What to Do if Husband Wont Give Up His Mistress and Doesnt Know if He Wants to Stay With You

I was the "other woman" in my electric current husband's life. To all the women who take been cheated on, allow me tell you: karma is a b*tch. They will get what they deserve and y'all don't have to practice annihilation—it happens. I want to trust my married man but can't. The things we did to get away with adulterous are the aforementioned things that haunt me now. I can't milk shake the feeling that he is now cheating on me. I encounter things that look familiar to those things nosotros used to do while cheating. I love him but tin't trust him, which causes a lot of conflict in our marriage. I am in abiding fear/suspicion every mean solar day. How can I even put information technology aside and motility forward? Information technology's been six years! I want to be able to trust but cannot. —Other Foot
Dear Other Foot,

Thanks for your question. 6 years is a long fourth dimension to be living with this kind of dubiousness! And not only is this situation more than mutual than you might realize, but the concept of certainty, or security, is often at the heart of this existential dilemma—which is something all of us want and demand, though information technology often proves elusive.

When we begin an affair with someone who is unavailable (via spousal relationship or otherwise), there is certainty in the fact we definitely want him or her only can't. This creates a very specific kind of focus around the question, "Will he or she go out or not?" If the answer is "yes," very often it seems to be "show" of our worthiness: that we and non the other woman (or human being) is the winner. We may start to feel resentful of our lover's spouse, thinking he or she doesn't deserve the ane we love. There may be guilt, too, or about likely a mixture of conflicting feelings and desires.

Then one day it happens, and he or she is ours—except the imagined happy life nosotros'd been yearning for isn't exactly all that; information technology may even exist more complicated, our feelings difficult to untangle. It'due south common that, rather than wanting the partner to cull us, nosotros find ourselves preoccupied with "proof" that the past will not repeat itself, that our beloved will not get out u.s.a. for someone else.

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The reasons for this are varied, and some or none or all of what I'm about to say volition employ to your situation. Take what yous like and ignore the rest. Only merely know that this kind of thing happens more than frequently than is discussed (for obvious reasons).

At that place is a safety (i.e., certainty) in becoming involved with someone who is unavailable; nosotros can love while focusing on the wanting, rather than the vulnerability that comes with actual availability. I don't think nosotros're to blame entirely; this arrangement normally fits a template of our early on experiences where caregivers were sporadically or consistently unavailable. Information technology is absolutely thrilling to be chosen over an "exterior" person, in a reversal of what we experienced earlier, where caregivers appeared more interested in things also u.s. (another kid or family, for instance), which of form is a terribly painful abandonment that follows us into machismo in the form of insecurities, needs, hopes, etc. To exist chosen over some other appears to be a reversal of abandonment that lands usa on solid relational ground at last. We tin and so finally create or co-create the well-founded home we have dreamed well-nigh.

But how solid is it? After all, we might then enquire, "Well, if he or she left his/her spouse before, who's to say he/she won't practise it again?" Behind or beneath this question are a slew of factors that I think may be worth some serious reflection, either alone, with a trusted friend, or with a counselor. I would suggest doing this before going to your husband to verbalize any concerns.

It tin can be disconcerting that sure fears never get away. We learn to alive with them, tolerate them, just they tin can never exist banished, especially if we experienced relational traumas early on, such equally abandonment, fail, or abuse. Nosotros may have felt unabandoned when he or she chose us, but the underlying fear—because it is rooted in our own histories and psyches—hasn't been banished, leaving u.s.a. to wonder if we may, in fact, be abandoned yet once again. The "proof" nosotros were seeking is not, information technology turns out, as iron-clad as we hoped; there are no guarantees he or she won't leave us for someone else. (There is never such a guarantee, actually.)

The traumatized, wounded office of ourselves needs to be heard, and this is, in role, a manner of announcing itself. The critical voice within may attack u.s. (or our partner) for the "wrongness" of what happened ("how could you exist and so selfish or reckless," etc); there may be guilt nearly how this relationship has come to be, merely virtually often this, too, is connected to the terror of abandonment (i.e., a repetition of actual past abandonment), and our yearnings for connectedness are suddenly bailiwick to cocky-doubt, and questions ascend about whether nosotros're worthy of happiness. ("You're not all that; you're a cheater, as well," and then on.) Of course, certain qualities or behaviors of our partner may stoke these fears, but if we truly, at the core, did not trust this person, we would never have pursued him or her. These fears are spurred for the most part by the historical trauma I'm discussing herein. We may zoom in like a laser on possible "signs" of such abandonment happening and interpret them as such, stoking our anxieties, but the crusade of it is ordinarily a terror of yet another experience of being left backside.

It'due south something of a cliche in our pop civilisation to believe that (as Sting once sang), "if you lot love someone, set them free." Simply the existential truth, I believe, is that we really do take to requite our partners the nobility of their choices, and your partner has chosen to be with you at present. That same respect is due u.s.a., since I believe that the majority of united states of america are non malevolent and are, in the main, doing the best we tin. Why not give the relationship a chance? It probably has a meliorate chance if you accept the take a chance of trusting him; otherwise, it could become a self-fulfilling prophecy where fright and anxiety suffocate any chance you might take. We can't ever assist who we dearest; the point is to empathise our choices rather than but give them the thumbs-up or -down. I think the more important question is why we choose who nosotros cull, rather than it beingness "correct or wrong" (which simply obscures the deeper issues).

Of grade, once you take a clear sense of what those underlying motives are—once you lot understand what "your side of the street" looks like in terms of facing your inevitable psychological demons—then y'all might exist able to reveal your vulnerabilities to your partner and verbalize what does and doesn't assistance yous in your personal quest for healing. (For example, "Do you mind telling me where yous're going for the time being? I capeesh you indulging me in this as I work on myself." As opposed to, "Where are yous going? Who are you seeing? What are you up to?") Our partners tin greatly back up but cannot replace that healing procedure. In a fashion, we need these types of things to prove us where the healing needs to occur. The danger is in expecting that a human relationship can supplant past injuries. Vulnerability is inevitable.

Paradoxically, making peace with the worst of the past seems tied to a more secure futurity. Thanks again for writing.

Best wishes,
Darren

Darren Haber

Darren Haber, PsyD, MFT is a psychotherapist specializing in treating alcoholism and drug habit equally well as co-occurring bug such as anxiety, depression, relationship concerns, secondary addictions (especially sex habit), and trauma (both single-incident and repetitive). He works in a variety of modalities, primarily cognitive behavioral, spiritual/recovery-based, and psychodynamic. He is certified in eye motion desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy, and continues to receive psychodynamic training in treating relational trauma, including emotional corruption/neglect and physical and sexual abuse.

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Source: https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/dear-gt/i-was-once-my-husbands-mistress-now-i-cant-trust-him