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Jul 27, 2010 5:32:39 GMT -7
Post by Deleted on Jul 27, 2010 5:32:39 GMT -7
Is it wise to trust?
Background: Lied and cheated our entire dating relationship. Newly married November 2009. Discovered truth in January 2010. He's been "recovering" since and seems to be on the up and up. Claims no more acting out (and I haven't found evidence of any), claims no more lying. Goes to counseling with me 2-3 times monthly. Has an accountability group and makes daily accountability calls.
Also spent the last 20 years lying and cheating on his ex-wife prior to her divorcing him because of his infidelities.
So. How much do I trust? What's safe? What's reasonable?
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Jul 27, 2010 8:06:30 GMT -7
Post by Deleted on Jul 27, 2010 8:06:30 GMT -7
Hi [user=71596]JanniGirl[/user],
Trust must be earned. When there is so much history, I would be especially cautious, though you do not want to drive yourself crazy with paranoia. If this is the first time your husband has taken such steps to overcome these behaviors, he may, indeed, be experiencing freedom from the bondage of the addictive cycle that he has never known before. If, however, you have any reason to believe that "treatment" may simply be part of his cycle, I would be very cautious. Are you observing changes in how he relates to you, and/or how he handles stress and other challenging emotions? Is he talking about discovering the roots of his addiction and the healing process involved? Is there a specific experience or doubt that has you asking about trust six months in to recovery? If you have a gut feeling, you are likely right. Ask God to show you if there is any deception going on. He has an amazing way of bringing the hidden to light.
Praying for you... TruthSeeker
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Jul 27, 2010 11:14:58 GMT -7
Post by Deleted on Jul 27, 2010 11:14:58 GMT -7
Six months -- I almost cannot believe its been six months in this hell. My biggest fear is that this is my life now . . . . just continuous bouts of lying, cheating, and manipulation. Sure, he's been "good" for six months (occasional "slip" here and there). But this is it?!
Do you have any inkling how depressing it is to go into marriage knowing that your husband has cheated on you and that he'll likely repeat his behaviors over and over again? We'd only been married two months before I confronted him.
So, trust, at this point is tenuous. He keeps saying he wants me to trust him. I just cannot make that leap.
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Jul 27, 2010 13:17:35 GMT -7
Post by Deleted on Jul 27, 2010 13:17:35 GMT -7
Good.
Much of what you say in your first post about the counseling and meetings and phone calls and so on inspires trust. Wanting to be trusted doesn't. A friend on another board used to say that for every year she had been betrayed, she needed two years to rebuild trust. By that standard, my wife should begin trusting me when I'm about 116. I accept that I'm never going to live to see that kind of trust. Anybody who has done what I and your husband have done and who expects to be trusted just doesn't get it, IMHO.
You talk about accountability groups and partners, but I don't think accountability is what we're about. I think recovery has to be about total transformation.
A friend from one of my meetings talks about an experience early in his recovery when he was talking to a neighbor. He didn't know the neighbor well; the neighbor had no idea he was a recovering addict; they were just talking at the fence. But the neighbor said, "There's something different about you. I don't know what you're doing, but you're a nicer guy."
I think that's what you're looking for. It's not subtle. You know it when you see it. And seeing it is where trust comes from. In other words, I agree with truthseeker (more or less always).
In my case, a sensitive friend I see only occasionally but who does know about my addiction (she was the first counselor to whom I told my story, but she is also a colleague of many years' standing) stopped me as I walked across campus half a year after confessing to her to say, "You look like the weight of the world has been lifted from your shoulders." Looking like that is another place trust comes from.
At minimum, as a great American said, "Trust, but verify." To ask to be trusted is crazy. To behave in a trustworthy manner and to render oneself transparent so that as much as possible of one's trustworthiness is visible is necessary. I think real recovery shows itself by calmly and gently and humbly moving forward, accepting the gravity of one's past, opening oneself to a new future. And I think that new heart shows itself.
Just how it seems to me from my side of the fence.
Tim M.
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Jul 27, 2010 16:40:34 GMT -7
Post by Deleted on Jul 27, 2010 16:40:34 GMT -7
Thanks, Tim. Funny, I was thinking of that same great American. :-)
TruthSeeker
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Jul 28, 2010 0:28:47 GMT -7
Post by Deleted on Jul 28, 2010 0:28:47 GMT -7
You decide how much you trust. That's my opinion. To trust others because they want to is to steal their problems. They don't trust in themselves and they substitute with your trust, or? Just some thoughts.
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Jul 28, 2010 1:42:51 GMT -7
Post by Deleted on Jul 28, 2010 1:42:51 GMT -7
"Trust, but verify" is excellent advice. This is where I have a disagreement with S-anon. They teach that if you check up on him, you are "co-dependent" and have "issues." Bologna. It's common sense. To the extent that his slips can place you in real danger of contracting an STD, you'd be foolish to blindly trust him.
"Trust, but verify" are wise words indeed.
My best, DW
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Jul 28, 2010 2:27:17 GMT -7
Post by Deleted on Jul 28, 2010 2:27:17 GMT -7
I agree with you DW. If everything is okay, why can't I check it?
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Jul 28, 2010 4:01:39 GMT -7
Post by Deleted on Jul 28, 2010 4:01:39 GMT -7
Can you clarify for me how "treatment" can be a part of his cycle? Obviously he's been to counselors before and had brief bouts of sobriety. When we met a few years ago, he claimed that he had fought that battle and won (which was a lie, as he was still acting out at the time).
I don't think he even considered some of his acting out as acting out . . . . so I don't know if he's ever really been sober except for the last several months. It must seem like an eternity to him.
He is really wanting me to trust him and is very demanding in an insistant kind of way (not abusive, necessarily). For the past 2-3 months especially, its become a kind of pressure on me to "make progress", "forgive". Lately he's been referring to me as bitter and angry. I am very angry, but not necessarily bitter.
Your thoughts?
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Jul 28, 2010 5:51:56 GMT -7
Post by Deleted on Jul 28, 2010 5:51:56 GMT -7
Hi [user=71596]JanniGirl[/user],
When people who have been burglarized install bars or an electronic security system, does that mean that they are harboring bitterness and anger toward the burglar(s)? No! It means that there is a history of violated security, and appropriate safeguards are necessary to preclude future breaches of security. Your heart/spirit contain greater treasures than any home. He will gradually discover that you are trusting him in time, as he demonstrates himself to be trustworthy. Part of that is his not reacting to being checked up on for whatever amount of time it takes you to regain a sense of security. Trust can only be earned over time, never demanded.
The boy who cried wolf got eaten because of his history of false alarms. It is ridiculous for your husband to think that a history of years should be discounted in mere months, especially when he has done the counseling thing before, and lied to you about being "over it."
Having said all that, yes, there is a level of confrontation/suspicion that is unproductive to the healing of a marriage, and it is wise to pray about striking the right balance, but let the Holy Spirit speak to your heart in His still small voice, not your husband maniqulate you.
TruthSeeker
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Jul 28, 2010 5:54:55 GMT -7
Post by Deleted on Jul 28, 2010 5:54:55 GMT -7
My thought is that he still needs to learn patience and empathy.
He also needs to stop trying to manipulate you, and to focus on his own recovery.
His job is to fix himself and to make himself available to you in any way that helps you. His job isn't to get you to make progress of forgive or feel a different way than you feel. All of that is your business. He has to focus on getting and staying sober and serene whether you are angry or not, whether you forgive him or not, whether you stay married to him or not.
If he's serious about recovery and transformation of his life - which to me isn't clear - then it might be understandable that he is unrealistically trying to hurry things along. He's saying things he's never said before, feeling peace and freedom he never felt before, beginning to open himself to a new life from which he had always hidden before. So he wants you to do the same thing.
But that's not realistic, is it? He gets the relief of confessing things he's hidden for 20 years and can now begin to lay them aside; but you have to confront them for the first time. So just as he starts to see the light, you're getting a first view of the depths of the darkness.
You're not going to move forward on his timetable. You're going to move forward on yours. He needs to give you the space and freedom to do that.
Does he have a reason why you should forgive and make progress and give up anger? I'd be more sympathetic if he is coming to you respectfully and asking if there are things he can do to make a terribly painful situation easier for you, so that you don't get stuck in a place of pain for you, than if he's upset at your anger because it hurts him. He has it coming - and I have it coming - and he needs to learn the consequences of his actions.
It's clear that I don't completely trust him, but it may be he's sincere and just misguided. When I started into recovery, I thought my wife might benefit from getting counseling for herself or from attending COSA. I probably encouraged that more than I should have, because those things were helping me. I still think it's possible those things would have helped her, too, but the reality is that those thing didn't interest her. She wasn't willing to, as she saw it, shape her life around something she hadn't done, but that had rather been done to her. So I had had to let her direct her life as seemed right to her, whether or not I would have done the same thing in her situation. I think the same thing applies here.
The insistence you describe really bothers me. You describe his behavior as "not abusive, necessarily," which seems to me to be synonymous with "abusive." That's not OK. Maybe he's just so giddy about his new life that he wants you to move faster than you can, and maybe he's faking you out and just wants the whole thing over so he can go back to normal. Either way, abuse is abuse, and he needs to end it.
What's his rush, anyway? If he's serious about recovery, he's not embarking on a path that will be finished in a month or a year or ten years. He's embarking on a whole new way of life. It's never going to be over. Life will never go back to normal, because normal never worked for him. So he can relax and let things unfold as they unfold, and he needs to do that.
Every push to set things behind you and be done with it says again that he misunderstands the radical nature of the change he's undertaking and the magnitude of his betrayal and the intensity of your feelings. He needs to start understanding those things.
How you should therefore proceed, I don't know. I haven't been in your situation. But I would not let myself be pushed to say and feel things I do not. "Trust can't be demanded. It has to be earned over time, over a long time. Every effort to hurry that process and to require trust makes me trust you less. It's time to stop making demands and let the feelings evolve as they evolve, which will take time." How would he react if you said something like that?
Just some stream-of-consciousness thoughts, I guess.
Tim M.
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Jul 28, 2010 7:36:39 GMT -7
Post by Deleted on Jul 28, 2010 7:36:39 GMT -7
I think it is impossible to change other people. The only one I can change is myself.
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Jul 28, 2010 7:36:54 GMT -7
Post by Deleted on Jul 28, 2010 7:36:54 GMT -7
You're not going to move forward on his timetable. You're going to move forward on yours. He needs to give you the space and freedom to do that. [/i] Does he have a reason why you should forgive and make progress and give up anger? I'd be more sympathetic if he is coming to you respectfully and asking if there are things he can do to make a terribly painful situation easier for you, so that you don't get stuck in a place of pain for you, than if he's upset at your anger because it hurts him. He has it coming - and I have it coming - and he needs to learn the consequences of his actions.[/i][/font]
Tim. Yes. He does sometimes ask me what he can do. He doesn’t want me angry at him any more. He doesn’t want the fights. He wants a few “normal†days. I don’t know what normal is anymore. Is “normal†the fantasy world he had me living in before? Is normal, simply not fighting or having to deal with this?
I don’t know if you’re a fan of Seinfeld[/i] or not. One episode that I’m particularly fond of is the Bizarro episode; where there was a whole different scenario they were living in and they met people that were so like them or the people they knew . . . but bizarre- somehow different. It was surreal. Life was just enough like normal that it seemed fine but it was twisted or “different†somehow . . . not right. My life is like that now. Surreal. Bizarro.[/b]
The answer to his question is, “I don’t know.†Other than not acting out and continuing to pursue his recovery, I don’t know what else he can do. Give me space, maybe. Let me grieve. Reassure me (over and over and over again). Explain things – I want to know why he actually thought that it was acceptable to do these things. Why it didn’t matter to him that he would destroy our marriage through his actions. Why?
What's his rush, anyway? If he's serious about recovery, he's not embarking on a path that will be finished in a month or a year or ten years. He's embarking on a whole new way of life. It's never going to be over. Life will never go back to normal, because normal never worked for him. So he can relax and let things unfold as they unfold, and he needs to do that.[/i]
Every push to set things behind you and be done with it says again that he misunderstands the radical nature of the change he's undertaking and the magnitude of his betrayal and the intensity of your feelings. He needs to start understanding those things.[/i][/font]
Tim, exactly. So I often after he’s said something like, “It’s been months and you act like you just found out.†or, “You’re not making any progress at all.†Or “Christians have grace and therefore don’t judge others by the worlds’ standards. They offer forgiveness.†“You’re the angriest person I know.†. . . . I just think He Doesn’t Get It![/b] Do you murder someone and then tell the family to get over it? – He murdered the person I thought I knew. He killed that relationship. It’s dead. The relationship that I thought I had was a well crafted fantasy[/b]. It wasn’t real. All those memories have to be re-thought or thrown out: falling in love, vacations, our wedding, our honeymoon, holidays, his dad’s death/funeral. What was real?
He doesn’t understand why I’m so angry. He thinks that I shouldn’t be as angry as I am . . . . possibly because we’ve only been in our relationship for a few years. He’s thinking that the 15-20 years he spent cheating on his ex-wife was much worse than the 3 years of lies and cheating that he did to me. I’m thinking that at least he made his vows with his first wife in good conscious. He wasn’t doing those things then. He started that relationship without[/i] the knowledge that he would cheat, lie, manipulate. Those things came later, after they had been married for a few years. Our relationship was quite different. He started with lies, deception, manipulation, and cheating. When we got married, he knew what he was doing. He still chose to marry me. Why?[/i]
Is there any answer to all the Whys?
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Jul 28, 2010 7:43:13 GMT -7
Post by Deleted on Jul 28, 2010 7:43:13 GMT -7
Man,
Not sure what your reply indicates. Futility in expecting my husband to not cheat on me?
I surely cannot change him. Changing my expectations to something more compatible with his sexual addiction isn't really a christian option. Goes against my morals. The problem is that if he simply told me he was going to continue to worship sex rather than God . . . my choice would be much easier. The problem is that he lies. He deceives (even himself sometimes).
Now, my christian morals also dictate that I try to trust. I forgive. I love. . . . . this is not compatible with what he has done in the past. It is however, compatible with what he claims are his morals now. Of course, he could be lying about that as well.
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Jul 28, 2010 9:00:52 GMT -7
Post by Deleted on Jul 28, 2010 9:00:52 GMT -7
JanniGirl,
When I first found out my husband was a porn addict, Mike Genung's words were very helpful. Please read "Healing a broken Marriage," here: www.blazinggrace.org/cms/bg/brokenmarriage
Perhaps you should print that and show it to your husband. Healing is going to take years. You can't hurry healing, just as he cannot demand trust, and your feelings must be allowed to develop on YOUR time table........not his.
Wishing you all the best, DW
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