My husband is doing a lot to rebuild my trust. He’s been very transparent, has opened up his phone, and regularly asks me what I need. But so far, other than work trips that were never more than two days, we haven’t really had a situation where he’s been away on his own for personal reasons.
Once a year, he goes on a hiking trip in the mountains with his adult son, staying overnight in mountain huts. This time, his son got sick and had to cancel the night before they were supposed to leave.
My husband came to me and said there were three options, and we would do whichever one made me feel safest:
1. I pack my stuff and go with him.
2. He goes alone.
3. He cancels the whole trip and stays home.
I’m normally a pretty spontaneous person, but right now I also get overwhelmed easily. So the idea of having to suddenly pack everything and get in the car at a moment’s notice was just too much for me. I’m still learning to listen to my own needs and not override them, and this time I actually managed to do that.
So that left the question of whether he could go alone.
We talked for a long time about what I would need to feel safe. He made suggestions, I set some boundaries. And eventually I thought, okay, maybe this can actually work.
Because I can’t monitor him forever. At some point, I have to be able to let him go and live his life. And if he feels like he needs to take advantage of these opportunities, then there’s really no point in trying to reconcile anyway, right?
So he went.
For the first day and a half, I was actually doing pretty well. He checked in with me a lot while he was on the way and during the hike, and that helped me feel connected and reassured.
Then last night, he was staying at one of the huts that didn’t have cell service.
And suddenly I had no idea who he was spending the evening with or who he was sharing a room with.
These mountain huts only have shared rooms. He had told me that his room had three beds. He had been told that two other men would be staying in the room with him, but I never got confirmation that that was actually the case, because once he lost reception, we couldn’t call or text anymore.
That’s where everything completely fell apart for me. I had a full-blown panic attack and barely slept.
Rationally, I actually believe that he genuinely wants to prove to me and to himself that nothing like that will ever happen again. I really do. But the fear is so deeply embedded in my body that, in that moment, even my grounding and mindfulness exercises didn’t help anymore.
He called me this morning as soon as he had cell service again, and everything was completely fine. Nothing had happened. The two other people in his room were, in fact, two other men, just as he had told me they would be.
And yet, knowing that everything was okay didn’t change what had happened inside my body the night before.
I’m honestly at a loss. Was this simply too soon? Is it always going to be like this? Or was this just the wrong kind of situation to start with — specifically, being somewhere he could be unreachable for several hours?
D-Day was almost 15 months ago.
I’m struggling because on the one hand, I know I can’t expect him to never be out of my sight or never have situations where I don’t know exactly what he’s doing. That’s not a sustainable way to rebuild trust. But on the other hand, my body clearly wasn’t ready for this particular situation.
I don’t know if this means I pushed myself too far too soon, or if this is just part of the process and I need to keep working through it.
