Hi Bumbling,
The pain of being betrayed brings with it the demons of insecurities (worry & fear) circling around the question, "How do I prevent myself from getting hurt like this again?"

Ironically the one trait you have to beat back theses demons is the one thing most believe leaves you most vunerable to getting hurt again - TRUST.

I'm learning to redevelop trust into a form of letting go ... as an acceptance of what I don't control. One cannot control the choices their S makes. What is in your control is your acceptance or not of what they do. It helps to develop a predetermined plan of what you will accept and what you will not and work towards building the strength to know that you will live up to that code and that when you do, no matter what happens you will be OK. When you reach that state, you tend to find the demons hold no power over you anymore.

Trust, like forgiveness, has more to do with you than your spouse. Its a measure of how confident you are about the choices you make being the right one for you. Remember, love is a decision and what attacted your S to you ... drawing them to make that decision is you being who you really are before you were going down cheeseless tunnels.

To be honest, I not sure if I'm conveying properly what I am trying to say. I seem to be in a bit of a fog lately. Is this making any sense to anyone?

It might easer to understand what I wrote a while back...

From Get out of jail FREE! page 4 :

Quote:
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Then it hit me ... the reoccurring statement through out this board - "Love is a decision." A decision based on what it is about us that they are attracted to and then they are fully committed to that decision.

What altered that commitment? The subtle shift in our behavior until we are no longer the person they were attracted to. Then they begin to doubt their decision to love us. The more we continue our unattractive behavior the more they waiver. Eventually, they change their decision. Unfortunately, for some of us that may mean an EA or PA.

What brings them back? Changes we make in our behavior as we consciously attempt to improve ourselves. This may reminds them of the old us they were attracted to or even better perhaps as the "New & Improved" us. Once they believe that changes are for real, then it is not such a large step for them to decide they can love us again and commit to it again. For my W it took a little longer than a week for her to process this on her own before she came to me to talk.

Now how can we believe their commitment to this decision is for real and we can trust them? As long as we continue to act in the manner that is true to ourselves and attracted them to make the decision to love us again, then they will never have any reason to doubt the commitment they made to that decision.

Thereby breaking the previous cycle and IT WILL NOT BE REPEATED!

This is why DBing is for life!!!!!
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I guess I more tired tonight than I thought. So I guess I should get to bed. Hope this helped in some way. Goodnight.

'til later,
KAW