A
female
age
41-50,
*mb
writes:I've never been able to fully trust my husband; when we first started dating, I had had several bad relationships and family issues, where I felt that most people hurt me and let me down, or just left me. When I met him, he was still getting over his ex and would talk to her online, which made me uncomfortable. He also hid a lot of things from me - drug use at a party, the type of sex he really liked, and then later when we lived together, he would hide drug use again from me and tell me he'd be home at a certain time, only to show up hours later without letting me know he was all right and why he was so late. We worked through it all as best we could, and I told him that in order for me to feel comfortable and for me to at least try to fully trust him, I needed his help. I needed him to stick to the things he told me he was going to do, and if he was unable to do so, to tell me as it was happening, not five hours later when he comes home and I've been sitting here wondering what's going on or if he's okay. He agreed; all I really wanted him to do was to send me a quick text message to let me know his plans had had changed. He tries to do this, but doesn't always succeed, and in those instances we usually end up fighting. The last big fight we had was about a close friend of ours having his bachelor party. The friend wanted strippers to be there, who stripped and did "more"; I hate the idea of that. I don't mind strip clubs, because those are at least somewhat regulated, but the idea of in house strippers terrify me and I told my husband we needed to set some boundaries about what's okay and what's not with the strippers. He got really angry at me and said I don't trust him and I shouldn't have to set boundaries, because we're married and he'd never do anything to upset me. After several days of fighting about it, we finally came to an agreement, even though my husband said he didn't believe me and he thought I'd end up upset anyway.Unfortunately, he was right. When I came home from the bachelorette party (drag show, karaoke, and dancing), I saw that my husband had been home at some point in the night to use drugs with his friends, which I hadn't known about. I also found out some of the things the strippers did with the husband to be and I was just completely disgusted. I became completely irrational and thought that if I didn't know that my husband had brought people back here to do drugs, what else didn't I know about what happened? We fought for a long time about it, and I was drunk and said mean things to him. At the end of the fight he told me to just divorce him. Now, I don't know what to do. Yes, he has hidden things in the past from me, but that doesn't give me the right to act like this and this experience has shown both of us that while I try to trust him, I obviously don't. How can we get past this? He refuses counseling as he says he didn't do anything wrong, so that's out of the question. He just wants me to fix it, but I don't know how. I've never been able to trust anyone, and while I love my husband very much and trust him as much as I am able, I'm doing both of us a disservice. Part of me feels like we are headed for divorce, because it's not fair to either of us to live like this. I just wish I knew what to do. :(
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male
reader, rcn +, writes (28 September 2009):
 First, you tell your husband that if you're the only one that has to change something this marriage is not going to work. You need to work together to improve the quality of your marriage, not one person needs fixed and the other one is "perfect." It really doesn't work that way.
From what you said, I noticed you both have issues, those issues combined are affecting your ability to have a successful marriage. Sure, you could get divorced, but taking your issues with you to the next relationship would almost guarantee it ending the same way. So, it's easier to fix the broken, then to replace, break and try to fix again. It can be never ending. So I believe now is the time to break this cycle.
You place a lot of blame for your distrust. He can help you trust by....., not since you haven't faced the past that causes this lack of trust. As long as that's affecting you, the distrust will continue. You're past horror, so to speak, is the underlying cause for not being able to fully trust. So, instead of taking care of the surface or the affect of the cause, let's tackle the cause.
This week release some of this pain and anger. You do this by writing out your feelings around your past. Do this expressively as if you're directly talking to those who hurt you in your past. Include what happened, how you feel about what happened and how what had happened affected you. Then, in your heart, I want you to work on forgiving those who hurt you, not because they deserve it, but because you deserve to live without it affecting you. Another thing you need to do is forgive yourself for how your past has affected your marriage. I'm not saying you're at fault, but when bad things happen to us, we end up taking a certain amount of guilt with us, even though we may not have caused it.
This is a start, which I hope improves your life, and marriage. Take care.
A
male
reader, CaringGuy  +, writes (27 September 2009):
You sound like a lady who has been very hurt. What I'm going to say may be a little raw, but read it and think carefully.
You've had some seriously bad experiences with people in the past, and I think that you're so used to being treated badly, you have settled with a person who is second best because you don't think you're worth any more than that.
Let me put it into perspective. Your husband has repeatedly lied, he takes drugs, he vistits strippers with a blantent disregard for your feelings and then even tells you to divorce him!
You are better than this, and you know it deep down.
Take his advice and divorce him. Be brave and go to counseling yourself to try and sort out your own past. I think when you understand yourself a bit more and feel better about who you are, you'll be able to look at better guys. They are out there, and you can find one if you look hard enough. But leave this relationship. He'll destroy you otherwise. Lots of luck. Go and live your own life.
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