SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

My wife and I had a couples session today and the therapist asked about our upcoming one year mark from DDay (my wife is calling it crapaversary). She asked if we could identify any areas where our relationship has improved since DDay. My wife indicated she thought our communication and honesty is better (I agreed).

The therapist asked her about her ability to trust me. I disclosed the affair that happened 20 years ago so the dynamic may be a bit different than were it discovered in real time. The therapist indicated that many of her clients can regain a measure of trust through consistent actions from the wayward (she estimated up to 80% of trust can be regained). My wife indicated that she feels like she can trust me, but then she is reminded that she felt that way previously so does not feel like she can really say she trusts me as she could just be getting fooled again.

I actually agreed with my wife that I am not sure how she could ever trust me blindly or at 100%. The therapist indicated that the betrayed partner has to decide if they can give the remaining trust (that cannot be earned back through consistent actions) to the wayward and that it is important to have 100% trust to have safety and intimacy in the relationship.

Curious what others have found. The therapist did indicate that this often takes years for the betrayed to be in a place where they can offer the gift of full trust again, but wondering if that ever really happens. How does a betrayed ever get the last remaining doubts when they trusted completely and got burned?

This might not land as I am more than a decade past my dday, and it may not offer reassurance or a sense of safety the way early stage survivors often need. What it does offer is perspective.

I’ve realized that 100% blind trust is a fragile and almost unrealistic expectation after betrayal. If I am honest, it was an illusion even before betrayal. Most of us simply didn’t know that. We were conditioned to expect trust and loyalty as givens. And of course that is the goal of a committed relationship. But expecting perfection from human beings is not the same thing as building trust with them.

I’ve gained enough experience with human nature, including my own past failures, to accept that human beings are fallible.

These days, my work, my peace aren't built on demanding guaranteed certainty from someone else, nor is it based on naive self-assurance. It's built on internal resilience. Knowing I am completely committed to my integrity, while also knowing I can handle life's uncertainties without breaking (🤞🏼).

Genuine intimacy does not require knowing the future with absolute certainty. It requires feeling safe enough to be vulnerable even though relationships carry risk.

Real security comes from knowing I will be okay no matter what happens, not from relying on another person to never fail.

I think a large measure of trust can be regained. Probably even close to 100% - when verifiable. That seems tonbe where it mostly lands. Trusted but verifiably so.

I don't think I'll ever be capable of blind unquestioning trust with anyone ever again.

Infidelity: the gift that keeps on giving.

Terms and conditions may include a 2–5 year emotional processing period, spontaneous intrusive imagery, and absolutely no returns.

I made the same point to the therapist - that I did not think my wife or really anyone should have blind trust in someone who has violated trust at the level I have. She seemed to think 100% trust is necessary for feeling safe in a relationship and I think we will eventually get close enough to that by wife will feel safe; however, I totally expect her to always have the thought "but I trusted him completely before and got burned" so 100% trust is not something I will ever expect.

There are plenty of reasons why I'm divorced, a big one being infidelity. Trust, or lack thereof, wasn't one of them.

It may have taken a couple years, but I came to understand that my ex-wife was so ashamed of herself, so disgusted with what she'd done, so humbled by her own failings, that she never wanted to feel like that again. And I trusted that. I also trusted that she knew and understood, without any doubt, that she would never get a third chance.

I think foreverlabeled is right about trust being something of an illusion, a fairytale we learn. One can certainly trust that people are fallible, that they'll fuck-up.

I understand your fears that your wife might never fully trust you again, that there will be lingering doubts. I also think you can lose yourself in that fear.

What's truly important, I believe, is becoming an authentic man. It's not just honestly that will register with her. It's not just being comfortable with vulnerability. It's being real, in every sense of the word, that will truly make the impression you seek.

That was missing from my relationship with my ex-wife. Despite all of her efforts to reconcile, to own and fix her shit, I still wanted a level of authenticity I don't think she was capable of reaching (even if that's a bit hypocritical on my end).

At this point in my life - and the irony is almost painful - the most alluring, sexiest, loveable traits I seek is authenticity.

I’m not sure "Can trust ever be rebuilt to 100%?" is even the right question.

I think the deeper issue is safety.

Infidelity does more than prove that someone was dishonest. It proves that, at least during that period, the unfaithful partner was willing to make choices that exposed the betrayed partner to harm while withholding the information they would have needed to protect themselves.

So maybe the real question is, "Can I ever feel safe being vulnerable to you again?"

Safety includes trust, but it is bigger than trust. It is believing that your partner will consider your wellbeing when you are not there, protect the relationship when nobody is watching, tell you things you have a right to know even when disclosure is costly to them, and not secretly make decisions that radically affect your emotional, sexual, financial, or relational life.

That is also why transparency alone does not necessarily repair the injury. Phone access, location sharing, answering questions, and openness can help establish honesty. But those things mostly answer, "Can I verify what you are doing?" They do not automatically answer, "Will you protect me when I am not verifying?"

Before discovery, the betrayed partner may have operated on an assumption of mutual protection. You are one of the people in the world who is on my side. The affair shatters that assumption.

So reconciliation is not just about rebuilding credibility or getting trust back to some percentage. It is about the unfaithful partner demonstrating, consistently and over time, "Your wellbeing matters to me even when protecting it requires sacrifice from me."

That is much closer to what actually has to be rebuilt.

My bout with infidelity was in an earlier relationship where I walked in on my fiancé having sex with another man a scant 5 weeks before our planned wedding. I left that relationship and met my present wife of over 35 years a couple of years later.
About 15 years into the new relationship we had some serious issues. I had the sense of realizing that many of them were connected to PTSD from my years in law enforcement. However my therapist quickly realized that the main cause of PTSD was the infidelity, and the damage it caused. Included in that damage was my inability to trust my wife. Keep in mind this is NOT the woman that cheated on me.
That is maybe the first key issue to understand: Your W lack of trust can affect how she treats others, even those that have not done anything to justify lack of trust.

Amongst the things the therapist taught me was trust…
Basically the old "blind-trust" is simply a time-bomb waiting to explode. He told me to replace it with trust-but-verify, but to be realistic and self-critical about the verification.
For example; at the time I was certain my wife was cheating. She would be late home from work, claiming she was at the gym. Since I drove close to the gym on my commute, he suggested I drive past it and scan the carpark, verifying her vehicle was there. He told me to check if she put dirty gym-clothes in the laundry. He then told me if I could verify a couple of times that she was at the gym when she claimed to be there, then I had to find a way to trust that this is where she was when she claimed to be there
Same goes for a lot of things. We have joint accounts and we ask each other about transactions. It’s not a lack of trust, but rather a verification of our assets.
The guy I use to fix my truck… First time I used him I got recommendations and I questioned him on his intended work and cost. When everything went exactly as he told me I was calmer about taking my truck to him the next time. Now I just drop the vehicle off, and I now trust him for both the work and the billing.

My kids? As teenagers I gave them the trust to go hang out with friends on a Friday evening, but I verified they weren’t smoking by checking their coat-pockets for tobacco and their breath for booze. Found neither -> more trust.

A key factor might be realizing that trust is for YOU, the person experiencing the doubts. Like your wife, she will wreck her mental health if she spends all day from five to six worrying about where you might be. That will then probably taint the evening. For her own sake she needs to find ways to alleviate her concerns.
That won’t be by you assuring her you aren’t cheating. But rather by her believing that the commute does take an hour, that you flash the dry-cleaning bags you claim you stopped to pick up (and therefore being ten minutes later) or the groceries or by phoning her on-route… by VERIFYING you are doing what you claim to be doing. Do this and then it’s up to her to work on believing your time is spent doing what you claim to be doing.

One suggestion that really did wonders for me and my wife and really build trust:
Combine finances, open up on income and expenditure, budget and then work together as a couple on money issues. It’s so inbred in us to view finances as personal, but if you grasp that financial issues cause more divorce than infidelity then you grasp the importance of this area being open and clear. If that sounds hard, then keep in mind everything will be exposed in a divorce, so it’s IMHO better to open up while you want to be married…
Check out the Gordon Ramsey podcast/radio and his suggestions for financial peace. I’m not totally 100% in agreement with everything he says, but his basics are sound.

When we had to sit down and talk to each other about finances we had to open up and trust the other. When we made our first budget we were working together on a task. We then had to be accountable to each other to stick to the budget. Something as mundane and boring as a budget meeting for our personal finance became a bonding exercise, with the occasional bottle of wine when a debt was paid off or a goal reached.

I personally feel like trust has been restored in our relationship. I have a hard time quantifying it with a percentage.

But for sake of argument, I think we trust each other 98 percent, and the other two is a trust in ourselves that if the other does anything like this again that we will be able to be okay on our own. Feeling like you got yourself is part of the by product a lot of times in reconciliation and it sort of provides grace over the gap.

Also there were lots of ways we still trusted each other outside of fidelity. Financially, as coparents, and in other general ways. I am not minimizing fidelity is a big one and it calls into question a whole lot of things, but when the smoke cleared there were still areas we trusted each other.

I think your wife’s first answer about trusting you is likely her gut reaction and accurate. After all, she also seems to indicate that there is more honesty in your relationship and I think she wouldn’t say that if she didn’t value your dedication to reveal the truth. I think you have done and will continue to do what is needed to get it restored best as possible.

But I do not think that a lack of trust has been a problem for us in many years. Is it blind trust? Probably not, but I do not notice a discernible difference in our relationship, and my husband feels the same way—-we have discussed it from time to time over the years. I didn’t expect it either, but it’s not a continual barrier in my marriage. I think we would both choose divorce if anything else happened or if we were still uncomfortable with our trust level.

It takes time though, so being uncomfortable with it at your stage to me is not only expected, it’s healthy. These are the normal and understandable hurdles.

How does a betrayed ever get the last remaining doubts when they trusted completely and got burned?

I trust me.

And THAT takes a while. One of the first things I had to do, when I discovered my reality over the YEARS was not real — was learn how to trust my own judgments. One of the first questions a BS asks is, "How did I miss all of the clues around my life?"

However, I know what the DISTANCE looks like in a relationship. I know what the lies SOUND like. I know what a healthy relationship LOOKS like.

Most important, I learned I could take the hit and get back up.

Ten years later, my wife still reaches out with extra texts, extra communication and it has become our M.

I return the favor and reach back out to her more often when we’re apart.

As others noted, 100 percent blind trust never serves any of us well.

Hard earned trust with two people constantly reaching toward other is a pretty good way to live.