OH broken my trust - how to proceed

[HolidayHouse]

Hello. I have posted before but I wanted to start again with this post really. My DH and I have been together 10 years, married for 4. We were pretty solid until the last year, when we had a child and we have had a really rough year- lots of arguments etc and we went to relate too.

Anyway, I found out at the weekend that he has broken my trust and crossed a line in our relationship. He swears that it has only gone so far, and has been really lovely in trying to make it up, saying he will do whatever I want with regards to letting me virtually monitor his life so I know it won't happen again if I want to, and saying he will treat me so much better than he has over the last year and that he knows he doesn't deserve me, etc etc. I think he is genuinely sorry.

I am willing to work at it, especially for the sake of our child, and if we can get back the lovely relationship we used to have imo it would be worth a last throw of the dice.

However - the problem is that I just cannot believe him, ie I think it has gone further than he says. He swears it hasn't, but he tried to lie when I initially caught him out and then admitted to the first stage (the only thing I actually had proof of). I just don't know if I can believe him and I know that if it has gone further I wouldn't be able to forgive him. What can I do? I have to believe him if we even want to work things out, don't I. The only thing is, there are things that don't add up, only little things - and he can't properly explain them other than saying I'm wrong. But there is no way of proving anything either way, so I need to believe him. I'm just scared of being made a mug of. Please can I have some advice? Sorry this is rambly. I am confident Relate won't help again in this situ.

Thank you.

Would you both be willing to go to Relate anyway?. Do you get the same sense of willingness to repair the relationship from him?.

Are the causes of the previous arguments still issues?.

How did he meet this other person?. Online, through work?.

Regaining full trust is going to be very hard. I don't actually think contrary to his way of thinking that monitoring his whole life is going to help matters particularly in the long term. He may well be saying sorry but actions speak louder than words here.

Its going to take a long time and an awful lot of work on both sides to repair such damage and your relationship may never return to how it was.

thanks for the reply. to answer - I think he would be willing, but I don't think it will help. at the moment, I get a very strong sense of willingness to repair the relationship from him. But how long will it last?

the causes of the arguments were to do with how he treats me - I felt he was often disrespectful, he didn't think he was, though he has admitted now that he understands that sometimes he is. Also my insecurity, which will obviously now get worse!

The other person was online.

At the moment, he is treating me a lot better than he has the last year, (although the last 2 months or so were better, which makes this indescretion all the more odd in my eyes). He is saying lovely things about me, like he used to do. I have told him I will never feel comfortable with late night computer usage again when I am in bed(!) and he accepts this.

Hi, Sadly I do understand.

What are the little things that don't add up? Unless you can resolve them, you will always fear the worst. If you tell us, maybe we can offer innocent explanations, maybe not.

So sorry for you.

A cheap pay as you go phone he has ordered, I found out about. He says it was for me (mine isn't good sound wise). But - ???

Also late nights up "working" - he says he really was working. I don't believe him.

Do you think he met up with this person?

Does he travel with work?

Ask to see his bank starements & phone records.
To move on you need to know the full story, or it will eat away at the relationship.

I thinkyou should trust your instincts tbh.

Sorry I haven't seen your earlier post. What did you find on line? And was it to/from anyone he has contact with in RL?

I think you have to accept that there are things you don't know. In time perhaps you may be able to draw a line under it and move on, the fact is that no matter how far it went, he wants to be with you, and you both want to make it work.

That's a really really good start isn't it?

Would it change things significantly if your suspicions are correct; - probably not, there's too much at stake here.

As one who had my worst fears confirmed ( I wasn't suspicious and had no idea) the fact is, you have to accept that you can't monitor someone else 24/7. They have to want to be with you - and in this case he does want to be with you doesn't he. No monitoring will help; - where there's a will there's a way.

Give yourself time, it could take years. I'm 2 months in and still devastated.

I think if it has progressed to physical infidelity, of any sort, you do need to know, actually. I'm assuming this is what you think? You might need to be a little less guarded about what has happened for posters to really help you.

This will always be a problem when the involved partner lies and then only admits to what can be proved. It further erodes any trust that still exists. If he also understands that you will not forgive physical infidelity, he has got a huge investment in continuing with any lies, but the lack of trust and belief is pernicious and eats away at a couple. To move forward, you might have to review what you believe about forgiveness - and he needs to be totally honest.

In these situations, I always advise getting some sort of external verification. Has the online woman confirmed his story with you?
When you say late nights up working, do you mean at the PC, or out at night? Can he prove he was where he said he was? Are you able to read the messages they have been relaying to eachother - and are there any secret E mail accounts?

It takes a long time to restore trust, especially if more lies are told on discovery. What makes this a difficult, but necessary journey is why this happened in the first place? He needs to resolve that to your satisfaction and then you both need to work together to ensure this can never happen again.

I also wanted to pick up on your point about staying because of the DCs. Stay for the relationship and him, but not the DCs.

Thanks for all the messages. I'm sorry to anyone who is experiencing/has experienced similar or worse. It is a horrible feeling.

WWIFN - It's more about the frequency/nature of the online stuff, the worrying that they were having phone/webcam interaction, and yes- it is possible in my mind they had one or 2 meetings though I have no evidence for this whatsoever and he is emphatically denying all of this.

He says it was just the interactions online that I am aware of, nothing more.
If this is the case, in time I can forgive and I am sure we can move on. He has been so nice the last few days though I realise how this is how he should be all the time, and how he used to be - and how before this episode he had changed the way he treated me. I was just convinced he had fallen out of love with me. I have told him if things start to slip back to how they were I can't do this again. I have to know he is going to work at this properly and treat me as I deserve to be treated. In return I will treat him as he should be treated but the trust will take a long time to return.

Lucy85 - I'm not sure how much/if it would change things. Physical meetings? Probably. Addiction/numerous online meetings and explicit chats? Possibly. Depends on how much, really.

When I ask him why it happened he says he doesn't know. He says he must be a horrible person to risk everything like this. He says he doesn't want to lose me or our son. (I say he wouldn't lose our son whatever happened, he's a good dad - he says not seeing him every day would devastate him).

Brittany - he has travelled away with work 4 times in the last 6 months. This is my worst fear I guess, that they met up. I am pretty sure this can't have happened from what I know about the trips but I can't be 100% sure and it is my worst suspicion.

WWIFN - the late nights were mostly at the pc.

Thanks so much for all the advice, any more welcomed.

WWIFN - all the messages have gone. I have read some from his side but this is all that was there.

I have checked all his email accounts (he has 3) but I can't help but wonder if there's another one I don't know about. Also once he started typing in a nickname into one of the email address boxes when I was there ages ago that wasn't our email address - and then deleted it. I said "what was that?" he said just a password he used at work. Now I am wondering if it was a sign in for a secret email account, and he started typing it by mistake. See? Nothing proving anything but little things that are now setting my mind racing, possibly adding 2 and 2 and making 5, but possibly instincts that should be heeded. I don't know.