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1247529 tn?1313496331

How can I learn to trust again after he lied to me?

How can I learn to trust my husband after he lied to me straight to my face.  Now it is not a huge lie.  But always though he was honest with me.  Never in a million years would I think he would lie to me.  So now.  We have been together almost 33 years now.  Dated for 3 and in Oct. it will be 30 years we are married.  He lied to me about looking at naked pictures of women on the internet.  And a little porn.  I have always been honest with him and he know that is a huge thing with me.  Honesty.  So now that this has happened I start to think that our whole marriage has been a lie.   How do I know?   And also our sex life has been not good.  And I noticed that when he looked at the pictures is when he would want sex.  So I think he has to look at that in order to get excited and have sex with me because he really wants a young, skinny sexy woman.  I am not fat but do have a little tummy. But am trying to loose it and about 10 pounds.  And after having 3 children my breast are not perky anymore,  but don't think exercise will help that and don't think I am willing to have surgery.  He says I excite him but I don't believe him.  Why should I? He lied about looking at the pictures and I did not know so how do I know he is not lying now.  Also, I don't know for sure if he even wants to touch me.  We went a few months of no touch.  Then after I asked him he started again.  But is he just doing it because I said something or out of guilt?  I don't know anymore.  I can't tell if he is being truthful.  I love him and am so very in love with him.  And deep down I know he loves me.  I am just not sure he is still in love with me anymore.  
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1247529 tn?1313496331
Sorry for the delay.  I have been back home for the past 3 weeks on and off.  We went in the Thurs. before Good Friday.  And on Good Friday our lives were changed.  Our 2 future son-in-laws were in a terrible ATV accident.  Our oldest was banged up pretty bad and we are still waiting to see if he has damage to his neck and back.  Hospitals are so unreal.  Should get MRI results today.  Our youngest was flown by life flight to New Orleans to a trauma hospital.  He has head and face trauma.  He is doing great now.  But we all saw it happen and I would love to get that image out of my mind.  I helped my oldest son in law to be take the ATV off of the youngest.  And when I saw him I thought he was gone.  It is a image I would not wish on my worse enemy.  But we are doing ok.  Anyway.  Sorry for going on and on.  
I am feeling a little better.  The smile is not completely back but I am trying.  
I am so sorry you are going through all this.  I don't understand why men are such pigs.  I am so sorry to hear of your parents passing.  And I know all too well that hurt.  I lost my dad in 2003 and it still hurts.  My mother is not a very nice person most of the time so I just don't talk to her much.  
I am determined to make our marriage work.  I don't know if he is still looking or not and I really don't care.  We have not been intimate in over 6 months so I guess he don't really want me.  But he treats me good.  I just don't understand at all.  
When the accident happened I saw a more sensitive side of my husband.  I think in the 36 years that I have known him I have seen him upset enough to cry 2 or maybe 3 times.  Well in 2 weeks after the accident I saw him cry 3 times and heard him on the phone cry 1. So maybe he is coming around.  Maybe he will now see how much he is hurting me with his lies and porn.  I will just have to wait till my emotions are not so raw.  I just think about my guys and cry.  And to top it all off I have a furbaby that I will have to make the decision on Friday to end his hurt.  Too much at once.  
I am so happy that you are doing well.  And I keep you in my prayers.  Thanks for all your support and kind words.  I ready your post often.  God Bless you.  
Helpful - 0
Avatar universal
Hi worriedwife81,
Hope you are well and the smile has returned to your face.
This is an update for you ...It's done, we have agreed to separate for a period of 3 months so my husband can work out who he is and who he wants to be, and somehow align the two.  And I can get myself together and work out why I put up with his lying for so long.   This decision came after he kissed a stranger, pursued one of my best friends and continues to lie and manipulate.  Why would I be attracted to that? Why would I continually expose myself to that? During this time, I am determined that this will not be my focus.  I am setting about building a new life.  It won't be easy though, I am grieving my parents, I have debt, for the most part I work alone, from home, and I live reasonably remote to most of my friends and family.  To counter this, I plan to continue grieving my parents (this is not a choice, it just is!... and I miss them with great pride),  I will work my butt off to get out of debt,  and I will become more social. (On sites and in person, where hubby dearest is not present and cannot stalk me - like he did on this post!).   I have never been more determined about anything in my life.  I have so many questions that I can only answer for myself.  I am terrified but I know how to use this energy to strengthen myself.   I will always love him and parts of what we had....but I am not going to wait for him to change because I know it's not the right thing to do.  If it's meant to be, it will be.  If it's not, well....life is a precious gift and I will cherish it with everything that I am.  This will not change me and my attitude to living.  This is my valued life, and I might choose to share it with someone special, someday but for now, my priority is me and that is exciting - I am growing!  I am facing my fears and I feel truly proud of myself.  I hope that things are improving in your life too - whatever form that takes.    I read a sign recently that says "Life has no remote, get up and change it yourself".  Loved it.  Thinking of you always :-)
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Avatar universal
I am SO moved by dollfr3 - Her story AND Her words to You.

I hope You read and read and reread Her advice as many times as it might take for You to gain some comfort from Her.

I'm sorry You've had such despair.

GoodLuck
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1247529 tn?1313496331
Thanks so much.  It is just hard.  I am so tired.  I just don't know if I have the energy.  I feel better some days.  I still wish to go home.  I miss my family.  Not saying it would be better if we were back home but at least I would have my kids and grand babies to keep me busy and keep it all off my mind.  I am so much happier when we are back home for a visit. But that is not happening either.  His job is here and here we stay till he retires in 20 years give or take a few.  So I just exist.  Right now I don't have the energy to try.  Maybe later I will.   I have no energy for anything right now.  I am just defeated.  
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Avatar universal
I wanted to add that I can just read from your message how sad you are. And I understand the sadness in this terrible situation.
You feel defeated and broken. I wanted to say that ultimately my message to you is, regardless of how things will turn out for you and your husband, please try and preserve you. Preserve what's left of you and build it back up. Little by little. You cannot just let this break you. I am sure you matter to a lot of people out there. And you don't deserve to just curl up and want to disappear from the world. I've met women who were beaten by their husbands, or cheated on with women and I have done a lot of looking inside of me, my heart and my head. I am not not comparing at all. And I'm not saying I forgive him for lying to me. I'm saying I have learned from these women that there can be great sadness from terrible experiences.
And then I made friends with them. They showed me so much kindness in sharing their stories and emotions. And they have kept going with their lives. They experienced terrible things and so much pain and hurt. They have put one foot in front of the other somehow and it made me feel like maybe just maybe I could do this too.
Your husband is your husband. He is there, in your home and life isn't the same anymore. But you are broken and hurt. And you can start healing parts of you through talking to people opening up and being kind to yourself first of all. The guilt has to stop. There is a great deal of kindness in a lot of people out there. And it made me feel good and hopeful. I hope it can for you too.
Unfortunately, I can't say the same for life with my husband in my house. But that is not my focus. My focus is me, I deserve it since my husband was focusing on other things. So I'll do the focusing now.
I have given up on trying to understand the reasons for his porn use. I can't control it. But I have put my foot down and I have said it is not OK with me for what it does to my feelings and for the trust I had in him. Doing this is all you can do to clearly tell him your boundaries and that is respecting yourself. I was never vague about it because I didn't want him to think I was going to be OK with porn and the lying. I will not be OK with porn and lying. And like I said, I cannot control the lying anyway. But I have set my boundaries. As long as he lies, I've been clear and that is no longer my issue.
It does hurt to think that he can lie and I have no way of controlling. But I've decided there's no more time to waste trying to reason with a liar. How many times can we hurt ourselves over this?
I no longer feel right around my husband. I no longer feel attracted to him the way I used to. And that's ok, that's how I feel. He can understand or not. that is how I feel. I will not be told how to feel. I want to enjoy what it worth enjoying around me, out there. And I have told him exactly that.
I wanted to share with you what others have shared with me. I have met incredible people out there, with great courage and amazing resilience. You can feel this way or that way about your husband and your marriage. But you need to build yourself back up. it's good for you and it might even help your situation at home.
My husband has noticed I am different. And it intrigues him. Go figure.
Helpful - 0
Avatar universal
Hi,
I have been in the same situation. And I too have a hard time deciding how to feel about this. We talked about the lies, we talked about how it hurts my feelings and how uncomfortable we both are now.
I understand what you are going through and feeling. I've lived through this for years. It is now out in the open. I have worked on me though. I was a mess, drained and exhausted and stressed out and completely lost. I decided to try and work on figuring out what I wanted for me, from life, aside from resolving the issue with my husband's lies. That is an important step: deciding you want to pull yourself back up and together. Decide that you are worth something, at least for you and most likely for others. you can give to others. Isn't that enough of a reason? I realized I had stopped living and growing as a person. I realize I was no longer strong and I needed to feel strong again, for me and maybe something would come out of it. Because what choices do we have? And I didn't want him to rob me of things I could do for me or the world around me.
So I focused on other things while trying to keep things together at home. I focused on friends, work, kids and health. I focused on my flaws or what I thought were my flaws and worked on accepting whatever it is I think is wrong with me because I'm human and I am not perfect. I focused on counting my blessings and tuning out the negative stuff because it was just suffocating. And while that may not last for too long, it gives you a break. And your mind starts to shift a little, and you can handle things a little better. Just don't shut the world out. Let yourself breath again. Put one foot in front of the other and go. Be who you want to be, little by little, especially if you are under the impression you are not who your husband wants you to be. First of, that may not be true, it is your perception, but regardless, you need to be true to yourself. You can't try to be what someone else want you to be, it'll be exhausting, unrealistic and you'd be lying to yourself, loosing yourself and that's the worst. You need to feel like you can just be you again. You need to trust that it's Ok to be you. I started thinking that if my husband wasn't OK with me physically, sexually, then maybe I had been with the wrong guy all along. And I started thinking, I gave him the opportunity to speak up many times, to ask me for what he might want different in our lives, with sex. If it isn't working out for the best, then he is responsible for this mess. And then I feel like it makes sense. I am who I can be. It's liberating.
I'm not saying I feel like I am with the wrong guy and therefore I will leave. I'm saying, I need to understand the situation and he might be the wrong guy in the sense that I would have wanted a man who owns up to what he does. And then I try and think that he is human and not perfect. I am not perfect. we've talked about this many times now. It was hard in the beginning and now he's realized I'm not letting this go. It's done too much damage. So he's listened a lot.
Now I am at the point where I have allowed myself to breath again, opened up to the world around me. And the rest will follow, one day at a time.
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