Hi everyone,
I am new here, so I am just going to spill my guts. I am 40 years old, and my wife Michele is 41. We were married about 6 and a half years ago – our second marriage for both of us.
I love her more than I can say, more than I have ever loved anyone else in my life, I suppose.
I have been fighting with these heart-wrenching feelings of mistrust in our relationship since before we were married. It continues to this day, sometimes now it’s been worse than in the past. We just moved from Illinois to California a few months ago and this has seemed to make things worse.
First, I should tell you a little bit about what has happened to me in my past, that may account for my feelings of general mistrust in my relationships.
My first wife cheated on me – I found out from a ‘friend’ about three years after it happened. My ‘trust’ in women, I feel, have been ruined ever since. My mother put me and a few of my siblings in foster homes when we were quite young, too, which may have a bearing on my trust issues when it comes to the women in my life. A few of us never came back, meaning that two of my siblings ended up being adopted out when they and I were quite young.
Boy, it can’t get much worse, right?
Anyway, to get down to ‘brass tacks’, as it is sometimes called, it comes down to the fact that I constantly have these (what seem to be) ridiculous fears that she is not faithful, or not been faithful in the past, or is possibly starting to get involved with someone.
I must say right up front that I do not truly believe these things are occuring, or I would not be here writing this today. I feel, deep down in my heart, that Michele is, and has been, faithful partner, a loving wife, and has put up with a lot of my crap (problems caused by my mistrust) in the past. Still I wrestle with my incessant fears of being screwed around on again.
I simply cannot shake this fear – this feeling – this ‘monster’ that hangs over my every thought, word and action. I cry as I write this because I need her and I love her, and I know that this behavior is irrepairably hurting our marriage. Yet no matter what I do, I can’t make it go away.
Why my past has so deeply affected my present is mostly beyond my comprehension. This is not normal, and I need some help and guidance in order to get better.
I told Michele the other night, after she suggested that I ‘get some help to cope with these feelings’, that I did not want to be brainwashed into the ignorance of the possibility that infidelity can happen – now, is that sick, or what? My fear was that I did not want to be in a position where I trusted that nothing was ‘going on’ – I simply did not want to be put in a position where I was ‘tricked again’, or ignorant to the fact that my wife is/was having an affair. I didn’t want someone telling me to trust her, no matter what (within reason), SO I WASN’T SUPRISED AGAIN, EVER, IN THE FUTURE.
I am sure how this thought process has caused problems.
Let me break it down for you even further yet. I have fars of her coming home late from work – stopping at the store, I question (if not out loud, then at least mentally), where she has been, if she has started ‘talking to’ someone else, if she is seeing someone else, if she had left work early because she is on salary and not on the clock.
I have checked her cell phone records and have questioned her on that. I wonder sometimes who she is talking to on the phone.
I am just sick over it. If I didn’t love her so much, and feel that I truly want to spend the rest of my life with her, I imagine it would be easier to just ‘call it quits’, and go back to being single again, but no way. I would be sick without her, because even after all the B.S. I just described happening, I really do, deep down inside, trust her, or I would HAVE TO end it.
Consequently, I feel it prudent to say that I have never been unfaithful to Michele, either. Sometimes I wonder if she wonders, which probably instigates my feelings of insecurity. I mean, if she thinks I have been unfaithful, maybe she will be, out of spite.
Please try to understand this sickness, people. I actually do trust that she has not (at least not yet), been unfaithful to me. Yet the sickness continues as I have described it.
There is a lot going on in our lives right now that may be contributing to these fears. I am currently unemployed, for the first time in quite a while. Savings are rapidly depleting. We are in a very new environment, living with my brother, and somehow I feel a little less the man I used to be. Michele has just started working again after three years of her not having to work due to my work going so well. But now that we’ve moved, a few things fell through that I was counting on for money, and I am sure it is affecting my feelings of manhood, worth and security.
New people, places and faces are all scaring me a little too. I am not in quite the position I was before moving here, and I am scared.
I should also remind you that this has gone on for years now. I have not always been nearly as ‘scared’ as I am at this moment, but I have been very controlling in the past, no doubt. I am almost afraid of her leaving the house by herself, for fear that she may have some clandestine affair going on, or is going to ‘see someone’ that she may not have done anything with yet, but is considering doing something with, or whatever.
Again, I am sure you are all sitting there reading this and saying to yourself….”Man, this guy is screwed up….”
Well, you’re right. I AM screwed up, as you can tell. I think that I count on her too much to be there for me. I am afraid of being ‘left’ again, or being lied to, or being cheated on, because I love her so much. I am afraid that if she left me, I would simply not want to go on without her. Maybe that IS love?! To not want to be without someone; but only in a normal sense. To hope, deep down in your heart, that they will be there for you forever, and they never betray your trust. Trusting is scary. I feel I do not know the meaning of the word.
I guess what it really comes down to is that I am afraid that the ‘world’, with the way it is, gives very little meaning and substance to faithfulness in relationships; to long-term trusting marriages. So many married couples simply let the world, and the years, harden their heart and make them forget the love they had at one time. Some people simply do not have a conscience when it comes to fidelity in a marriage; some people do not realize that all of the problems of life in todays world have caused people to lose sight of the importance of love, marriage and being faithful in a marriage. So in short, I feel that most people are very nonchalant (sp?) about their marriage vows in todays world, and that society has made it easy for people to simply throw away their marriage at a whim. I guess I just find it hard to trust anyone.
I can only blame so much on my past experiences before I start realizing that I am just plain screwed up.
Where I want to be is in a place where I am not stupid to the fact that unfaithfullness happens in many marriages today, but where I can feel OK with Michele having a life outside of ours without me feeling so darn scared that she will meet someone, someday, and leave me, or worse yet, have an affair on me.
I know that the first step to doing this is realizing that it very well may happen…..but believe that it hasn’t yet. I want to be in a place where she can come home from work after stopping at the store without me having a heart attack wondering if she is out talking to another guy. I don’t want to worry about whther or not she really did work late, or whether whe was with someone.
I am sick and tired of being sick and tires. I just want to love her, and know that she loves me – without unreasonable question or fear. I need to be able to do this, because there is no doubt that if I don’t get better about this, I will ruin what we have. And I sure don’t want to lose her over something that she hasn’t done or wouldn’t do, as she tells me.
I want to believe her. I must believe her. I need to believe her. Hell, I just plain NEED her. I couldn’t possibly bear not having her around anymore.
Please give me any advice you may see fit. Help me get through this pain and fear. Help me help us…...please.
