Rebuilding trust - what are reasonable requests?

[EnergyAZ]

You can consider my request to be equally childish, and I agree to an extent. I know I am in a weird place right now. Fortunately my wife understands my requests. I mean...she was doing her best cougar impression and feels like she can give me a mulligan.

"Is it ONLY to ease her feelings of guilt or do you REALLY think this?"

Knowledge is power. Once I understood how I contributed to 'WAW' and took ownership of it, it helped me see things differently.

" The slower the process, the more real the lifestyle changes & habits become to make the change 'real' and more permanent."

Agreed. She still has 6 months left on her apt lease and we plan for her to finish it. We will take this time and space to ensure the pace of things is nice and steady.

Thank you for your contributions and well wishes, its nice to get female's perspective. :-)

[Bridgestone]

You can consider my request to be equally childish, and I agree to an extent.

No.. not that they are "equally as childish' .. that they were bordering on it.. it's a fine line. I just asked for clarification... not sure if you & your wife had agreed to what it was to the two of you. It was just my 2 cents on how it might be perceived as such by a reluctant, shamed WAW.

I mean...she was doing her best cougar impression and feels like she can give me a mulligan.

as an passionate wannabe golfer I have to love this reference! LOL

.

Thank you for your contributions and well wishes, its nice to get female's perspective. :-)

you are most welcome. Thank you for taking it with the kind intentions it was given. Not all do from WAW's

[EnergyAZ]

WAW perspective is a godsend to us LBS. And if an LBS does not feel that way, then they still have a ways to go IMO.

Its a shame. But sometimes things one needs to hear arent things one wants to hear. Thats one's ego getting in the way, and we can be our own worst enemies sometimes.

[frank_D]

Telling people that she is making a choice to be with you is reasonable. She doesn't have to explain to THEM why. Just make the choice. See, THEY are not living her life. SHe is.

If they can't support her choice, they are not real friends.

[Purple]

I talked to my IC about this in my last visit.

I said I wanted to rebuild trust with my h and my IC asked what would it take to do that.

I replied "complete transparency. I want to know that I can check email, phone calls, ask questions adn that he will tell me the truth and/or show me evidence for it.

My IC then asked me how I thought my h would respond to that.

I responded that I thought constant questioning would piss him off.

She sort of nodded and then suggested that what I wanted would not really rebuild trust as it relied on me always asking. She suggested that h be fully open in explaining his whereabouts, who he talks to etc so that I dont' even NEED to ask the paranoid questions. I find it very reassuring when I get a decent level of detail from my h. In the past, he has lied/hidden about a lot of things and gotten away with it, mainly because he has simply avoided talking about it or gotten mad with me.

Basically, some of what you say would rebuild trust but don't you want your wife to feel like an adult that is sharing her life with you rather than as a shamed spouse who must be prepared to prove anything and everything at her betrayed h's whim?

I haven't read any of your sitch so I apologise if this seems out of touch but the topic title caught my eye. This is exactly what I would like to sort out with my h. I am the betrayed spouse, but I pushed him away and more than likely he feels that seeing as how I didn't want him, he would get what he could where he could. So I own 50% of the problem. There's just heaps of layers that have to be dealt with and then peeled away and so on.

[Mellenmack]

EnergyAZ,
Pretty much newby here. I am the WAW who had two As. I understand your hesitancy. I am REALLY glad you understand that she was acting out, as I was too. It in no way justifies our actions, but does help gain perspective on where we were coming from. Ugh.

I don't think your "demands" are too much, but the way you worded them here are harsher than I would prefer (for me personally.) You can get what you want without being an turkey about it. You still have to be respectful of her as a person or it just sends her back to WAW thinking. "Oh, he's just being controlling again." Just be careful, there I think.

I agree with whoever said there needs to be some sort of time limit on it, initially. Do it for the next 6 months and then reevaluate fairly. It's not fair for you to get in a rut and then use "well, we have to keep doing this cause it makes me feel better" so that you can keep controlling her indefinitely. I don't think you would, but I can see how it would be easy for my H to get in that mindset and not be willing to leave it, pushing me back into WAW mindset, eventually, because he would still be being controlling and then also unwilling to change (not listening to my needs).

Lastly, I agree with Purple, that she needs to come to you and tell you what phone calls she has received, who she saw that day, and what her schedule is, etc. If you have to ask questions, it makes her feel like the "truant teen" but when she gives up the info, it is her choosing to do the right thing. Of course ask questions as you see necessary, I think, but let her tell you all of it first and then ask the questions you need answered.

GOOD LUCK! I am glad she has changed her mind. I am glad you were willing to try again. It gives me hope, although I think my road is longer.

Mel

[Molly44]

I also am a wayward spouse and I dont see any of your requests as unreasonable. Personally I welcomed them when my a was discovered and had no problems carrying them out.

What I did do was LIE. I never told H the full truth until years later which has resulted in me being on my own now. He left me.

If I could see what damage I was doing by lying I NEVER ever would of. OM was a bad influence during my A.

So please please please make sure you have the truth. She may hate you digging but it is in her best interest if you did.

Any stories coming out later will seriously erode everything your working towards.

Its is lovely to hear that you are trying.

[Purple]

So how do you get it across to the WAS that the truth now is better than letting bits out further down the line. I mean, i can't say that I will be happy to hear the truth now (if indeed I am missing parts of the truth) - in fact I would be livid to hear that at this point in time I possibly still don't have the truth, but...it's better to have it now than later as Mof3 has experienced.

Unfortunately you can't control what the WAS chooses to tell you. You just have to trust and wait and hope.

[newgal]

Hello, I am new to the board, but wanted to respond to this post as I am also wondering how a couple goes about rebuilding shattered trust. As the betrayed spouse, I seem to have a different perspective on this than most betrayed spouses. Although I don't necessarily think they are unreasonable I personally would not feel comfortable making these requests to my H. For one thing, I think all of these actions can be circumvented and the infidelity can continue. For example, you can ask to have access to all email accounts/phone records, etc. But how do you know your spouse hasn't created other email accounts unbeknownst to you or gotten a different cell phone unbeknownst to you? If you ask to be present when she calls her affair partner to end their relationship, it is quite possible she will just be staging the call. I'm not saying your W will do this, I'm just saying the possibililty that she will continue her affair still exists even if you THINK you have access to all her electronic communications and even if you personally witness her ending the R with the affair partner.

But even if these methods were foolproof, for me, I don't think I could make these kinds of demands on my husband. I think it would make the both of us feel too crappy. For my situation, I think the best way we can rebuild trust is to set the boundaries of what is not acceptable regarding members of the opposite sex. And then for me to take him at his word that he will not violate my trust again. And then watch his actions to the best of my ability without being the KGB. In other words, give him the trust before he necessarily earns it, and then let his actions back up his words. IF he is sincere and does not violate my trust again, I think both he and I will regain mutual respect for eachother in a more positive manner. I may not necessarily know what he is doing all of the time, but I do think if he isn't being honest and trustworthy, it will eventually surface.

I know the majority of people tend to go the avenues you mentioned. I just think in my case, it would serve to make me feel like an angry parent trying to keep tabs on my kid, and would make H feel like a child. And I think it would harm our relationship rebuilding efforts.

I would welcome anyone's comments on my post. Thanks!

[Purple]

newgal - I like your approach. It's basically what I was getting at in my posts.

However, saying and doing are two different things. I have been lied to so much between Sep06 and May 08 that it's really hard to give trust first and then see him back it up. I think it's something I'll ahve to do though, cos if I don't the accusations and shame that he will feel will be detrimental to the relationship.