50 AM


I am so happy to see that you are still together after five years. It has been 4 1/2 months since I found out about the affair and I am struggling. Every day is a struggle. I wish that I could see some light at the end of the tunnel. My husband is trying so hard but I don't trust him at all. WHen did you start to feel better...

Sorry it took me so long to answer. I'm very busy this time of year.

I don't want to sound discouraging but 4 1/2 months is really early in recovery. I was probably still working on getting all the details at that point and, as many here can tell you, I was so pissed off all the time. I resented every little thing about having to go thru this recovery. As most of us who were totally blind sided by an affair, I did not have any coping skills for this trauma. It seemed that I lashed out at everyone, even the ones trying to help me.

As many have said before me, the first year is really just about survival. There is a lot of self annalyzing going on for both you and your H, if he is indeed remorseful, trying to figure out what went wrong. The crazy thing is, probably 90% of it is absolutely useless. It's just obsessing at its finest. But it is normal to do that and for sanity reasons very necessary.

To address the question about trust, it took me a couple of years to not question my wife on her every move or whereabouts. This was mainly due to her quickly trying to satisfy my immediate need to know on every occasion for those first couple of years. If she had not been willing to do that then trust would probably not have been restored and I suspect things would have turned out differently. I credit my wife's counselor for drilling that in her head.

To address the trust factor itself, I trust my wife's heart for our continued union but my trust in her decision making and ability to foresee consequences still and probably never will be restored completely. This is probably a personal issue between us discovered in counseling, dealing with our specific set of circumstances. For that very reason I do keep a close eye on behavioral things but I'm not so in her face with questions as I used to be. This has actually added stress to me personally (and in turn to our relationship I suspect) but the alternatives I fear would be more stressful. In some ways I've had to let go of a lot. In other ways I've had to become more diligent.

You and your H are different people with an entirely different set of circumstances so what works for us may not work for you two. You have to feel your way thru all of this together and its not easy to say the least.