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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

I have been married 20 years, 4 children (5, 8, 10, 15). We met and married young. I grew up with my husband and he had been my best friend, biggest supporter and confidante my whole adult life. 
The last few years had been very stressful due to work and kids. We had not been communicating well and sex became infrequent. Things became very transactional. We were great parents but not great spouses.

Last summer, after a not-so-serious argument, DH told me that he didn’t think our marriage was working and maybe we should end it. This was completely out of the blue for me. I was shocked and hurt. I knew we had some issues but never in a million years thought he would even consider a separation. He said he was stressed at work and felt he could never be a good enough husband. After a tense week, I found out he was having a two month long phone/emotional affair with a colleague from work who lived across the country (single, professional, very smart) Nothing physical, but I think it was a pretty “intense” emotional connection because she understood his work (same business) and could support him in a way that I could not. He denies it was anything serious, but acknowledged it was “not appropriate” He refused to show me any of the texts. He said there was no way it would have gotten to be anything more. I question what would have happened had I not stumbled across evidence of the affair.

I was devastated and felt the rug had been pulled out from under me.  I kept calm and told DH that he had to end it. It took a painful, humiliating week, but he ended it cold turkey with the AP.

It has been 1.5 years now. We did brief counseling, but mainly talked things out ourselves. DH committed to making things better and has worked hard to rebuild trust. He tells me he loves me all the time, he carves out time for me anytime despite a crazy work schedule, has been an amazing partner. We are communicating much better, sex is frequent. He says that the emotional affair was a wake up call and he would never jeopardize what we have/our family again. He is a great dad.

The issue is that I still don’t trust him completely. I question everything about his sincerity and what our relationship was before the EA. I don’t do it outwardly (we never talk about last summer). Outwardly, I’m loving, supportive and affectionate. But inside, I don’t feel safe. I can’t trust him like I used to. I feel like I never really knew him and that maybe I never will. I don’t know what’s real bc I was so out of touch with reality before. I’m scared he’ll betray me again in the future, even though every indication is that he won’t.

For those who have lives through an affair. Did you ever regain complete trust? Or was the fear of betrayal always in the back of your mind? How did you heal/recover? I just can’t seem to let go, no matter how much my DH tells and shows me how much he cares and how committed  he is. 
[/quote]

Wow – I could’ve written this exact same post except for we have three kids and the emotional affairs were longer term and included a lot of gaslighting. Curious to see if there’s any words of wisdom from the posters. [/quote]

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