(Re)Building the trust...

[Jane Bond]

Originally Posted by *Anya*

Trust has two meanings for me when we are talking monogamy. I fell in love wth my long-term ex and both of us agreed to monogamy. In retrospect, I think it was a more important value of mine, then hers. Then, out of the blue, my ex cheated. The sense of betrayal was so profound (no one had ever cheated on me-or that I had ever known about).

The first time she cheated was what you may be calling broken trust. Instead of breaking up, because I loved her and because I got a lot of tears and promises of "I'll never, ever do it again". I worked really hard on rebuilding that with her. I had a mantra of forgiveness in my brain 100 times a day.

Just as a tiny bit of trust was being rebuilt, she fucking did it again. Trust gone, never to be seen in regards to her again and it never will be again. We are now no more, 19 years of partnership and love down the drain.

Current partner made vow of faithfulness and I have total trust with her. Monogamy is just as an important value to her, as it is to me. If my trust were ever to shatter with her, there would be no rebuilding. The betrayal would be too deep.

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Anya, your summation was so easy to relate to my own situation.
I adored my wife, but her first cheating episode battered the trust, but not enough to make me want to leave her, because I loved her and chose to believe her promises that it was an isolated incident that would never occur again.
Still, that one betrayal and the lies she first told to deny it, continued to gnaw at my heart and abrade the trust.
Love may be the bricks of a relationship, but I have come to believe that loyalty and trust are the mortar that hold the bricks together.
Lies and betrayal from the first affair cast aspersions on her every word and deed after the affair was discovered. I hated feeling that way, but she seemed so much sneakier now.
I started suspecting her with each new muffled phone call, taken into the next room, text message she erased upon reading, and other behaviors that I never saw (or noticed) before.
Basically. I had cast myself in the role of Private Investigator, and I had lost my constant state of lust for her.
She resented my suspicion and started saying I was being paranoid. I bickered with her because it was hard not to throw her cheating back in her face as justification for my paranoia.

One day, I was cleaning our shared home office space, and I opened a bottom drawer in her desk to store some random papers of hers. I spied a little packet of baby blue envelopes, rubber banded together and addressed to her workplace address.
Hell yes I opened them, and discovered the whore she was cheating with was still in touch, and still very attached to my wife. When the letters mentioned how lovely recent trysts had been (like nooners at chic local hotels) I folded them up and replaced them in their envelopes.
I carried them upstairs to our bedroom and arranged them neatly under her pilllow. I was reading in bed that night when she came in and got in bed.
She heard the crisp paper envelopes rustling when she laid her head down, and immediately found the collection.
She looked at me with her best sheepish expression and I said, "This isn't baseball where you get three strikes. Get your shit out of the house tomorrow and have your lawyer call mine. And get out of my bed, sleep in the guest room or the couch, or go to your girlfriend's studio apartment and sleep on her futon. I don't care where you sleep as long as it's not with me."
I think once the trust is broken through infidelity, it's only a matter of time before we discover that cheaters lie and liars cheat and this wasn't the first whore and wouldn't be the last.
We vowed before God to be faithful and loyal to each other. She lied to God and me--I chose an insincere egomaniac who was more into the fancy wedding, the dress and the 2 karat rock than she was ever into me.

[JDeere]

Once trust is broken with me, I am done.

I do not trust easily because I ALWAYS end up getting hurt. So once you gain mine, you better keep it, whether friendship or relationship or family member. Yes I don't even trust my own family members at times, that's how far my walls are up.

If I am with someone in a relationship that breaks trust of any kind, BYE FELICIA!

[Bubala]

[imperfect_cupcake]

I'm lucky enough to have had friendships that have lasted 8, 10, 25-35 years and some of those are exes and some are people I used to sleep with on rare occasion while having a friendship. Last New Years people wound up in a big sex pile, I sat that one out and played a phone game and made people sandwiches.
And I've had relationship with my mom that has been really bad at times but was worked on.

During the friendships there have been times when trust has been lost (not broken) and repaired. The friendships are stronger for it because I now trust that no matter what happens, in the very long term my friends and family will stick around. I'm guessing that if I can get that from my friends, there *might* be someone who is willing to put that kind of freedom, patience, work and care into making something romantic last.

Right now it's not important. I'm really happy with where I am and how hard I've worked and the people I've got.

I was willing to work with the betrayal in my marriage because it wasn't just one person "being an asshole". There were extreme and extenuating situations that happened, that were excessively difficult for my partner to cope with, I wasn't able to be the kind of support she needed because of a communication break down that was half my fault, and there I things I could have done differently. I hurt her, unintentionally, when she as quite weak.
I know I have to take some of the blame for e breakdown that led to what happened. So I was willing to accept some of the hurt for her decision. I also felt a lot of empathy for her. I was pissed, and frankly really dispointed at her infantile behaviour, and she did break my trust, but her heart must have been a bit broken itself at that point.

Empathy. Goes a long way in re-establishing trust. Some people don't deserve it, some people do. I made a vow in front of 40 people and a magistrate to stick by her through sickness and health, and to me that ment including mental illness of depression and slipping with booze and making bad choices.

I would still stand by that kind of promise today. I believe in marriage. And I don't think running away at first crisis is what marriage means.

I stuck to it. I made suggestions, bought books, made appointments to therapy. I was willing to forgive. Eventually she made her mind up she didn't want forgiveness, she wanted escapism from the pain in her head. And I feel for her. I'm only just now getting to the point I'm not so angry at her choice. I know she wanted to get away from being poor, not having enough stability, working so fucking hard all the time and never getting a break. Now she has that because she chose someone with money over me in the end. And although it's shit, I also empathize because it was brutal hard, what we we were going through.

And ultimately, I'm ok. I have all that I need. Her choice did not destroy my life though it felt like it for a coule of years. I'm ok. She's ok. We are both doing what we need. I didn't die. And I learned that having the worst thing ever happen to me in a relationship didn't, in fact, kill me.

Look how strong I am. Look at my friends. Look at my new career. It's ok.

I still care for my ex. I still care she's happy. I still love her in a bigger picture kind of way. I don't really want to hang out with her because she actually annoys me now, fall out from what happened, but I definitely want her to be happy and well cared for.

Anyway... I think trusting yourself is a big step to trusting others. I lost a lot of trust in myself. I trust my boundaries and my abilities now. I also trust I won't shrivel up and die every time something doesn't work out or some one hurts me in the process of working something out. That means I can take risks.

Just thinking out loud.