It’s a trust one

[Sunflowersok]

Can trust be rebuilt after it is broken in a relationship? How can this be achieved from the hurt party?

@BigFatLiar - he was very shamed by it, a few tears over it all too. It’s not something that applies today no just very bad choices from his past. He does struggle with his self worth, he’s had it grinded down for years and he’s recovering from that as time goes on. I’ve done my best to raise him up the best a partner can.

@ShesCurly yes he pretty much told me it was an innocent thing but there was a bit more too it when I questioned him on it the next day. He told me he panicked telling me everything it was difficult for him to admit.

We’ve had the codependent chat this morning. I think we both know we rely on each other a lot, and yes I suppose it can only cause damage if one of those support networks were taken away.

We are both growing and learning and slowly adding boundaries to the relationship. As damaged as we both are, we are doing our best to heal and grow. I’m learning off him and he’s learning off me. I think all the realisations we have come together about ourselves has brought us this close and our love so intense. I couldn’t imagine my life without him, as unhealthy as that sounds. But I’ve been through enough to know that I have enough in me to strive as a single person also.

I’d like to think I can get this trust back over time, he’s not done anything ‘unfaithful’ besides omitting the truth to me, it’s my past and my issues with trust that’s holding me back from getting over this.

I am not sure why this was such a huge secret from the start

I mean why its such a big deal that you have literally talked through all his past relationships and hes hidden that he was unfaithful in one of them. Is that it?

People do lie, on many different levels. At the start of a relationship its very easy to gloss over what is felt to be now irrelevant history.

I think it's quite childish of him to be behaving all so hurt and damaged by it. He needs to get a grip frankly. He lied, he fessed up, he needs to move on.

I do get that due to your past you now struggle with trust, but at some point you have to also move forward and decide whether this really is a massive trust breaker.

Utter and absolute dedication, openness and commitment is too extreme in a relationship.

Yes, you should be able to trust that he will remain faithful. If you can't, then either its because he's not trustworthy, or because of your own reasonable trust issues, but either way it's no basis for a relationship is it?

How long have you been together? I am sorry if you've said that and I've missed it, but it is quite key to your situation.

Perhaps if he's opened up to you about, slowly, its a sign that he's starting to trust you.

Early in your relationship he may have been wary of saying much for fear of being hurt or shamed.

@smotheroffive thank you for this.

We have been together for just over a year now, been friends for longer. Very close. We were both out of abusive relationships when we met - him a marriage. Unfortunately it’s not a great story for him, he was dating a girl who had some quite serious health issues and said she couldn’t get pregnant from it. He got a call 6 weeks after they first met saying she was pregnant, he was 20 at the time. He took on the responsibility of his actions and stayed and tried to make it work for them, got a home for them, took on her eldest daughter from a previous relationship. It was a relationship that wasn’t right, it was abusive (her towards him). He felt pressured to marry her (it was her fourth engagement, series of younger men the same age, she’s a lot older than him). Went through with the wedding. He left 6 weeks later when she hit him and tried to strangle him.

Not the best youth he’s had, but he tried to make the best of the cards he dealt with.

He was unfaithful through a texting relationship a few months before his wedding when her friend sent him pictures of herself in her underwear. He admitted he was flattered by the attention. Not a great situation and wrong of him to do so. He got frightened and ended it after a few back and forths. The lie he told me was that he ‘might have paid her a compliment or two’ over these messages but the next day he told me it went on over a series of days. He never admitted it to his wife over the friend thing as he was scared of her.

Do you all understand now how this has shaken me up? It’s not a nice thing to find out about your partner.

Yes I do get that for me to trust him he needs to be open 100% going forth. No I don’t think it’s realistic to be that open and disclosing in relationships, if I’m honest I’d probably be the same if he confronted me about something so embarrassing! I know that there’s a deep rooted issue here in me that I need to come to terms that people have pasts and that I need to work on accepting things I can’t change about someone.

I wish I’d never found out and I wish he just told me everything when I’d asked. He came out and told me when I did ask, just not how long it went on for.

My past relationship with my daughters dad pretty much was him messaging other girls in front of me and telling me I was hallucinating and that I was sicker than I actually am. 6 years of that. Playing cruel games. Blaming me for infidelities etc etc. It got to the point where my mind was split between two realities and I couldn’t get to terms with what was real and what was not.

I am 6 years out of that now, lots of therapy, but of course trust is a massive thing for me. I have a long standing history of childhood damage too.

My current partner is the only person I have been able to trust since I was a child. And this omitting of details about this incident has frightened me, and made me take a huge step back.

I think the problem is if you don't want to get hurt never trust anyone. If you don't trust people however you won't have close and loving relationships. Only when you learn to trust can that happen. Neither you were people open to trusting others to start are you getting there together?

When there is a lot of trauma from the past, it is totally unhealthy to try to recover together or be each other's main support while recovering.

A bit like if two recently recovering addicts get into a relationship. The relationship inevitably becomes about them being intense, talking about past trauma, discussing how they are saving each other etc instead of the happy and fun times that you should have in the first year of a relationship as two people who are healthy and level headed already.

You're only a year into being a couple. And already it's so intense and you both have so many layers of trauma to unpack.

If you were my friend I would be gently suggesting thinking about separating and working on yourselves for a while, in the knowledge that if your feelings for each other are as strong as you think they are, you will come back together when both of you are healed and healthy.

It shouldn't be this hard this soon.

It’s been such a breath of fresh air being able to trust. I don’t know my friendship with him before was solid and he was so good with me. Never crossed any lines or anything. Being able to love whole heartedly has been wonderful. Before then I was a complete cynic and a bit of a Man hater if I’m honest they were all deceptful in my eyes.

I think I’m struggling to get to terms with the fact that I’d still be in that place if this hasn’t had happened. Recovering is inner work isn’t it? It’s inner work I don’t know how to do or how to fix when half of my head is saying run purely because of the fear of a situation that hasn’t happened yet and might never do

I want to be a good partner and give him the trust that he deserves, I don’t want to punish him for it that’s now how I go. I’ve been dealing with it through loving him more in fact, each time I feel angry at him I’ve been taking it out but never on him. I think we both need more from each other - he needs my understanding and forgiveness and I need his complete openness and respect. I’m just really struggling at this point, and I wish I could fast forward in to the future where I knew it would all be worth it or not

Idk now. Domestic abuse from women is relatively rare, wrong, but rare. How long ago was this?

He was hardly just out of a marriage, as he didn't really have a marriage in reality, did he, as he was unfaithful just a few months before taking vows and then it was over six weeks after. I also wouldnt have taken the view that he did 'right by her' by marrying someone having a child he fathered. Very poor decisions indeed, and his fault. I am not sure why this woman has had such a detailed part of your current relationship, when it was so brief.

Whats happening with the baby now, presumably a young adult now?

He hasn’t responded very well from me being hurt my all of this, in fact he has punished himself for it.

I don't like the sound of this at all.

Your reaction, wether that be hurt, or anger, or distancing, whatever you do is your reaction, and he cannot control that, but, he is affecting your reaction by his, which is very worrying.

Your relationship is very unhealthy. You haven't known him long.

I don't think you know him very well.

Whether he seems kind and gentle and all those things, doesn't obliterate some of his behaviours, including marrying so quick and blaming the woman for it all.

You are too close to see the wood for the trees, this is a common hallmark of earpy on in abusive relationships. I'm not saying it is abusive, but its not healthy for either of you from what you say its quite toxic. Toxic relationships are full of this type of hurt and pain, and 'reactions' to your valid response to his disclosure.

You cannoy heal him and he cannot heal you. Neither of you sound ready, but it definitely doesn't sound good for you OP, and relationships are supposed to be, and freeing, not so intense and constricting with fears for his behaviours.

@ShesCurly thank you for your sound advice. This makes pure sense to me.

The past year or so hasn’t been intense bad. It’s been intense wonderful. Breathtakingly so. Happy tears of joy and so so. It was last week incident which turned it sour. I wouldn’t want to ruin what I have with him so soon on to it, my life is wonderful and I am happy for the first time since my daughter was born.

I really would like to think I would recover from this but I know there’s other matters here, like the recovering I need to consider

You have a daughter to him also? You've been with him a year and you already have a dd with him?

You don't make it clear, did you already have her, or this another quickie baby for him? If so very very .

@smotheroffive I get the uncertainly I was there too before I got together with him. Unfortunately it’s all true, i was friends with family members who told me before he told me everything. Her family members and friends too who aren’t friends with her anymore because she’s difficult. She’s friends of the family and I’ve known her from childhood.

Messy and difficult situation. I didn’t ask for it and neither did he. If anything I respect he was ballsy enough to try and make it work for his child, as most men won’t and are cowards.

He has been in an abusive relationship for 6 years. That is the situation. As have I.

No my DD is 8. There is a lot of judgement here

You didn't say, and in the light of what you have said its an easy conclusion to draw.

You didn't say, does he see his dc?

How old is his dc, and no, its not ballsy at all to marry someone because they are pregnant.

Its very outmoded way of thinking about what children actually need and reality.

The past year or so hasn’t been intense bad. It’s been intense wonderful. Breathtakingly so. Happy tears of joy and so so.

My love this is exactly my point. Phrases like breathtaking, intense wonderful, tears of joy etc are hyperbolic to the point they sound very much like romanticising rather than real life.

You've both put your relationship on a pedestal that real life can't live up to.

You describing your relationship with those phrases proves rather than disproves my point about it being unhealthy.

It sounds like you have lovebombed each other, probably unintentionally, but that means you haven't built your relationship on solid foundations as two healthy individuals.

I know that's really hard to see from the inside and I probably sound patronising but I've been there and it's not healthy.

I honestly found medication and therapy life changing as someone with bipolar - is medication something you've explored?

And I hope my posts don't come across as judgemental, it's just what I wish someone had discussed with me when I've been codependent before, that's all

@ShesCurly no not at all, I appreciate your words and I resonate with them.

I do understand the whole love bombing thing. Like I said before it is all very intense. Regardless, there is no denying his love for me. Not at all.

I have a work counsellor who helped me end my last relationship, I think this has brought up a whole lot of issues within myself and it might be worth going back there to her.

As for the bipolar, I was on long term meds until a few year ago when I made the decision to stop and deal with it on my own. It made me see the world in a different way for sure, up to recently I’ve been very well. It’s not an option for me to go back on them, I could barely look after my DD on them they were debilitating

@smotheroffive she’s 6. He’s a wonderful parent to her. We have a lot of difficulty with her behaviour though, down to emotional abuse and manipulation at home with her other parent. She’s a very fearful child and she’s scared of her mother, she often acts out. We are trying to build her a solid foundation and support network and provide a good domestic environment for her.

I think counselling would be really beneficial to you at the moment and it's great that you think that, it's a huge step in the right direction. Even when I'm well I go for the odd top up to work through specific issues!

And I am not saying this at all about your current relationship, I'm saying this because it sounds like you have similar natural wiring to me but I'm a bit older and have tackled it more...

Love. Isn't. Enough.

This sounds arrogant but I know my three long term exes would want me back in a heartbeat. But they treated me poorly, our relationships were way too intense, codependent and we became totally wrapped up in our relationship being the be all and end all for us.

In fact I genuinely believe man who beat me will 'love' me to the best of his fucked up ability and understanding of what love is until the day he dies. But his actions were abhorrent and I find him disgusting now.

I'm the one that got away, but thank god I got away.

Again, love isn't enough.

Again, love isn't enough.

I agree. Well a few things on here have given me a lot of food for thought. I’m away this weekend with a friend so that will give me some space and time to reflect I feel.

I’d let it go then. I was no saint before I met dh and can honestly say my head has never turned since the day I met him - even ten years on. And yes I’d say sometimes I wasn’t entirely honest about past relationships at the beginning because it was none of his business and it wouldn’t have shown me in a good light. I’m fact there is probably still stiff dh doesn’t know about me. It’s ok to keep some stuff back.

Also it’s ok to be very close, if that’s your cup of tea. Dh and I are too. We would be great friends if we wasn’t romantically involved. In fact I think we would always gravitate to each other in some capacity

Trauma bond. Not love. You are both traumatised and it's created an intense but ultimately unsustainable bond.

@Fiberoptic I suppose it is very unrealistic of me to expect the complete disclosure of everything from him. Thank you for this, it’s sunk in quite deep.

I think I’m just so regimented over the idea of not being hurt that I’m hurting myself by expecting it to be 100% perfect all the time. I still have things that I haven’t told him yet, but I know they will probably come to light further down the line.

@opticaldelusion we do love each other. Intensely? Yes. Unhealthily? Possibly, yes! But the love is there. Whether the trauma has anchored that in more, thats a probability too. But the love is real I know that for sure

I still have things that I haven’t told him yet, but I know they will probably come to light further down the line.

So is he wrong in trusting you? No obviously, we all have a past and its up to you if you want to share just as he has a past. If you don't share will he be upset if he finds out? If you want to move forward you need to stop hanging onto the trauma. If you use your suspicion and mistrust to shield you from life it'll pass you by. People will let you down, people will let him down, thats life. Do you want to take the risk he may let you down, if he does you could get hurt, on the other hand you may be passing up a loving relationship.

None of us know, not even about our own relationships, its a risk we all run.