Rebuilding Trust in a Relationship
Wednesday, May 21st, 2008
I would like some advice about a situation in my marriage. My husband and I have addressed it, but I can’t seem to let it go..
We have been together a year and a half. I have a four year old son from a previous relationship, and we have an 8 month old daughter together. As you can tell, we conceived her soon after we met.
A month or so ago, I thought my husband was acting a little strange, and being through several previous relationships where the man was unfaithful, I decided I needed to dig around to find out what was going on. My husband has always been very private about what he’s doing online, only going online when I’ve gone to bed for the night and going so far as to logging off whenever I walk into the room. I got his password for his email, and found that he had a personals account set up. I found one message that seemed harmless from a woman (I’ll call her QW) and before I could tease him about having a girl friend on the side, and take the situation with a little humor, he received another message from her that left no doubt in my mind that they were planning something more-planning to meet, and she mentioned that they seemed to be well matched for friendship *and intimacy*, which really upset me. I brought him in the room and confronted him with the email, and he told me he was not cheating on me, that he was only talking with her because he felt he and I had some problems he couldn’t talk to me about and he just needed to talk to someone. He said she was like a marriage counselor to him, just someone to talk to. (But the whole being matched intimately kinda threw that explanation to hell for me. What *had* they been talking about?) He was very upset that it troubled me so much, and even wrote this woman to tell her that I was very upset at their talking and he did not want to lose me and told her not to write him again. I told him that I am his wife, and that if he feels there is something lacking in our marriage that he needs to come to *me* about it, or how else will anything be resolved? How will I know what we need to work on if he doesn’t tell me about it?
He went out of his way to make me understand that he loved me and that he was not cheating, and I believe him. We even started talking to each other-really talking. He suggested actual marriage counseling. But I am still worried, and I cannot let it go. It bothers me to think he was thinking about meeting her. They talked about exchanging phone numbers-he calling her. He told me she would not have our phone number. If it was that innocent, why couldn’t she call and chance getting me on the phone? Now I can’t help but wonder when he says he has to work on the weekends-is he really working?
I know I have a jealousy issue, and he usually laughs about it. But he mentioned that the reason he felt he couldn’t talk to me is because I am jealous. I am consciously working on it, I know when I feel it and I try to think it through and rationalize it before and if I decide to share my feelings with him. The whole getting pregnant so soon after we met makes me think he didn’t have a real choice in staying with me, and it worries me that being with me makes him unhappy. That is the basis of my being so jealous with him.
My real question after all this rambling is-how do we start rebuilding the trust-me regaining his after invading his privacy, doubting him and being jealous, and he regaining mine after going behind my back and sharing intimate emails with this woman. We haven’t mentioned it at all since the blow up, but we are both still upset and it is driving us apart. I love this man with all my soul, we are meant for each other, I know it..I just want to fix this, and be able to really *talk* to him..