Sometimes we're committed to the person, sometimes to the marriage, and sometimes to just the family unit as a whole. That's not a bad thing, just the way this thing plays out. I feel committed to my H again but it took me a long time to get there.

How long if you do not mind me asking?

That is a very good way to look at it too never separated them like that but is a very good way to stay positive about it thank you.

Jason, I hear what you are saying. I sometimes think about can I do this the rest of my life whenever I check the cell bill, look at his phone, etc., and do I really want to live like that?

This week was a rough one with several instances of things that threw me, like a text from OW after 3 months of no contact (he immediately shared it with me and we talked to MC about what we should do), my H lying to my face when I asked him if something was wrong before our group session and he said he was just tired and then hit me between the eyes with his "disappointments" during group (MC talked us off the ledge and then we talked it out later), then a former temp employee sent him a very personal picture with the caption Come get it after she has not worked there for 4 months. I was pretty much a hot mess last night. Then I sat down with him and said "It seems the universe is giving one of us a huge dump of messages this week, do you suppose it is you or me?" I said, let's list the positives and negatives of each event. We sat calmly and discussed all three events, that would have NEVER happened 3 months ago when my hair was on fire and I was looking for housing and starting secret bank accounts in the event I made an exit.

What I am saying is, maybe we just need to chill and look at how far we have come and how much stronger our relationship will be in the years to come, if we both keep working at rebuilding. None of us can predict the future. Our CS could reoffend, we could get tired, stop working and offend ourselves (not out of the question), our CS could decide they no longer want to work and leave, or we could live happily ever after with a wonderful, strong, committed relationship. I say, take it one day at a time, as that is all we have. I always like to say, I could get hit by a bus tomorrow so make today count.

Maybe you and I need to stop sweating the small stuff and stuff we have no control over and enjoy the good days and try to have more of them.

Howcanthisbe, I am curious how your cs explained the picture from an old employee. That would have really been a problem for me.

As far as trust and commitment, I doubt myself a lot recently because I refuse to have an ok marriage. That's what I had for years. I want great fantastic and all that it should be. When I fear we are regressing back to ok, I step back and reconsider my decision to stay.

I think I will always keep a portion of my heart reserved just incase. So while I am 100% committed to wanting this marriage forever, I'm realistic that it could end. I'm not sure if I answered your question.

Ya you are probably right, ironicaly enough my marriage is the best it has ever been, but that is clouded seriously from the fact that my wife was unfaithful in our marriage.
I do see the goods but sometimes it is easy to get lost in the grey cloud.
Thank you that helps me feel a bit better like that I really need to focus on today for today!!!

Pink, there is way more to the story and it is definitely not a done deal on the picture, but it has not taken me completely down and ready to move him out just yet. Sometimes things are too complicated to write on DS, ya know what I mean?

I like how lisalisa differentiated types of commitment.

I am definitely very deeply committed to my family. I love my family. I love my family so much.
As you can tell from another thread - my commitment to my husband is a bit shaky currently. It got worse. It got worse because we were not moving forward and I feel that when you are rebuilding the marriage if you don't move forward you move backwards.
I am still committed to my marriage. Also to my husband though not as much as I would like to. I would like to be committed to my husband in a way that would not be at all affected by the fact that we have young children.

Part of it is reaching a stage of acceptance over it. It is natural to feel fearful of it happening again. I don't think that is lack of commitment, but just a natural consequence of being hit by such trauma. The only way that gets better is over years of it not happening again.

As I was putting on my shoe yesterday, I thought about how I wasn't worried about a scorpion being in the shoe. I've had that happen to me several times during my life. You put the shoe on, then you feel something squirming under your foot. That's when you know you are doomed. You're gonna get stung as soon as he gains enough room to stab you with his tail.

For some days after it happens, I'm looking inside the shoe with a flashlight before putting it on. At some point I stop doing that. I just stick my foot in with abandon. What struck me is that while it has been some time since that last happened to me, I know in my head it could happen again at any time. Why don't I check my shoes every time? Maybe it is because I don't want to spend my life looking in my shoes.

Same dynamic here. It has been some time since I felt a need to examine the phone bill in detail looking for clues. It has been months since I checked her texts, emails, or FB messages. I certainly don't worry about it at the same level I did in the first months, year, or even two years. Unlike before the A, I know it could happen again. I don't think that will ever go away. And I do fear it happening again. But I look at it the following way:

1. I'm not going to live my life in fear of what might happen. Deal with it if we ever cross that bridge again. Worrying about it is wasted energy. Make a prudent plan on what to do if it does, then the ball is in her court to make sure I don't ever have to deal with it again.

2. Unlike before dday, I'm highly sensitive to red flags. They will not be dismissed so readily as I did before. I'm much more in tune with my gut now. So if she started to go that route again, I don't think she'd be able to hide it from me so easily. Even changes in her spiritual patterns would be red flags to trigger action. So I don't feel a need for constant checking up on her. Natural to feel that need in the first two years, but it should diminish in time IF healing is happening. I'm trusting that if it does happen again, there are too many red flags I'll notice for it to continue for long. There were a whole host of them last time that I ignored or dismissed. Not any more.

3. I can't control her. She is well aware that my decision, if it does happen again, will likely be to leave. I can control what i do and how I will respond. On dday I gave her the ball, and she picked it up and as you know, has run well with it. Which is why we are still married and have done so well in rebuilding. She's rarely dropped the ball, and when she did, she picked it right back up. I'm blessed to have a CS which has done so well. I know many CS's drop the ball much more frequently, or don't even bother to pick it up at all.

Because of that, I'm more than content to grow old with her despite any fear I might have that it could happen again. I keep putting the shoe on without checking or thinking about it much. Maybe because of the above, the way I'm wired, or a combination of it all.

Note: None of the above is meant to establish an expected time line for anyone else. It is what I experienced, your mileage may vary.


If it does happen again, I won't feel like this time has been wasted. I'd feel differently if our marriage wasn't going well and we didn't feel loved by each other. But since we have built a better relationship, one I'd always wanted from the beginning, I'm treasuring this time with her and would feel a great loss if another incident were to destroy that. But that is the risk one always takes with love. With anyone. Nothing new in that.

I'm just a lot more wiser about it all now, thanks to the school of hard knocks.

Cole that scorpion story makes me want to check my shoes. See for me that kind of fright would make me check my shoes forever. Maybe not every single time but, let's say I in a similar location or environment as the scorpion incident, I would be triggered to doit.

A similar example is many years ago, maybe 25, a friend got into her car and at the red light a man popped up from the back seat. She managed to get out unharmed but it has forever made me check my car at night before I get in. Its a safeguarding issue almost as automatic as putting on my seat belt.

My heart ans life will always bare the scars of betrayal. That, for me, means I will always be aware what happened and what could happen again. It doesn't mean I'm emotionally crumbling about it but it's always . It is there sitting somewhere in my head all the time. Not obsessive, just there "I thought he was going to be home earlier, his A started through his job, time to finish the dishes" most times its a passing thought but it is there.

I don't expect to find anything bad on his phone when I glance through and I don't expect to find some stranger hiding in my car before i get in but still I check. Better safe then sorry.

I have definitely lost my youthful, starry-eyed, naive notion of love. I will always be cautious. I will also be less forgiving - and not just of my husband. Even if we hadn't stayed together and I chose to be with someone else, he would be subject to my distrust and anxiety and cautiousness.

I don't wonder if I should stay anymore. Every day, I choose to invest in my marriage. However, some days are rougher than others and I mourn for the innocence and trust that has forever been lost.

Last night my husband explained to me out of the blue (and at 1 in the morning!) that he needed to run into work to print something for his co-worker. It was his day off, but - he does work graveyards so that is a time when his co-worker would be there. Still, the situation stank of lies and deceit and sneaking around.

I told him so.

In spite of promising me there was "nothing going on" - he went anyway.

I tracked him on GPS. While he was gone about 30 minutes longer than expected, it still seemed to all add up as he explained. Still - I was furious. Talk about a huge trigger!! And all I could think was, "Can I really keep going on living like this?"

Here's the big difference between now and when he was having the affair - and the reason I DO and CAN go on like this: the second he got home, he apologized. Not just that, he acknowledged clearly how disrespectful it was, how he should have brought it up sooner, how he could have handled it better, and how (and this was important to me!) he should have invited me in to the decision making process. Then - and this is also big - he asked how I would have preferred he handle it.

This is huge. He did something I found hurtful and WE problem solved it together. Everyone screws up sometimes. Everyone gets thoughtless or lazy or selfish. Learning how to avoid it or - if necessary - work around it - that is a pretty sweet deal. If he had come home and just gone to bed without initiating the conversation, it quite possibly would have beena wound that would never heal. Instead, WE learned and grew together. That's the kind of marriage I want - even though it does come with the crappy triggers of having to worry about him running off in the middle of the night to print something.

Yes. I do miss the me that would have smiled, kissed him on the cheek, and watched him walk out the door without a care in the world for either of us, but I am glad our relationship has matured, too.

Allora, I ask the "Can I do this the rest of my life" question whenever something triggers. Then I even sometimes follow it up with "Is he playing me?" When he does a good thing and talks about the trigger and apologized. I think, for me it is a time thing as we are just 3 months post D Day and still building trust even though he has done everything right I am not at the level of trust to always accept it. I hope to get to your level at some point.

Pink. Yes.. My feelings exactly. I don' t constantly obsess over what happened, but it manages to cross my mins- as with you- maybe just a fleeting thought.. But ALWAYS there- happily, i am now at the place where i at least don't burst into tears ( about time, right?)
I wonder though...if i will be forever checking my shoes.

Thank you everyone for the replies.
I feel good about my marriage but question myself sometimes.
I do not think it will ever be the same and probably do not want it to be, but wish my mind was at more ease.
Thanks again for all the thoughts.

Pink said, "I don't expect to find anything bad on his phone when I glance through and I don't expect to find some stranger hiding in my car before i get in but still I check. Better safe then sorry."

I understand. Everyone is different in how they respond to trauma, whether small are huge like infidelity. That said, there are a host of things we could be constantly checking in order to be "better safe than sorry." if we checked them all, all the time, we'd constantly spend our lives doing that, with little time left to live life in the moment rather than in fear or in the past.

We naturally tend to worry about those things which to us seem most likely, and that tends to be influenced primarily by what we experience as damaging, either directly or vicariously. For instance, how often do you ask someone, "Have you been to Africa recently or had contact with anyone who has" before shaking their hand or otherwise touching them? I would be very few of us do, if any at all. But if we personally know someone who came down with Ebola and died, we'd be much more likely to ask that question. That is just one risk we take that if we decided to check every time, we'd eat up a lot of our lives worrying about something that is highly unlikely to happen and not come across very friendly to the host of people we encounter everyday.

It is natural to check and be fearful of something that has hit close to home. Especially something as traumatic as infidelity. But time spent not getting hit again does lessen the need to check up. If I felt I needed to examine Gabi's phone, numbers called, emails, FB messages, daily read a key logger log, as frequently now as I did in the weeks after dday, I'd say there is something seriously off about my fear. Not the fact that I have that fear, that is natural, but that level of checking isn't sustainable in a healthy relationship and long-term, would make me miserable. I might as well get out of the relationship if I spent the rest of my marriage doing all that. Normal and in fact healthy in the first weeks and months after dday, but at some point you either come to acceptance and the need to constantly check diminishes, or you damage the relationship by never returning to a place of some trust, in which case, why are you trying to save it only to be miserable?

Note: that's all assuming the CS is dong what they should and not giving the BS reasons/red flags to be suspicious. It is highly natural when circumstances look a lot like another train wreck coming, we're going to check them out no matter how many years it has been. Like what Allora talked about. That's what I was talking about in being more sensitive to red flags now than I was the first time around.

So, yeah, if I went to visit a friend and took off my shoes, and they indicated they had a scorpion problem, I'd probably check my shoes. If I get stung again that way, I know for days after that I'll be checking my shoes. But I don't think it is good to live in that fear and check all the time unless I have good reason too. If I did that with every potential risk I might have reason to be concerned about, that's all I would do, 24/7. I certainly wouldn't drive a car anywhere or ride in one. I could give plenty of examples. We all draw a line somewhere at the "better safe than sorry" level, because there is no way any of us could live checking to prevent every likely risk of hurt. People who do are generally considered to have a physiological issue needing help because their fear has paralyzed them from even walking out the door of their house.

Point being for Jason: feeling a need to check on her and being sensitive to triggers is not a sign of a lack of commitment to the marriage. Building trust takes time, and few who are able to fully do so after a couple of years from dday. How long any one person will do that varies, and a lot is also dependent upon the CS not providing further reasons to keep distrust alive. But eventually, if rebuilding is going well, the BS will gain back a working level of trust, and that naturally means feeling less of a need to check up on the CS, short of a reasonable cause to do so.

Of course, you don't need to worry about destroying a relationship with your shoe. It isn't going to make it less wearable to check inside for scorpions. If a person wants to do that all their life, it probably won't be the end of the world. But the risk vs. benefits of doing that is out of perspective. While I know in my head I could get stung at any point, even today (watch it happen now!) the likelihood of it happening is so small that it isn't worth my time checking. If I get stung, I get stung. It isn't pleasant, but I'll live. Now if I were allergic to scorpion stings such that I would likely die, suddenly the risks vs. benefits ration changes, and I would likely tend to regularly check because one time would be one time too many.

I also feel there is a difference between checking to verify a CS is behaving in order to rebuild trust, and checking in order to prevent the CS from cheating again. The former is healthy and needed, and will naturally diminish as trust is rebuilt. The later is deluded and irrational, because even now I cannot prevent Gabi from cheating on me again if she wanted to or failed to adequately work on herself to prevent it. If it is going to happen, it will. That's why I emphasize that I put the ball in her court. Whether she cheats again is not in my control, though I can help or hinder that. If it happens again, however, I know I'll likely discover it and if and when it happens, then I'll deal with it the only way I can, by deciding what my response will be to her decisions. Until that happens, however, it is wasted energy and life to be so wrapped up in worrying about it happening again, being safe rather than sorry (which in this case you can't prevent by checking), that I can't enjoy our relationship and life right now. If I were today still checking on her the same way I did in the first weeks after dday, I doubt we'd be married much longer. Indeed, I doubt we'd be married now.

In this case, the risk of destroying my own marriage is much greater than the risk of her destroying it by cheating on me again. Because the latter may never happen again, but that level of checking up on her over the years of a relationship would destroy it, without question. The former is also within my control, the latter is not. Keeping hyper-vigilant about that would indicate either an willingness or inability to rebuild trust, resulting in a miserable marriage.

Unfortunately, that is where some BSs find themselves after a few years of rebuilding, still unable to have a working and healthy level of trust in their spouse that leads to a vibrant relationship and marriage. The reasons for that may be beyond their control (the CS isn't doing what they should, keeping distrust alive) or it may be their own unwillingness to be vulnerable again to that pain.

Maybe that's the difference. I know another scorpion sting would be painful and I wouldn't like it, but I know I'll be fine. So if she cheats again, I know it will be painful, I won't like it, and it would likely result in the discontinuance of our marriage. But I will survive it and heal from it even if that means doing so alone. I would lose a lot I couldn't get back, but if it is going to happen, no amount of checking is going to prevent it. She either steps up to the plate or she doesn't. Checking that shoe won't stop me from getting stung again like that.

This difference is likely worth a blog post when I get the time to write one, which won't be until next month.