Trusting Again After An Affair

TRUST.....that word scares me. It is a powerful five letter word in my opinion. Once trust has been broken it can never be what it once was.

I've always had trust issues, and if I'm being 100% honest I have to admit that I've never even fully trusted my own husband. Growing up I always had my guard up, so naturally when it came to relationships and marriage my trust radar was on high alert.

After almost ten years of marriage I decided it was time to let my guard down and trust the man I married, the man I share three precious children with. It felt great to let that fear go. I prayed I wouldn't regret it and I never had reason not to trust him.

It didn't take long for that to backfire and bite me on the butt. The unthinkable happened. The man I now trusted stepped outside of our marriage. The wall I had tried so hard to protect was knocked down and I was left picking up the pieces within myself. How could the love of my life do such a horrible act?

I started noticing changes in our relationship but it wasn't enough to make me worry. We had both grown distant due to work schedules and the health of our daughter. I just figured things would work out on their own and our life would go back to normal. Maybe, just maybe, I was in denial that my husband could ever be unfaithful.

I felt like such a fool for believing I could ever trust someone other than myself. I had no choice but to decide if I should stay or go. I felt that the easiest thing to do would be to walk out that door and never look back. Instead, I chose to fight for my marriage, knowing I was taking a huge risk letting him back into my life.

Each day that passes I learn more and more about the strength and patience it takes to try and trust again.
These are a few of my daily rituals to help me regain trust in my husband. Some days I succeed and others I fail. Baby steps...

• Looking for flaws in his stories. I will ask him the same question different ways to try and find a lie. 

• Expecting him to be at my beckon call. If he doesn't respond to my texts or answer my calls anxiety kicks in. I start questioning where he is and what he is doing.

• Watching his eyes. For example: having dinner and noticing where an attractive woman is and watching his eyes to see if they wonder in her direction. 

• Mistaking his silence for unhappiness. This is one I know is unfair but I continue to question it. Everyone is entitled to a bad day and the right to stay quiet without being questioned about it. 

• Believing that he is being honest and faithful. If I want to trust again I need to remind myself that the only way that will happen is by letting go of the thought that I will be hurt again. 

My husband knows that I have these fears daily and he knows that he is the one that caused me to feel this way. He never gets mad at me for it and he understands my questioning his every move. I also understand his frustration when I have really, really bad days.

Some may ask why I choose to live this way, my answer is simple. Love and faith that everything will work out the way God intended it to be.

Know Your Strength

Can your marriage survive the devastation of an affair? More importantly, can YOU survive after such horrible betrayal?

Unless you have been in the shoes of a woman that has been cheated on by her husband you can not begin to imagine what she is going through. The pain is unbearable. 

You feel abandoned, rejected, humiliated, unworthy, and unloved. "Am I that horrible of a wife?" "Am I that unattractive?" "What does she offer him that I don't?" 

Those are questions that haunt you day after day. Any free moment you have you are consumed with the "what ifs."

"What if I had been more intimate with him?" "What if I had made myself prettier when he came home each day?" "What if I paid more attention to him?" 

If you are going through this right now I have one thing to say to you...STOP!! 

It took me a long time to learn that while I played some part in his unhappiness I am not the one that caused him to cheat. He chose to break our wedding vows and seek whatever he thought was missing through someone else. I knew that if I wanted to find peace I would have to stop blaming myself, it was time to bury the "what ifs."

The purpose of me starting this blog was to share my story and how I dealt with and still am dealing with feelings infidelity brought to my marriage. 

If you are going through this believe that you will survive! Whether you choose to stay with your spouse or not, you will have good days and bad days. Take each day as it is and embrace the strength within yourself. 

The first step is to stop blaming yourself. It is not your fault!