How can I rebuild my marriage when it feels like I can’t trust my husband?

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I feel I used to be a Buffalo and now I’ve become a cow. Since D-Day, my husband denials and trickle of information make me feel like a cow when it comes to thinking about putting things back on track, so to speak. I don’t feel like a mirror dropped on the floor with pieces to reassemble, I feel like after I was dropped, my husband took a sledgehammer to the pieces and pounded them to dust. Because of this, I’m finding it impossible to trust my husband and feel like I’m rebuilding with him. He has done what he believes is a full disclosure, says he’s focused on me, has ended things, given me access to his online stuff, and says he will do whatever it takes. We are fortunate that our daughter has grown, turning 22 this month, but she was encouraged to find her own place as she has another ball of wax for me to deal with.

An impact letter is where you write down what has occurred to you because of your spouse’s betrayal. I believe that if he’s in a place where he can hear that, you might need a therapist to guide this conversation, but my experience is that a humble heart, if they’ve done the disclosure, has more strength to hear your pain. If your spouse is willing to do that, then you can speak your inner parts, your inner pain. And that’s the part that is part of the men’s process is him being able to hear your pain and then what we would call an emotional restitution letter, and that is talking about how he lied and deceived you, and there’s a guidance that we do as therapists there. Now this is deeper work that we encourage couples to do, now again, a lot of couples don’t do this because they’re not guided by a therapist. But as we work through the recovery process, we do a disclosure and impact letter written by the betrayed partner and then emotional restitution letter. These are the things that we find that helps couples regain a foundation so then they can start building upon the deeper forms of connection.

Again, and you say he’s done a full disclosure, he’s ended things, he’s given you all the access, but something’s still missing inside. You’re feeling something. What is that, that you’re feeling needs to occur? I would encourage you to write your thoughts or talk about those thoughts. What is it that you need to feel like you can heal?

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