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For those of you that are still with your WS has the trust come back?

I still have negative feelings and doubts. Like yesterday I was home earlier than planned bc of one of my appointments being rescheduled last minute. On my way home I wondered will WS be where he told me he would or will my early arrival be a total surprise and I find myself walking in on a bad situation.

Of course I know the only thing I can control is my response and I played that out in my mind. I have come to believe full trust never fully returns. But maybe this is just me. I don’t trust anyone anymore which is not a totally bad thing. But how I would love to be able to have that secure feeling of really trusting but...,

The unconditional trust and faith is only lost once, and will never come back to the same level it was. We are innocent, try to believe, are in denial and then are smashed by the truth of what they've done.

Your trust will continue to improve over time. At the same time, you'll always be wondering, whenever there's uncertainty of where he is or what he's doing. It is very natural for doubts to enter our mind in ways they never would before the A. It's a life long sentence.

You'll get better but total recovery is exceptionally rare. You can have a very good M still, but it will never be what it could have been. That's on the cheater, that's what they've done.

It hasn’t fully come back for me. I can trust that when he goes to the grocery store, he’s really going to the grocery store. I can trust that he’s not getting up in the middle of the night anymore. Do I trust he will never cheat or never hurt me again? No.

Full, blinding, unconditional trust is not a good thing anyway, IMO.

The most accurate way I can express this is that I think I trust my W 100%, but I know she might fuck up again.

Eleven years ago, I think I would have said, at first, that I trusted her 100%. If I been asked to look at my answer closely, I might have added, 'But I know she might fuck up.'

I can't explain the difference, and I'm not sure the 'again' is significant - except to carry the meaning, 'And I can recover again.'

Another way of saying this is that I trust my W more than I trust any other human being.

Some of us say that this question is really about trust in oneself. I trust myself, no matter what others may do, even while knowing ... I might fuck up.

*****

Eh, Every so often I get similar messages. In my case, the messages come when I'm under stress. They're just messing with me - if there were no infidelity, they'd be about some other dark episode in my life.

I view those messages first and foremost as indications of stress, not indicators of a problem with my W.

YMMV, of course.

I trust my H. He’s not given me a reason NOT to trust him in the past 7 years.

But I don’t put it past him to lie or cheat again.

As a BS, I wonder if any of us would ever trust anyone again? My answer is no, I think a 100% trusting person is forever changed and it's not possible to change back. I know I can't forget, the trauma has changed me permanently. Oddly, this is actually a reason to stay with my WW, knowing I'll never trust like I did again, removes that as a reason to D.

No. It’s been 7 years for me as well and no I don’t have full trust back. I don’t believe it’s possible. Once someone betrays you and shows you how easy it was to our and cheat, I don’t think it’s possible to let ourselves fully believe it couldn’t happen again. We already know it can.

I do find that I have very little trust for everyone.

Not come back WRT my WH.

But I'm working on how to trust the world and suspect that will be for the rest of my life.

I was recently describing the lizard brain/trauma to a WS on another thread, and said it's like the cavemen who see their buddy being eaten alive by a tiger and lizard brain tells us "stay the F away from tigers". Which is good advice.

When we move that from cavemen to 21st C infidelity, it's a matter of how the tiger can basically change their stripes. Some say it can't happen. I'm in the camp that believes it can (and if you believe some of the good folks at SI, it does). So, in my mind, it's only when the WS can show - by action - that the stripes are changed does trust return.

It's still early days for me but I don't think I can completely trust ever again.

Maybe I will trust, but where I used to trust that he wouldn't cheat, I will never have that belief again. That Total and complete trust and faith in him that I had is forever gone. I can just feel it.

For me, my WHs cheating actually did come as a complete surprise. I had absolutely NO inkling about it at all, because he hid it so so well.

I just have this underlying belief, or resignation now that, no matter what, even if I did trust him, he could still be doing something behind my back, because I had 100% faith and trust before, and that turned out to be a lie.

And it's that realisation that, I just know, I won't let myself trust him completely again.

I’m still relatively early but I was starting to trust again. Don’t get me wrong, I doubt I will ever trust the way I did before but it was improving. At least until she lied to me about something so stupid and meaningless that I now question everything again. It really is amazing just how much damage the lies cause. Wasn’t even A related but it still set things back so damn far.

You’ll always have doubts. You will always be wary of trusting. Your brain is telling you to watch out. For good reason.

Trust can be earned back - slowly and to varying degrees.

That blind faith trust I had pre Dday - that is forever dead.

Emotionalhell,

I think the first and primary person you need to trust is yourself. Do you trust that you can handle whatever happens if your WH is lying or cheating again? Do you have definite plans in place if you found an action that violated your boundaries in marriage? Of course you would be hurt, but would you be ok physically and emotionally?

Is your current career change making you feel vulnerable? I mean you might be in a position where you need to depend more on your WH right now, and that might be triggering something for you.

I understand what you're saying about not trusting anyone as fully again. It's not a totally bad thing, but it's also not comforting.

But I know she might fuck up.

But I don’t put it past him to lie or cheat again.

So my initial reaction is no I will never trust her again. Then I see those that are years ahead of me and this gives me some clarity.

I would say right now today / tomorrow. I trust her, I don’t check her location or her phone because my gut is good. But I will always be aware of what she is capable of.

Here's the thing: people always fuck up. Sometimes they do it in a big way, sometimes in medium-sized ways, sometimes in small ways. But none of us is perfect.

The problem for most BSes is not that they - we - don't fully trust our WSes after finding out about an A but that they - we - trusted our WSes too much before the A.

The A just recalibrates trust to an appropriate level.

*****

On and after d-day, I didn't believe a word my W said without corroboration of some sort. My trust level was 100% - everything she said could be a lie.

*****

2.5 years out, I raised my lack of trust in an MC session. Our MC - who was also W's IC - shut me down immediately. 'It's too early,' she said. IOW, lack of trust 2.5 years out was not an issue that needed to be dealt with.

Perhaps there's too much focus on trust. It's not something independent. Rather, it's a result of a number of other phenomena.

Once lost, it's hard to earn trust back, but I suspect it comes primarily from 1000s of trust-building actions, and it takes a long time for those 1000s of actions to happen. IOW, a comfortable level of trust comes at the end of R, not at the beginning or middle.

I, not surprisingly, am with the majority here. No. I will never again have that unconditional trust I once had, where I gave him the benefit of the doubt. There will forever be conditions placed on that trust and I imagine it will be years before I stop checking his electronics (if ever). Not saying I do it every day or anything, I do it once in a while. And of course, I will NEVER again be OK with him messaging other women that's for sure! And not sure when I'll stop cringing whenever he mentions a woman at work.

Infidelity sucks eggs!

The problem for most BSes is not that they - we - don't fully trust our WSes after finding out about an A but that they - we - trusted our WSes too much before the A.

Sissoon - I'm not trying to attack, but it's really odd to me that my IC (actually every IC I've had since dday) tells me the EXACT opposite. IOW, that we are SUPPOSED to be able to trust our partners, that there was NOTHING wrong or unhealthy about my trusting my WH.

Now, it may be that this is the sentiment my ICs have given bc I had trouble trusting way before dday (or even meeting my WH) and they can see the danger of the failure of my M exacerbating the mistrusting nature formed in my FOO or being the basis to build even higher, deeper, more impenetrable walls.

I dunno. It just struck me as interesting that what I'm being told is so contradictory.....

The A just recalibrates trust to an appropriate level.

And this also confuses the F out of me. What is an "appropriate" level? Before or after infidelity?

[This message edited by gmc94 at 3:28 PM, April 20th, 2021 (Tuesday)]

Nope. I’ve trusted exactly one person 100% in my life, and it was a mistake that I paid dearly for. Nobody will ever get that from me again.