# Rebuilding Trust



## winfield (May 23, 2011)

I found out 3 weeks ago that my wife off 22yrs has been having an affair. I confronted her and she said it was a stupid mistake and would end it immediatley. After this initial shock and devastation I had been coping fairly well, that is until this weekend when everything seemed to come rushing back on me. The big problem is I have found myself going thru her things and checking her phone.I feel really bad about doing this but just can,t stop myself.Although she tells me it is over I'am having trouble putting my trust in her again. Anyone any advice?


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## it-guy (Jan 6, 2011)

I did these types of things for a few weeks. I finally got sick of getting that funny feeling in my gut every time I did it and stopped for my own sanity.

As for trust....6 months out and I still have issues. I trust my wife in "the here and now". But knowing that she can cheat makes me worry about the long term future.

I know that since I chose to stay....and I want to stay...all I can do is be the best man and husband I can be and hope for the best. If I give it my all and she cheats at least I can not blame myself this time around.

Winfield, it takes a while but your feelings are going to change a lot over the next few months. You will get better....get worse...get better again. Its a very mixed up time for you. Just decide if you want to stay or not, find a good book or two, do something for yourself to make you feel good about yourself, and then just hang in there.


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## it-guy (Jan 6, 2011)

Also, do not feel bad about what you are going through as far as checking up on her. I thought I was nuts and a bad person for doing it until I started reading books and this forum. I then found that it is a perfectly normal reaction. It is nothing that you are doing wrong.

Your wife also needs to understand what you are going through now, and later as time passes. Share some of those books with her.


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## the guy (Aug 3, 2010)

Stop feeling bad for validating your wifes commitment.

It will get some what better as time goes by, especially if your wife helps. 

My wife played a big part in helping me heal, even though she played a even bigger part in the cause of my pain

#1 rule for your wife to follow right now is be forth coming. It helped me alot to keep getting phone calls when she got to work, when she got off work, she even called on her breaks and lunch.

That constant communication helped alot, even though she could easyly lie it just helped knowing she cared enough to stay in that kind of contact... ment alot to me.

As long as she gives her self back to you and is an open book with who,what and were, you can heal. 

Any walls she put up right now will be like ten steps backwards for the marriage. 

Hopefully she sees that you need that kind of access in order to somewhat trust her again. Reassure her that it will come back and that this kind of interigation will subside with time and trust. But for now she may as well have a tracking device on her b/c that is the kind of openness/forthcomeing that you will need to heal.LOL

Welcome to the cheating police force.

Remember with confirmation comes trust. She will need to understand this, b/c she has some heavy lifting to do.


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## lordmayhem (Feb 7, 2011)

If the A is truly over, then she should be remorseful. But I wouldn't bet on it right now, since you're only 3 weeks from DDay. This is a difficult period where the affair partners resume contact and take the affair underground. The two biggest tools that cheaters use are the secret email account and secret cell phone. You want to rebuild trust? Then remember, trust, but verify, and that means investigating her.

*If the A is really and truly over, then she must be remorseful and willing to do anything to regain your trust*. And this means total transparency. That includes giving up all passwords to any email and other accounts. Being accountable for her whereabouts so that you aren't left wondering where she is. And you must investigate her by installing a keylogger on the computers, monitoring her cell phone usage, etc. If she refuses transparency, then she is not truly remorseful, not willing to do anything to regain your trust, and possibly hiding something, more likely the affair is still ongoing.

Trust your instinct. If you feel something is still going on, it usually is. You might want to invest in a VAR (Voice Activated Recorder), and put it under her car seat in the vehicle. Cheaters typically feel safe talking to their lover in their vehicle. The VAR will usually help determine if their is a secret cell phone or not.

What does all this investigating do? It actually helps REBUILD TRUST. As time goes by and you check, and there is no activity, you begin to feel safer little by little. Eventually, you won't feel the need to check as often, and even further down the line, you won't feel the need to check on her at all if all goes well and she's remorseful and done with the affair. The length of this period is different for all of us.

I'm almost 1 year out and I still check on my wife, but only occassionally. I'm actually starting to get to the point where I even forget to check on her because she's slowly regaining my trust.


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## Affaircare (Jan 11, 2010)

winfield said:


> I found out 3 weeks ago that my wife off 22yrs has been having an affair. ... The big problem is I have found myself going thru her things and checking her phone.I feel really bad about doing this but just can,t stop myself.Although she tells me it is over I'am having trouble putting my trust in her again. Anyone any advice?


Winfield~

Just so you know, it is REASONABLE for you to not trust her again. She acted in an untrustworthy way. Oh actually I take that back--you do trust her. You trust that she is going to be dishonest again! What you are having trouble with is trusting her HONESTY. And that is because she looked you in the eye and lied to you about who she was with, what she was doing, where she was, why she was going to be gone, when she was coming or going, and how it would affect you!! 

She lied = untrustworthy. 

See how that goes? So it's reasonable to not trust because she has not acted in a way where her WORDS and ACTIONS match. Now, in the 20 years that you knew her, it may well be that you came to believe that being a liar was not in her character--AND during the affair she may well have not been acting within her normal character--but the fact is, she DID lie. 

Thus the way to build up trust is not for you to snoop. That's actually you being deceptive to her and controlling her! (This thread has something to say about that: http://talkaboutmarriage.com/coping...isloyal-you-being-controlling.html#post238370) The way to build up the trust again is for her to volunteer to show you proof that she's been where she says she's been--to verify that she was honest--to open up her email and chatlogs and say "See for yourself. I am volunteer to show you anything you want to see so you can feel secure in my honesty." And yes, it will probably feel like someone's looking over her shoulder to her, but that is the cost of choosing to have an affair! She may say "I'm not like that...." and yet SHE WAS!! So the work to be done here to rebuild trust is not you chasing all around after her, looking for clues and snooping around--it's up to HER to demonstrate to you in a fully accessible, approachable, apparent, public, welcoming way that she is worthy of trust. 

If it really wasn't her character for 20 years and she just lost her mind for a few months...she can probably demonstrate that to you fairly quickly. On the other hand, the longer she keeps things hidden and secretive (not private...SECRET), and the longer she resists and says "she's not like that"....then the longer it will take to rebuild trust and the more trust will erode.


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## Voyager (May 23, 2011)

I went through that for several months. It became almost like an addiction. The compulsion eventually faded and I finally decided I wasn't going to do it any more. It made me feel like crap and I know that my wife is smart enough to hide the evidence if she really wanted to. After all, she had cheated for years and there simply was no evidence until the last one. I was clueless about her affairs until after she said she wanted out of the marriage. I came across the evidence accidentally and that set off my need to know that she was being honest with me. It was at its worst when I knew what was going on but she didn't know I knew. In time, my need to check up on her confirmed what she kept saying and some little bit of trust was reestablished. 

Now that we're trying to reconcile I pay more attention to her emotional state and my gut than to evidence. She can hide evidence but she really can't hide her feelings when I pay attention.

Ten months later. Do I trust her? Not entirely. But I'm not consumed by distrust. You'll get there.


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