Can I get his trust back?

[LUCIA22]

I posted earlier in the week about my husbands lack of trust of me & how he constantly thinks I am & have been fooling around behind his back. Just for the record I have never been unfaithful , been tempted to be unfaithful or been propositioned by anyone else.
We have talked about this extensively this week & many issues have come up.
Most if his evidence is down to a ‘feeling’ or what he perceives as my suspicious behaviour. We have had many ups & downs & he says he presumed I was looking elsewhere for the affection I wasn’t getting from him.
There is one occasion however, many years ago which I can’t explain. He says he found some underwear in my drawer which he had never seen & I had never worn It then disappeared. I have no recollection of where it came from & so he says it’s fair to say that I must have bought it or someone must have bought it for me. I honestly can’t remember. It is destroying our relationship because he can’t move on from it & continues to distrust me & I am devastated that he doesn’t believe me, and really why should he?!
we been together 20yrs & I love him dearly. I don’t know if my can’t cope for much longer under this constant scrutiny. He hasn’t been an easy person to live with, he has undiagnosed ADHT/Aspergers and poor mental health but if I raise this it’s like I am trying to deflect the issue.
Any advice would be gratefully accepted.

it would be useful to get a male perspective on this as he says that if he told this scenario to male friends they would all reach the same conclusion

This is just more gaslighting, OP; unless his male friends are all as obnoxious as him. Anyway, what does 'male perspective' matter? it's HIS attitude that's causing the problems.

Ah yes I well remember my ex saying this sort of thing. So I told a male colleague. He said my ex was a tw*t.

I have an appointment to discuss counselling with my GP over many issues which I think have worn me down over time & I now feel at breaking point. I may then be in a stronger position to convince him to seek help. My husband has been to the Dr to discuss Aspergers on more than one occasion but idiot Dr told him that it wouldn’t help to get a test & that if he had a job, a wife & a family it clearly wasn’t causing a problem. He no longer has a job & things are not going well with his wife!!!

Delurking after many years of silence, as a man...
The guy's a possessive wanker and he's completely wrong that most men feel the same. Only those who can't control their jealousy, don't trust their partner, and in many cases are playing around themselves feel like this.
He's a twat.

Given his behaviour ie obsession, his MH issues and the shear length of time he's kept going with this, I'd say he made it up about the underwear so he'd have an excuse to control you. It's all bollocks.
It's about time you saw it for what it is - a made up scenario that conveniently had no proof as it 'disappeared'.
He has gaslighted you on it for years, so no, he's not about to turn around and say it never happened, because then you wouldn't want to continually try so hard to prove how loyal you are.
Has he been calm about you going out with your friends over the years, or used the fabricated event to try and stop you?
You've been hoodwinked all this time and not seen it unfortunately.

I don't know why you feel you need a male perspective, that's a bit tragic in and of itself, but here you go if it makes you feel better, I showed your post to some men.

My husband thinks your husband is being a controlling dick and you need to stop enabling his behaviour by hand wringing and acting like his paranoia is justified.

My dad thinks you need to insist on couples therapy so he can work through whatever it is that's causing this paranoia and try and resolve it.

My very dear friend and colleague called your husband a cunt.

So three of three do not agree. How many people, male or female, need to tell you your husband is ridiculous before you'll listen?

He is jealous and controlling, these are his issues, why stay with him when he makes you feel like this?

He's ridiculous. And making up ADHD / autism to try and justify it.

My husband would assume he'd dreamed it or had mistaken one item for another. He would believe me absolutely and not being it up over and over.

That said my husband does not keep inventory on my underwear and occasionally will comment that something is new when it is in fact about a decade old and I never wear it because it's scratchy etc. WTF is he doing keeping such close tabs on your underwear?

It's possible some men might agree with him - there are a lot of jealous controlling men out there. Perhaps he gravitates towards them. What his friends would think is irrelevant here, to be honest. You are not in a relationship with them. (We assume - that would be a MASSIVE drip-feed!)

Only joking. Right. What stands out to me about this situation is:

A) what was he doing going through your knicker drawer in the first place?

B) why does he know your underwear off by heart, to the extent that he can recognise a new pair?

These issues alone make him seem FUCKING MAD - can't you see that? Imagine a friend telling you this - what would you think?

You sound like a lovely person OP. But I think your kindness is going in the wrong direction right now.

I totally get that it's hard though, especially after 20 years, and the fact that you are still in love with him...... Wish I had some useful advice.

If you were my friend I would tell you to tell him to stop being a dick, and then refuse to discuss it any more, providing you feel safe to do so.

Man's perspective here as requested.

Run, run far away, this isn't going to get any better.

I had a friend who got like this. He started thinking wife was having affairs with the electrician, a bloke at the gym, people in the street were looking at her funny.

She left him, I helped her move her stuff.

He's done the same thing with every girlfriend he's had since, with absolutely no evidence.

@LUCIA22 you don't need counselling to deal with him! Just read all the posts here. Not one of them is saying you're wrong/your husband is right.

And you certainly don't need a medical diagnosis for this behaviour - it won't explain it away, and there isn't a magic drug that will stop him being a jealous, gaslighting, controlling man.

And he is almost certainly projecting. Invariably when a man accuses you of cheating it's because he is doing precisely that. Been there, got that t-shirt. Please don't dismiss the idea as it is very much part of the abusive partner's handbook.
Tell him to fuck the fuck off, hold your head high and go and live a beautiful stress free life. He will not change.

I don’t agree but I asked DH anyway.
His exact words “bloody hell, he sounds like a nutter”

This was my exH. Turned out it was him doing all the cheating. In your case I think it's your DHs MH or ASD diagnosis, leading to intrusive and obsessive thoughts.

Hi OP - my ex started this, but in a much lesser way - was I mentioning anyone at work more than usual, was I working late when normally I'd leave on the dot, could I be having an affair or planning one?

Someone in our marriage was having an affair and guess what? it wasn't me. Nw I'm not saying your husband is doing that. But he IS projecting his issues onto you and making you suffer for them.

Oh, OP. You've been posting about your husband's paranoia and accusations since 2013. That's 10 years he's been like this. It sounds like a mental health issue. It isn't something you can fix. He needs to address it.

Crikey, really? not much point us all giving our opinion, then. Poor OP.

For a male POV I just asked my husband. His response was “why is he monitoring her pants?!? That’s just bloody weird. Who would even notice that stuff in the first place let alone go on about it years later. The bloke needs to sort himself out, he sounds unhinged”.

Fucking bollocks

Or if the had initially reached a similar conclusion and continued 20 years with the relationship they would have had to draw a line under all that.

Or their partners would have walked out long before now.

The reason you can't remember the underwear is because he is gaslighting you.

I know it's difficult, OP, awful when you realise what the one who is supposed to love you above all others is abusing you, but we are not saying these things to be nasty about your husband. When you are in an abusive relationship they keep your head so full of them you don't have the clarity to see what they are doing. We can see it because we may have experienced it but also because we are not being manipulated by anyone.

So much of your posts are very familiar to me, I've been where you are. Try and take some time to have a think about what we are saying. Don't tell your husband he's being abusive, try not to change your behaviour towards him or he could well escalate.

And no, you can't get his trust back because that really isn't the issue

You have to be joking? 10 years of this? FFS.

This comment has gotten lost in amongst the many replies but I agree. For whatever reason, undiagnosed ND, mental health problems, him being a cheater......whatever his reasons his gut is possibly screaming at him and we always tell each on here to trust that gut feeling. Sadly op I can't tell you if you can ever win his trust back, it seems it won't be easy on either of you and I expect it will be nigh on impossible without therapy, either with your husband or him individually, but i think it will be an uphill struggle for you both. It sounds like he is in that awful position of having a strong feeling but no evidence. It must be exhausting for you both, especially as you're innocent.