5 years ago my w accused me of having an affair which i did not but she says i cannot disprove it, i did work extra hours and it was on the check but even that did not work and i have been 100% loyal and faithful for the past 10 years, she is the only 1 I have been with.
I have been falsly accused of just about everything imaginable and it grinds me to no end to hear that from her, especially since I have told the truth.
Since trust is a basis for marriage what can be done for a naysayer to understand that you are being truthful?
Is it because she likes to hide stuff and it is justfication of her indiscretions?
Well, for me, it has nothing to do with indescretions or that I'm hiding things. I think it's more about the fact that I am insecure and I have trouble trusting. I have been burned so many times. Many times I just can't believe that someone would be honest with me.
Hi Hunterfox, My husband accused me of having an affair last year, however, I did not, I've never cheated on my husband. Well, guess what? It turns out that he was the one who was having the affair all along, I just found out this past January. My friends always told me if they are the ones accusing, then take a hard look at what they are doing.....don't mean to give bad news, but that's how it happened with me. Take care.
Dear Hunter, I don't know the details around the accusations, but I know that for me when I was accusing my H of cheating it was coming from insecurity in myself and insecurity in my relationship. Show your W that you care about making this right - helping her with her insecurities. Try as HARD as you can not to blame her for being the way she is, but show her support. This will help build her trust in you and also prevent the unthinkable to happen. At first, my H tried to show support, but then it turned to blame and resentment. Then he eventually cheated on me. Don't do that. Don't confirm what your W fears the most. It will make things worse for you, for her and for the relationship.
Hang in there. Continue to talk, be patient, show support, show that you can be trusted. Could she be feeling insecure about your relationship because of other things in your marriage? Talk with her about this.
hurts2much is really bang on here, Hunter...maybe my perspective can help as well.
For me, the roles are reversed slightly. My w, while we were doing a long distance R for a year, became close friends with a classmate and became emotionally attached in a way that really encroached my comfort zone and boundaries. Problems preceding her trip away only exacerbated the process and led her to detach from me that much quicker.
I struggle with the trust factor. There is no way for me to know the true extent of their relationship beyond what I can prove in the emails I snooped into. I confronted my W, and she will only own up to what I have presented to her. Problem is, she was denying ANY other guy when my gut was saying there was one, and only when faced with the cold facts did she own up to something. So how am I to trust that she didn't have a physical affair?
Well...this is a huge issue right now between us, because she gets really defensive and frustrated because it is an issue that she feels I'm dwelling on. She wants me to move on and forward. She is 100% committed to our marriage thanks to the divorce busting (and whole lot of prayer and patience!) on my behalf that made her realize what she had in me that she forgot while away. But this issue still plagues me every day, perhaps like your wife right now.
There is a chance that my W is, like you, 100% faithful, never having gotten involved more than she has admitted to. So I can sympathize, even empathize what it must be like to feel falsely accused and I'm certainly sensitive to yours, and ultimately my own dilemma.
But that doesn't solve the trust issue, nor does it answer your question.
What I am looking for from my wife is a complete 180 on HER treatment of the topic. It is frustrating to me that the position that she was in, and my own insecurities, combined into a very potent recipe for the creation of distrust between us. It frustrates me that she will only address my feelings on the issue when I ask her specific questions and she won't give any further.
So let's say that nothing DID happen. She probably, like you, wants to move on and is frustrated every time I bring it up--but I bring it up because I want to get the trust back. BE VERY ALARMED if your W goes dark on this. If she starts to detach from this issue without expressing that she trusts you again, it could very well be that she's stopped caring!
What you can do, since you WERE faithful, is beat her to the punch. Don't wait for HER to bring it up. Make it an issue that is front and center and most of all IMPORTANT to you to resolve. Tell her that you are very interested in bringing back the trust and ask her sincerely and patiently what it is you need to do to help her trust you, and do not get angry or frustrated and most of all defensive if they don't know. Initiate! They will see the effort you are putting forward to help repair the mistrust and may soon begin to believe you when you say, "no, I didn't cheat on you!". Words are hollow to those that believe they've been cheated. I know this from experience. But the almost inperceptable body language and non-verbals and actions really make a difference.
I know I probably won't be able to get beyond my trust issue with my W until she brings it up herself and takes ownership of what she did to foster the distrust. Not until she validates sincerely why I don't trust her and allows me to safely sort it out with her in a spirit of openness without defensiveness.
Do the same. Appreciate her for caring so much and own up to 'going off the grid' for that length of time where that mistrust set in.
I can't speak to her own trustworthiness myself. My situation was slightly different, as there WAS another person, but what level of involvement I do not know. What I can echo is that you should recognize that you cannot disprove it, and you should stop trying. But in doing so, simply ask her why she feels so convinced that those days of long hours were filled with an affair? Do so in a loving manner and be open to learning something.
Certainly, there is a level of insecurity that you may not be able to fix and then it becomes an entirely different problem. I don't really relate to that. I'm insecure right now, but insecurity in the 'chronic' sense is not something I really understand. Is she typically an insecure person about other things in her life? Her looks? Her job? Her friends? This may not disappear all that quickly if this is the case. She may feed off her insecurity as a mechanism to fulfill a deep-seated need for constant reassurance. This may not be healthy but I don't feel qualified to speak to it.
All I can do is wish you the best, m8. It is no small feat for me to accuse my wife of cheating, even when she says she has not. But she won't openly talk about any of it and I interpret that closedness as further hiding, desiring to move on. Turn that around...be open and supportive of that insecurity and work as if you are a 3rd party together, looking at your marriage, not in the adversarial first person--remember, any time the accuse-defend cycle starts, you are in an adversarial position regardless of how emotional the argument is. You could be the most level-headed couple around, but those accuse-defend-accuse cycles only work in moderated presidential debates--and then only some of the time.
Try taking her side and defending it. She won't know what to do with that. She knows you don't agree with her, and defending her emotions doesn't mean lying and admitting to something that didn't happen either!
Mr MD - that was truly eye opening. WOW. Your explanation on how the mistrust should be handled was exactly what I needed, but have surpressed because I was made to think it was all me. Problems with me, problems I had. But they were just exempified by his reactions. I am going to print out your post and keep it handy for when I need a reminder that this is not all my fault (I am doing alot of self blame right now). Hunter - listen to this guy.
h2m, thanks for your kind words. I hope you have success and you have discovered what you were missing. I wish I had all the answers--I know I don't....It is unfortunate to read Hunter's sitch (sorry for the 3rd person H-fox!) because it sounds like it is several years deep now. That's a heck of a lot of time, which always seems to be proportional to the amount of effort required.
I have read (thanks Dr. Phil) that one of the 'bad spirits' that people sometimes bring into a relationship is the insecurity bug, the one that needs constant reassurance. If this describes your W, Hunter, then the effort and patience required of you will be great indeed, as her fear of an affair is only a locus for her insecurity, something she attached onto several years ago and uses to channel reassurances to make her feel good about herself. This is not something she will likely give up easily and I'm no psychologist or anything like that, so I don't have any experience to suggest how to overcome this. Maybe a higher dose of what I mentioned above.
Then again, it may mean just going back to the simple, tried and true. Learn her love languages (see 5 love languages, by Dr. (Gary ?) Chapman)...push her positive buttons (remember that if we can know a few buttons we can push that totally lights her up like a firecracker and has you eating from a dog dish for a week, you can certainly learn buttons to push that trigger all the good stuff too!) over and over again.
I think once you really dig deep and find out for certain what love language she speaks, and you start speaking it, I know from experience that the light switch literally gets flipped and it can sometimes turn things around in a matter of days or weeks. She will feel so loved by you, UNCONDITIONALLY (so important here), that she will be so wrapped up in that feeling that she won't have any room for that old INsecurity blanket.
All I can suggest is to give it a try. Test and monitor. Stop doing things that don't work. We are creatures of habit, the only beings in nature that claim to have rational consciousness, yet the only beings who get into habits that don't work. Even rats can learn to modify behavior to achieve the expected results...we should be able to do the same!
