# How Do I Move On/Rebuild Trust?



## Po12345 (Apr 28, 2011)

If you've read my other posts, you know a year ago my world crashed. My wife and I had a bad month (I thought), she told me she wasn't sure if she loved me, had made up her mind to divorce me, and turned out she had been unhappy almost our entire marriage. 

Come to find out she had gone to see another man while visiting her parents 2,000 miles away when I snooped in her Facebook messages, then I found a private journal that only she writes in/reads, and in it were some of the most horrible things written about me, fantasy stuff about the guy she had gone to see, and lots of conflicting emotions, including a suicide situation she had been in during the weeks leading up to her telling me she didn't love me. More issues came up during the following months, including a 7,000 dollar credit card that I did not know she had, maxed out. 

She did not sleep with him (wrote at length about it in the journal, so I'm 99.9999% sure of this), also wrote that "I am not sure if my marriage is really this bad or if this is because I can't forget about (otherman)". He apparently does not have the same feelings for her, nor would she have ever reacted if he had ("I could never ever cheat on anyone, ever, it is the absolute worst thing you could do") <-- she wrote this in the journal. She doesn't recognize this as an EA, she says she needed this for "closure" (guy screwed her over years ago). 

I was not free of fault, when we first moved in together I held onto an ex girlfriend for a long time, even said things to my ex I shouldn't have, things my wife (then g/f) found out about. So we started off on rocky ground. She wanted to leave me then but didn't, I quit talking to my ex g/f, then after another year I asked her to marry me, she said yes, we had to marry early because I was getting deployed. 

When I got back, I thought things were perfect, got a good paying job, bought a house, 2 wonderful children, then last year that's when everything went south. Through counseling, I have found out that I have PTSD, and that my reactions to situations that I feel are not either A) in my control or B) not to my liking, were immature and angry. I never hit my wife but at times I would scowl and curse under my breath, most of the time I was good to her but I did not realize how much damage I was doing with the way I handled my anger.

She grew distant and I didn't see it. She has always had communication issues because she is timid, and has anxiety/depression problems, so she shut down on most topics of conversation for fear of a confrontation with me. This led to her hiding a lot of things from me that she should have. She admits that she should have been more forthcoming with me also, and recognizes that there were many times that I would ask her what was wrong and she would say that it wasn't me. 

Moving on to the present, we went through marriage counseling, first counselor was a disaster, second one thankfully was excellent, but my wife still had issues trying to be completely open during sessions. I know this is really difficult for her and I'm trying to be very patient. I've been able to be fully open about my problems but trying to address everything and dealing with the idea that my wife loves me but isn't sure if she is IN love with me has placed anxiety/depression issues on me, like I've never dealt before. I am going through personal counseling too, taking meds, however a year later this is still very difficult for me. 

I believe she isn't hiding anything from me, I've snooped in her phone/computer and everything appears to be in the open. She is addicted to Facebook and has a multitude of friends on there but I never cared about it before all of this happened a year ago, I felt very betrayed. Now I wonder who some of the male friends are. I'm having a difficult time moving on, even though nothing is happening, it is hard for me to let go of the desire to look/snoop at her stuff, I have looked at her phone probably half a dozen times in the last year, maybe twice in 2012, becuase I'm trying hard to be trusting. 

I just read the "snooping/controlling/privacy" thread and I realize that it is very damaging to go behind someone's back or vice versa (if she is still going behind my back) to look up a person's computer history, phone records, text messages, facebook stuff, etc. It is very hard to not do this, especially when she somewhat closed down emotionally and I never noticed it, but now that I'm trying to fix things I want more of that intimate conversation/contact (not sex, just, intimacy, closeness).

She has been a lot more open about things, especially related to him, apparently his marriage is on the rocks, and he's been carrying on with some other woman. Thankfully he lives in Canada, thousands of miles away, and my wife seems rather disgusted about him these days. She tells me all the time that she will never ever cheat on me, and that she would never end up with "him" because of what he did to her years ago. I know she is trying, she deleted him from Facebook, added him, deleted him, she is conflicted about even being friends with him, and I'm trying in the nicest way possible to show that it isn't healthy for her.

I know some of you may say "Well she should do this and she should do that" but I want to focus on me with this, how I should interact with her, things I can say to her to help both of us get past all of this and rebuild our trust, and become much stronger in our marriage than we have ever been before.


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## river rat (Jan 20, 2012)

Po, sorry for your pain. David Richo wrote a good book called "Daring to Trust." Helped me a lot.


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## CandieGirl (Apr 27, 2011)

Implement transparency; you will be able to check up on things, without going behind her back. It helps. Trust will take a long time to come, if it ever does.


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## the guy (Aug 3, 2010)

You realy don't have that control, your wife does. In my case my fWW did the heavy lifting in helping me move on and regain the trust. 

What you do have control over is not tolorating this behavior from her and setting your boundries. These boundries are the walls you put up to protect your emotions, and if they are crossed then there will be consequences.

In my case I will not let my Fww adultory define who I am. This crap will not control me or define who I want to be. Its hard brother but its a strength you muster up and a confidence that dictates the fact that you do diserve good thing and you diserve to be happy even though the one you love is broken (that her problem). Theres an ego about yours self that states you are better then all that crap that happened last years.


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## Po12345 (Apr 28, 2011)

river rat said:


> Po, sorry for your pain. David Richo wrote a good book called "Daring to Trust." Helped me a lot.


I am looking into that now... I may just download that on my phone to read it.

The unfortunate part for me right now is that my wife allowed things to "straddle the fence" before she finally opened up about how unhappy she was, meaning, she isn't sure how she feels even now, a year later. 

So I look at the "180/going dark" and think to myself, that sounds like a good idea to try, but my chaplain is absolutely against that, stating that it increases the likelihood that things will get worse. Either way I have to find ways to be strong for myself, and my children.


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## Po12345 (Apr 28, 2011)

CandieGirl said:


> Implement transparency; you will be able to check up on things, without going behind her back. It helps. Trust will take a long time to come, if it ever does.


This may be an even better idea than 180... I'm going to talk to my wife about it tonite.


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## Po12345 (Apr 28, 2011)

the guy said:


> You realy don't have that control, your wife does. In my case my fWW did the heavy lifting in helping me move on and regain the trust.
> 
> What you do have control over is not tolorating this behavior from her and setting your boundries. These boundries are the walls you put up to protect your emotions, and if they are crossed then there will be consequences.
> 
> In my case I will not let my Fww adultory define who I am. This crap will not control me or define who I want to be. Its hard brother but its a strength you muster up and a confidence that dictates the fact that you do diserve good thing and you diserve to be happy even though the one you love is broken (that her problem). Theres an ego about yours self that states you are better then all that crap that happened last years.


Yes, she basically does have the power right now, and in a way it's good, but in some ways it is bad. 

On the good side, it allows her to be in a position that she's not accustomed to, with me being far nicer and more accomadating than i ever was in the past.

But on the bad side, she's not very comfortable in that position, and while it may seem great to have me being all nice and such, it is hard for me not to continually question her about everything, which is a huge no no according to everything I am reading here. 

The other thing I have going on is that my job is very unstable, I have been in this position as a military instructor for 4 years, and was looking to turn it into something more semi-permanent (another 15 years) but suddenly funding dropped, which has spiked anxiety/stress even further. 

I am doing what I can to hold it together but I have my good days and bad days. Mornings are the worst for me, usually by mid afternoon I've got control again.


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## the guy (Aug 3, 2010)

Yum .....you need to get rid of this glass half empty additude, You do have the power, you need to pull it out and work at it.

Its not what knocks us down that counts, it how we get back up that matters!


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## iheartlife (Apr 4, 2012)

Our marriage counselor, trained in infidelity, told me in front of my WS to install backup and GPS software. He said it was to calm my anxiety and to give my husband a chance to prove himself.

We all know that this is just a short-term thing, a marriage can't function this way indefinitely. But it took my body out of the hypervigilant state.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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