After your spouse has lied to you while carrying out an affair, whether it was once or many times, it is hard to know whether or not he or she is ever telling the truth afterwards. Whether or not the cheating spouse deliberately lied or lied by omission, or both, it does not matter. Once the trust has been lost, it can be hard to get back.
Now you may be trying to save your marriage and reconcile with your spouse who cheated on you. But this can be very difficult when you have to constantly wonder if he or she is lying or telling the truth.
This article discusses what happens after one spouse lies and the two important elements you need to have to regain the trust and honesty in your relationship so you can get over the affair and save your marriage.
You Try To Avoid Pain After Your Spouse Cheated
After you find out about the infidelity, you will start to doubt whether or not you will ever be able to tell the truth from lies again. It can be a blow to your self-esteem to know that somebody lied to you and you believed it. Or even worse, if you had a feeling something was off but you went against your instinct and chose to believe the lies until they were too obvious to ignore.
First of all, you should stop being so hard on yourself because you are not to blame. Marriage is based on trust and you rightfully chose to trust your spouse. Just because you were deceived does not make you at fault in any way. This just means you are the victim of somebody else’s lies. It is natural to believe your spouse when they say they were working late or just having drinks with people from work.
Once your trust is broken by a cheater, you may be overrun with self-doubt and even start to lose trust in yourself and your capability to know the truth from a lie. It may help to know that you are definitely not alone. Just think of all the other people out there who have been cheated on and also lost trust in their spouses. Most people naturally wonder how they possibly could not have known what was going on.
People get lied to every day and they believe the lies easily. Just think of all the scams people fall for and end up losing a lot of money. Or more relevant to your situation, think of the other men and women who get involved with a married people. In many cases, they were lied to by the cheaters as well and had no idea that they were married. They may have foolishly believed they had a future with the married person. Or if they knew the other person was married, the cheater may have lied about how bad things were in the relationship and made it seem like they were separated already.
Knowing all of this, you still want to make sure you can protect yourself in the future and make sure you never fall for the lies again. This is known as pain avoidance. Even though you want to be able to trust your spouse again and think that the dishonesty is over, but you are looking for a guarantee.
Crucial Elements To Regaining The Trust
You should be aware that you will never get a guarantee that your spouse is not lying to you right now or that he or she will never lie to you again in the future. This does not mean that you will not be able to trust your spouse again. However, it does mean that regaining the trust in your spouse will be a process that takes time. Following these crucial steps will help you move forward to rebuild the trust in your marriage.
Element 1: Commit to Transparency
Is your spouse getting impatient and wondering why you cannot just get over it and trust them now? It is definitely not that easy. First of all, you spouse needs to start acting like somebody who is trustworthy. This means committing to transparency in you relationship, something that was most likely lacking before the affair.
It will help rebuild the trust to see your partner making an effort to be open and honest about their actions. That is why transparency is so important. When your spouse is consistent in their behavior and is continually transparent with you about where they are going and who they are with, you will start to rebuild the trust that you lost.
Element 2: Define Mistrust Triggers and Remove Them
You should talk with your spouse and identify what triggers feelings of mistrust for you. The partner who was cheated on should give specific examples of what scenarios make them feel as though they are being lied to again.
An example could be:
“When you come home late but don’t call to say you are running late, it leaves me wondering why you haven’t come home and what is going on.”
“When you answer phone calls and leave the room, I get suspicious about who is on the line.”
“I see you texting on the weekends, but you never tell me who you are texting, and I am left to wonder who it is.”
Another crucial aspect of this is that the cheating spouse needs to look at their actions in the past and own up to what they did. We all know when we are lying to somebody. This will help identify the triggers of mistrust and remove them.
Once you identify the mistrust triggers, you should communicate better to remove them. If your spouse texting was a trigger, then he or she needs to start telling you who is on the receiving end.
Regaining the trust in your marriage is a learning and growing process. You will need to change the way you and your spouse conduct yourselves, and also learn to to communicate better.
If you have experience with losing trust in a relationship and are trying to rebuild it, please leave a comment below to share your thoughts. If you were the victim, has your spouse made any effort to be more transparent? How has your spouse changed his or her actions? What mistrust triggers can you identify in your marriage? If you were the one who cheated, what did you do to keep the affair a secret? What are you now doing differently to be more transparent and gain back the trust of your partner?
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
My situation is a little more tricky than this. His ex told me she was aleeping w him all the way up to the time I got pregnaut by him and there was no specifics by her she says he dumped her for me. Inn may which is when I found out I gt preg but she also admitted to still being n love w him. So who is lieing here? How do u know?y ths cd go either way. And yes there were other girls numbers in his wallet at home I called after finding nothing became of. Some strange girl other than his called outa the blue when I was pregnaut. She claimed to be just a friend but certainly was strange actions not enuf space to write them all. Alota questionable things how do I get the truth?
To let u know the rest of this serious issue. He now blames me and is resentfull of me saying he’s innocent and I shd trust him. I made a suggestion to get both of our ph records. To end this whole mess and cure any doubts I cd have he will not do it. He says I shd just turtrust him. Yeah well that cd be true and I hope it is. But a lot of ppl say he was a professional player before me my question is do lepoards change theyr spots? Idk. All I know is I’m trying to believe him but he lacks the actual understanding of what these thoughts and questions how they affect and impact a person what do I do here? Some advice frm anyone wd be welcome?
I was cheated on, he always had an attitude, was never home, lied all the time about everything, texting all the time, keeping phone locked, get mad when I ask who he texting or calling, hardly any sexual activity. I have a hard time letting it go it was alot of times and the situations were bad. He stays home more and doesn’t have a phone now but I wonder if we are just together cause of our baby. I stress myself out so bad about this I feel I am going crazy and I don’t know what to do.
My husband cheated on me while he was on an over seas trip and in the past I found emails to some of his ex’s. He has been getting frustrated with the fact that I don’t trust him yet and I can’t get over it. When he asks me why I have an attitude towards certain things and I bring up why he gets upset with me and yells at me for not trusting him and always bringing up the past. I’m lost and we aren’t communicating through this. Its been a year since his trip and I’ve never been told the hole story from him, and honestly I just want a why…what was so bad in our marriage for him. I want to trust him and I want to be able to talk to him, but he gives no room for talking. We are suppose to blow it off and be who we were before.
she never change and whenever she has other plans on weekend she looks for something that will leave us argue ing on thursdays so that the whole weekend we woulnt be together or bother asking one another where we are at. she becomes very rude us in she tries to show me that i am nothing which hurts so much…if i was the one cheating i will be very smart in every move i make.1 just leave your phone anywhere but make sure there are no sms’s that would make her suspect.2 be very close to her that since you knew each other nothing will change.i try so much to be close to her on wkds but she is always busy as she says.i do not know what to do anymore.
In my relationship my partner cheated, only it was internet cheating. which to me is Emotional Cheating. There are several acts of cheating, although he feels what he has done is not cheating because he did not actually touch the other person. He lied about this other person even after I knew all the signs of cheating that were there. I was told that I was insecure, and a jealous person. He has made some changes. I cannot always be with him, and it was through the internet. I have no access to his Emails or Facebook, how would I know that it has stopped? How do you rebuild that trust?
My situation is a little more complex. I started to email an old guy friend that I have known since I was 16. My husband didn’t know about it, but during this time my husband was really encouraging me to find that void in his fantasy of me with another man. after hearing about this over and over, I acted on it, hoping it would be this friend of mine. Well, as emails came and went, he wasn’t ready in his life to play like I was. His wife found our emails, that were not explicit or sexual only simple invites to go boating. Harmless…so we both thought. 2 yrs later, they divorced. His ex told him she will destroy everyones life who ever had contact with him…since he was nice enough to share with her at point in his marriage that I was the one who got away…she hunted me down! She found my husband via facebook. Told him she had something to share with him…our emails. Yup! They texted each other everyday, 80 times a day for weeks on end. He would call her in the mornings to get her up, all done behind my back. Payback time? Sure…I can accept that until I discoverd the intensity of their emailing, phone calls and texting. I begged him to stop, he did for a few days and back at it. 2 months of this and he claims they have stopped for good now and he wants to be with me. He says he has no feelings for her…how true is that? How can someone text 80 times a day, talk for 20 minutes 6-10 times a day and develope no feelings? He knows all about her cause he shared it with our kids. I want to be with him, cause I love him…20 years of marriage is hard to just throw away…but how can I re-build the trust? When I ask who is he texting or emailing he gets irrate with me and snaps ” I don ‘t ask you who you are texting or emailing, so don’t ask me?” Help…anyone?
He cheated on me with a girl whom I didn’t even know. Once I found out, we separated. But eventually my love for him was greater than the betrayal. its been a while since that happened…but I’m still finding that I’m hurt about it. he had taken her into our bed…now I cringe when I have to lay down and go to sleep. I see him talking to another girl and I go into a frenzy. or if a friend of ours tells me that he had been texting her earlier. it doesn’t mater to me if the conversation they had was harmless. it still drives me insane. he has changed so much since then. he does everything he can to make me happy. he’s given up so many of his friends because of my insecurities. He apologizes everyday and is so mad at himself that he hurt me. but unfortunately there r gonna be women around. I can’t get my head around this. I want him to give up other women completely. but he can’t do that. its not his fault that other girls talk to him…I thought I forgave him but I don’t know now. I get so upset some nights that I start to get horribly sick and throw up for the littlest reasons. I don’t know how to let go of this. the hurt is still there. I know I love him and I know he loves me. he is starting to get tired of my constant paranoia. I know he’s not doing anything, but its like, at that moment I’m overcome with fear. I don’t know if ill ever get over this. I don’t want to lose him…but I can’t let this go…I’m so helpless tight now…I still feel so broken…