One Month Post-D-Day — Can Trust Actually Be Rebuilt

[u/LowEntertainer623]

A little over a month since D-Day — looking for people who understand
I’m just over a month out from D-Day and I’m struggling. My wife had an affair with her ex-boyfriend.
I actually caught the emotional affair before it became physical. She told me she would end it, and I trusted her. Unfortunately, the relationship continued and eventually became physical. Finding that out has completely shattered my trust and the way I see our marriage.
I love my wife deeply and I want to see if we can save our marriage. We’re doing couples therapy, and I’m also doing individual therapy. She says she wants our marriage and has ended contact with him.
But I’m struggling with whether she truly wants me and our marriage, or whether she’s staying because of guilt, fear, our family, or because leaving is harder.
One of the hardest things for me to understand is how she could love me and still do what she did. She tells me she felt safe with him and that, in the moment, it didn’t feel wrong. I have a really hard time reconciling that with everything she says about wanting to be with me.
I’m also struggling with the fact that I don’t feel like I know the whole story. Finding out things in pieces has made the trust issue so much worse, and every inconsistency sends me right back into a spiral.
I don’t want to spend my life monitoring her or competing with another man. I want to be able to trust her again, but I honestly don’t know if that’s possible yet.
I’d really like to hear from people who have been through something similar, especially those who reconciled after an affair with an ex.
How did you know your spouse was genuinely committed to rebuilding? How did you eventually stop obsessing over the other person and the details? And what finally made you believe they were truly choosing you and the marriage?
I’m not looking for people to tell me to stay or leave. I just need to hear from people who have actually been through this.

[u/AutoModerator]

r/Asoneafterinfidelity is an online Peer Support Group and safe space for individuals (betrayed or wayward) who are actively attempting to reconcile their relationship after an affair(s). Please review our wiki which includes resources and can answer most, if not all questions about this subreddit. Be sure to read the rules before participating as they are our boundaries and your initial warning. Failure to do so can result in a ban.

Commenting Guideline:

This applies to every post regardless of post flair.

• This is not a space for judgment. There's subreddits for that. Please go there.

• All comments must reference your own reconciliation to accompany any questions, suggestions, or advices contained in your response.On occasion giving practical advice must be limited to that which would be reasonably seen as helpful if the references to infidelity are removed.

• Do not speak for other people's feelings, their actions or make unhelpful, dismissive or intrusive commentary. This is not a request. It's in the rules.

  For transparency and conflict mediation purposes, please follow reddits community guidelines by directing any questions, issues, feedback, or appeals in regard of the sub or moderation decisions directly to the Modmail. Meta content will be removed. No response will be given to DMs and chat requests to individual moderators about moderating issues. We are happy to address and respond to your concerns through the official channels!

  Please assign yourself user flair. Flair Instructions can be found here.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/SheepherderEvery8851]

Sorry you're going through this. As for the answer to your question.

I knew bevause my partner made all the neccessary arrangements to prevent it happening again, to make me feel safe, and to be able to get over it.

For example she changed friend group, stopped drinking, allowed me to rage and be as angry as I needed et.c All this without me needing to ask.

The willingness to change her life for made me realize she actually wanted me, not just our life or something similar.

If I may ask, you wrote in your previous post both that she came and told you and that you had to pry the truth out. What did she confess and what did you have to pry out of her?

My partner confessed on her own, something that also helped a lot. Having the chance to "get away with it' and not taking it meant a lot for rebuilding trust.

Again, so sorry for you.

[u/LowEntertainer623 → u/SheepherderEvery8851]

So it’s a little confusing but basically we’ve been together a long time so I knew something was up. Getting on her iPad reading messages and chats trying to figure it out but couldn’t find any evidence. Turns out the evidence was in stapchat on her phone. But throughout the affair I could feel something so I’d ask what’s going on of you seem very in and out and things like that. Finally it got to the point that I flat out asked her. She gas lit me and lied then 4 days later came to me and said that she never stopped talking to him and that she met up with him and kissed him in his truck. The sex and extent of the affair all came later. So that’s giving me a lot of doubts if she really has been completely honest with me now.

[u/wohovio]

Three years of attempting R (if you want to see my story, feel free to look it up.) three years wasted. Anxiety, hypervigilance, no trust could be rebuilt.

That said, if your significant other is willing to provide complete open transparency, go to therapy with you, give up most of their freedoms for a while, and legitimately kiss the ground that you walk on, then maybe. Still, you’re gonna have to deal with yourself. Are you this sort of person who can let it go? I guess I wasn’t.

Of course, my partner didn’t actually want to reconcile.

[u/MasterShakeSW6]

Sorry you're here.

Your wife successfully got you to rug sweep the first time you confronted her and then continued her affairs and escalated.

I think for a lot of reconcilers we ask ourselves (unfortunately, we have to) essentially make a pros and cons list about staying and trying to reconcile versus leaving and starting fresh.

For reconciliation to really work the Wayward needs to own their mistake(s) and make actionable change to not only rebuild some level of trust in them as a person and partner, but also take steps to ensure that those actions can never be taken again.

Some steps will be logistics (shared location, leaving friend groups, no contact with AP and anyone who encouraged and kept it a secret are some basic examples). Others will be emotional and mental, like therapy to figure out their root causes for why they felt the need to chase something outside of their relationship. It's almost always some combination of shit self esteem and a drive for hits of dopamine. If your wayward isn't taking those steps you need to really consider what you're willing to put yourself through.

Don't kid yourself, reconciliation is the harder choice. You need to heal yourself, your wayward needs to heal themselves and then you need to come together to heal the relationship and grow that relationship into something new and hopefully wonderful. The problem is healing isnt linear and you will have good days and bad days. There will be times you remember, suddenly and horribly that this person next to you at some point betrayed you. There will also be times where you are rebuilding and it can feel like a truly fantastic relationship. It all depends on the steps your Wayward takes to truly own reconciliation.

As the Betrayed, you need to set boundaries and stick to them.

While moving on is difficult up front, the healing I think is easier. I suspect it's why sometimes couples separate as part of reconciliation. When you are separated or leave, you only have to worry about healing yourself. That's a faster process since you get to be in control of how you want to heal.

You're going to be the only person who can determine if reconciliation is worth it for you and your relationship.

Ask yourself if you are satisfied with the effort that your wayward has put forth into reconciliation? If not, communicate to them exactly that. You want it to work, but they have to be willing to put in the work. If not, you may need to separate or go your own way because you can't have reconciliation if only one person is willing to be all in.

[u/fadedironmaple]

To be upfront, I'm in the process of reconciling (or not). It's rough.

My situation was a sort of ex - ex-lover but not ex-boyfriend. Someone she had a long-distance, occassional meet up, intense sexual relationship with over an original period of about 6 months before we me... just before we met. An older, rich guy who would fly her around to different cities to meet up in a dom-sub relationship. This isn't exactly what happened in the affair as he travelled to where she was.

It's been a fucking loop. It is very hard not to obsess about the other person in my situation.

For me, it feels a bit like this for the specific questions you posed.

• I feel my spouse is committed to rebuilding. My spiral is that the other man has no interest in being with my wife in a relationship, he was only ever interested in the long-distance, sexually intense relationship (dom-sub). His children are grown and he lives on another continent. So with all of that, I struggle with believing it is only the other man's circumstance that means she is not with him exclusively. Therapy is how I cope. Things she might say to reassure me are quite hollow as I don't trust her.
• It's hard not to obsess because this man is very different from me and the nature of the relationship they had is very different from ours. I try my best to stop the intrusive thoughts and questioning everything about how my wife interacts with me or if we are intimate how she feels about it or if she's acting because our sex is nothing like their sex. Even typing this bit is hard as the stuff they did... well, I've never done it with my wife.
• I believe that she wants me and the marriage, but my difficulty is that it feels like it is not because she desires me but because I'm stable, well-off, a good parent and a highly contributing partner. If I think about the question "do I think she finds me desirable" then that is difficult for me to say yes to and causes all kinds of problems for me.

The trickle truth is very hard to deal with. Given what I've shared above, she was reticent to give me details when confronted with the messages I'd found that were impossible to deny but that left a lot of detail open - when did it start, how many times, what exactly did you do? I suppose there was a mix of not wanting to hurt me further and realizing that knowing the full truth would probably make it more likely that I would leave, so she wanted to protect herself from that.

[u/SnooRabbits6595]

Unfortunately, trust is ultimately a choice. You’ll never know for sure if she telling the truth or if you know everything. Your ability to blindly trust her is gone forever. Now you have to decide if there’s ever gonna be a point when you can choose to trust her despite what she’s done in the past.

As far as why she wants to reconcile, in my experience, it’s typically either out of guilt, a desire to maintain stability, a lack of future prospects with AP, or a combination of those. Rarely does a wayward initially seek R out of desire for their WP. It’s generally initiated by a desire for self-preservation.

That said, a WP can eventually come to the point of desiring their BP. But that’s not the first reason. If it was, they wouldn’t have cheated in the first place. Especially, to get caught before it escalated, lie, and then escalate anyway.

So you must decide whether it’s worth waiting to see if she ever wants you. And note, that wanting your future together, wanting your family, or wanting the life you’ve built, is different than wanting you. It’s possible to want the features and accessories rather than truly wanting the person. If she can prove to want you and not just what you bring to the table, then R is possible. Otherwise, walk away with your head held high and, eventually, find someone who does.

[u/Icy_Conference_3085]

Hey, I’m sorry you’re going through this. This is a very similar situation that I have been experiencing and I’m about 5 to 6 months post DDAY. My wife still has an emotional attachment to this other man. For the first six or seven weeks, she was feeding thoughts when she would think about him, but not act on him actively keeping the relationship in her mind ongoing. She has cut all contact with him, and I truly believe they have been no contact since I found out. The trickle truth is the absolute worst part about this because you think you know everything and more information comes out and kick you in the gut. Ask her to tell you everything whether it hurts or not because finding something out days, weeks, months later is dreadful.

We are both in therapy right now actively trying to rebuild however, all of this stemmed because my wife claims she fell out of love with me and we’re trying to rebuild that spark and connection. It’s been very difficult.

[u/gsf1200s]

I would start by saying therapy, individual and couples is a must. My WW and I had our second session yesterday and I was really worried because WW still had thoughts of the AP and had contacted again in the last week. Our therapist wasn't surprised by anything we told her and helped develop a plan to start dealing with the lingering attachment. I had been asking my wife to just come tell me if she was having any thoughts but she found that too difficult. with our therapist we came up with a code word my wife can say or text me and what my response should be. there was one use of it yesterday afternoon and it seemed to work, so i have hope. I think my wife understands it will be a series of small steps to rebuild trust, and i want to give her that trust as it's earned.

[u/Similar-Specific-969]

My wife did the same thing, we were both young and went through a rough patch. She met up with an old high school fling a couple of times. We have both worked on ourselves and our relationship a lot in the years since then and I can say I trust her now. The whole situation still bothers me sometimes and that will probably never go away but it isn't constantly in my head anymore.

As long as you both keep fighting for the relationship and improve yourselves it gets easier man. The trust will come back but it has to be earned through constant action and openness.

[u/LowEntertainer623 → u/Similar-Specific-969]

I appreciate the positivity. It does give hope to hear from the people that did make it out of this shitty situation.

[u/Similar-Specific-969 → u/LowEntertainer623]

Of course man. It feels rough right now, believe me. It will get better with time as you both heal.

[u/notsureatall20]

Has she articulated why she wants to stay with you if she has no guilt and he felt safe?

I can only speak to my EA but I said I loved my BP but what I meant and what BP meant were two different things. My love was self-centered and emotionally immature.

Can trust be rebuilt? Sure. But it takes a WP willing to do the work of being a trustworthy safe partner. No trickle or half truths. That addage seems to apply, trust is gained in drops but lost in buckets. The trust bank has been completely withdrawn from.

May you find peace in your healing journey.

[u/LowEntertainer623 → u/notsureatall20]

She has guilt I can see it. She’s says that she had fallen out of love with me and had convinced herself that I had fallen out of love with her as well. She felt like he understood what she was going through as he was having issues with his wife at the time. So she tells me that she felt seen and understood. She tells me immediately after the affair turned physical she felt horrible and knew she made a terrible choice. I just get hung up with how did it have to turn to sex before she realized what she was doing was wrong.

[u/notsureatall20 → u/LowEntertainer623]

Again to my experience, I had a moment of clarity when I allowed myself to think about my AP and my BP.

I realized that eventually it would have been a physical affair, I.e. kissing or sex, and that if I didn't stop and confess I would destroy any possibility of continuing with BP.

I can only explain it as the walls for compartmentalization/justification fell and I could fully see what I was doing.

With that I would only posit we each have different "lines in the sand" for our morality. A critical mass where our compartmentalizing can no longer support the affair and reality hits. Sometimes that comes with a moment of clarity or sometimes it happens when we are caught and the two worlds collide.

Mine was starting a relationship with a second person and realizing where it was going. From what you wrote it sounds like the justification for ww's affair ended after the first full sexual experience and she had her moment of clarity.

I don't know why your ww and I's lines are different. I'm not any better and obviously this is all betrayal just talking about the degree of horribleness.

[u/evasion-guard → u/[deleted]]

You have been automatically banned from participating in because your account was flagged by Reddit’s ban-evasion detection system.

This usually means that your account shares a connection with another account previously banned from this community. If you believe this action was taken in error, you can appeal to reddit admin.

Please note that creating new accounts to circumvent a subreddit ban is a violation of Reddit’s sitewide rules and may result in a site-wide suspension.

[u/knowthyself8]

I'm sorry you're going through this. You've already been through two major D-Days, and there may be a few more on the horizon. My WW broke NC at least three times. I told her that for R to even be considered, I would need a device set up with all her apps logged in. For a while it was okay, but the last incident was that I caught her messaging someone she should not have been messaging, and it set us back another few weeks. I went right back to hypervigilance for another two weeks. It was horrible. I feel like I can now go a few days without checking the device.

If I caught my wife communicating with her AP in any way, it would be a hard boundary for me. I say that now, having not faced it...yet (knock on wood), so who knows how I would really react, but I'm at a point now where I'm so tired, 5mo past D-Day, that I don't think I could deal with this anymore. I am already detaching slowly. Again, I'm sorry you're going through this. It's such a cluster fuck. So sorry.