How Can You Forgive When You Can’t Trust Someone

by Heartbroken
(Central Florida)

Your words are beautiful and touching to my wounded heart. My story is about a 2nd marriage. We were both totally in love or so I thought.

He said he would love me forever and I believed him. In June 2011, I found out he was having an emotional affair with a co-worker for 5 years. He never told me. He never acted strange or was on the phone or came home late from work. He would walk in the door and give me a hug and a kiss.


We would talk a little bit about his day and he told me how much he missed me. Would call me every Monday and tell me how hard Mondays were for him after spending the week-end together. I believed him. How could a spouse come home look you in the eye everyday and act that everything is great!

In June I woke up one morning and he left early. I felt something was wrong. When he came home I asked if I could check his emails both at work and with Yahoo, something I never did in 17 years of marriage. That is when I found out about the emotional affair.

He claims nothing happened. He keeps logs of his mileage and I found two days a week long mileage on his car during lunch. I also found notes on his calender marked Pro-flowers and Pajama grams. No names. Something he never sent me in 15 years. His response was I was going to send them to you. Yes, but he wrote them down for 5 years but didn’t have the time to make a call.

To make a long story short, I told him and we fought for about 2 weeks and I cried and cried. I finally told him it was me or the job. He did quit the job and took an early retirement, but all we do is fight. I can’t seem to let go of the 5 years where he showed no guilt or remorse.

You think he would have said something if he didn’t want the emotional affair to continue. He says they would sit by each others desk and talk and laugh about things and sometimes she would take him up to a meeting room alone and shut the door to show him funny YouTube videos.

I can’t believe this went on during working hours and no one said anything. Women should not feel threatened by the working environment her husband is working in. She should feel a sense of comfort knowing there are EEOC guidelines in a work place.

My husband claims he still wants to be married to me and that is why he left his job. My feeling is if he loved me he would have not have looked elsewhere and if he did why didn’t he come right to me and say today I had feeling and I don’t want to hurt you. We could have talked it out or went to marriage therapy.

Marriage is a commitment to stay connected to each other. I feel betrayed. I trusted him with all my heart and believed everything he told me. Now, I have turned into a hyper vigilant spouse. When he says things, something in me says, don’t believe him! Be careful!

I ask myself how will I know if he is telling me the truth or not? I can’t tell now. He is so believable. I am also feeling rage, something I have never ever felt before and it scares me because I don’t know where this is coming from. How can you forgive when you can’t trust someone.



Response from Dr. DeFoore

Hello, and thanks for telling your story here. You definitely have good reason to be angry and hurt. The question now is, what can you do for yourself to feel better.

Resentment, jealousy and suspicion is a powerful mental process, and I encourage you to do your best to free yourself from it. Please read about overcoming jealousy and how to heal your anger.

Remember, you're doing this for yourself, not for your husband. You don't want these emotions and the mental processes to make you sick.

The main point here is for you to do this work for your own benefit, and your own emotional healing. You're still with your husband, so it makes sense to learn to let go of the resentment (for your own benefit), and be happy.

You can do this.

My very best to you,

Dr. DeFoore