Your last statement is really a great insight. I am curious to know what you were feeling... what you were thinking... upon saying that.
I want to put out there that... a perfect stranger is quite possibly likely to: spit on you, steal your purse, smash into your car, or do other negative things to you. Everyone is "capable" of doing so. What we do is we choose to believe they won't... they haven't given us a "reason" to believe they would...
What you can not deny, is your feelings that you can not trust your H. He has given you ample reasons to not trust him. It is impossible to see him as a perfect stranger...
But if you accepted that a perfect stranger is no less likely to abuse your trust as your H did... how could you change your thoughts about your H?
He can not EARN your trust, if you are not willing to give him your trust. In the same way that, as you begin to know a perfect stranger and become comfortable that you can trust them, you eventually can trust them to watch your purse, because they are no longer a perfect stranger... but... you had to task them, little by little, with new LEVELS of trust...
Which takes us back to one of the core teachings of DB. We need to change ourselves, in order to change the M.
One thing that people don't see at the surface, is that trust is one of those things that we project on others. When we say we don't trust someone else, underneath... we don't trust ourselves. We may have thoughts like, "How did I not see this coming." or "I can't believe I allowed that to happen to me."
Those thoughts and feelings come from being self critical and allow (some speak of this as our "inner child" loosing trust in ourselves to protect "them" *the inner child*) us to project that responsibility onto someone else.
When I give someone money for a purchase, I do not trust they will give me the correct change back. If I lend my car out to someone, I do not trust they will bring it back in one piece, or with a full tank of gas. When I am driving down the highway, I do not trust other drivers to not t-bone me at an intersection... but at the end of the drive, I am generally happy that nothing "bad" happened... because I KNOW it could have...
In that way... I can ALWAYS trust...
I expected that my W would never hurt me. I expected that my W would never "cheat" on me. And the truth is... that was my mistake. OF COURSE that was a possibility. OF COURSE my W was no less or more likely to do these things. What hurt is NOT that she hurt me or cheated on me... it was that I "allowed" myself to be hurt or cheated on. If I wanted that done right... then I should never have got M.
But then... I would never have lived life...
Trust is a funny thing, too... I can actually TRUST that a kleptomaniac is likely to steel again. I can TRUST that a liar will consistently lie. Trust... leads to expectations...
I expect that my W will continue to tell me to "f off" every time I ask her something about her personal life. I expect my W will continue to tell me that nothing happened between her and OM. Does this help to understand where trust actually comes from? It is US, projecting unto others, some expectation of their behaviours and actions.
Needing to trust someone can lead to co-dependency. But I do hope that you can TRUST your H to take care of your S, if you ever needed him to. Such as if you were suddenly hospitalised for some unfortunate accident or illness.
What I believe is, if I want something done "right"... then I need to do it myself. What this means is, if I want something done in a way that produces the results that I expect, then I should do it myself. If I am open to having something done in a different way than I would do it, and with potentially different results, then I can trust someone else to do it.
On these things that you can not trust your H... are your expecting the results to be exactly the way you want them? If so, then absolutely, you should do those things yourself. If you are open to having the garbage being taken out later, or being at a different spot at the end of the driveway... or even open to it not getting to the curb on time this week, but it will hopefully get there next week... the by all means, trust your H, your S, or a perfect stranger with that task.
If you really wanted your H to be everything you expect... than you really expected to M the male clone of yourself... none of us should ever expect that... and personally, I wouldn't want that... One of the identifiable, core human needs is the need for variety. Often, that is why we are attracted to our spouses. So why do we suddenly demand they stop offering that variety?
So lets get a little deeper into this first thing:
What WOULD you trust your H on, at this time?
What are the little things... name a couple... that you could trust him to do, consistently.
