SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I don’t know how to start this. But that’s been a common theme for me these past couple weeks.

I don’t know how to bring my relationship back to healthy. I want my BF to trust me so much that I gave him all my passwords and allowed him to have parental control over my phone.

This week he’s decided to go through Snapchat and message every guy I’ve spoken to/slept with before him asking for details and fact checking me. I feel like he doesn’t want me to fix us and is just looking for more reasons to leave me.

Is this something that can be worked through? How do I prove myself?

I am in no way perfect and have my own difficulties in "fixing" my relationship. Going through a pretty rough patch now. The only advice I'd like to give you is this, be patient. You should consider CC (couples counseling). A therapist might be a good idea. You did the right thing by being transparent and giving him your passwords. With that, he is going to do what he thinks will make him feel better (which might actually be pain searching instead). You have to remember that he has been severely damaged and it will take A LOT of time to prove yourself to him. You won't be perfect, you will make mistakes, but if you want to fix this, do the work. Show him that you can be trusted. Let him fact check. Yes it may be embarrassing for you, but things are worse for him. Read some books on infidelity, read the forums, be transparent, be honest. In time he may regain some trust in you, but your relationship will never be what it was before. It can be stronger and even better in some ways, but it will never be the same. Communicate frequently, make sure he can see where you are at all times, and don't hide anything from him, no matter how insignificant it may seem to you. I have had to learn these things the hard way. I hope you don't have to.

Best of luck.

I feel like he doesn’t want me to fix us and is just looking for more reasons to leave me.

Is this something that can be worked through? How do I prove myself?

Bluefalo,

Guessing you’re recently discovered/disclosed, so the general spiel you’ll see is: We could use your whole story to understand where you are in the process, etc.

Like Fugari pointed out, he’s trying to “compare notes” because he has NO IDEA which way is up right now. To be expected when someone he unquestioningly trusted turned out to be actively and maliciously lying to him. You have a long road ahead of you of this kind of fact-checking, because he needs to try and understand, which is hard since you are coming from an irrational and puzzling place. If you don’t have the stomach for this kind of scrutiny, there’s some indication of how R might go for you.

The big takeaway though, is this- Fixing isn’t really what’s likely to happen here. Linda MacDonald uses the term “rebuilders” and I believe it’s a good one. Her book “How to Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Affair” is a must read. Ultimately he’s not interested in you fixing things- You had opportunity to do the RIGHT thing by remaining faithful, so there’s no reasonable expectation that you get a chance to make it right now. That’s not an unreasonable perspective from anyone in light of how far from trusting he’s going to be for a long time.

If he’s trying to find reasons to leave, you trying to hide ANYTHING just reinforces the best reason he has to leave- That you lied and continue to work to conceal. No matter how great a person you were for whatever percentage of the relationship, you threw a big Molotov cocktail right into it with one simple act. And now you can slog through recovery with him, or stand aside watching him suffer and trying to fix things. If his life is better without you as a partner, then that’s the direction you need to support.

This is not easy to experience- I failed in every conceivable way and watch my BW continue to suffer, knowing she’d rather do it alone than have a daily reminder of just how shitty I was to her without her even knowing. But you’ve GOT to support his bids for healing, no matter the cost to you. It’s the least you can do after putting him here.