Living With A Man You Don't Trust

Why are you staying with a life partner you can’t trust?

It’s not a work colleague from a job you need to have until you can get the next job. It’s not a neighbour you try to ignore and endure until either you, or they, move. It’s not a church person who you know to be a gossip and a troublemaker, but you can’t kick them out.

It’s your life partner. Your life is in his hands—your hopes and dreams, your financial security, your wellbeing of heart, mind, body and spirit. Your children’s lives are as impacted by him as they are by you, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health. Can you trust him with the most important things in the world to you?

My colleague Tania Rochelle tells a story of when she was doing the full recovery program with her (then) husband:

So I went to a COSA meeting and arrived early. Two women, a little older, were setting up the chairs, chatting, etc. I was like a zombie, so exhausted, looking for any hope of getting my life back. The women looked almost happy, so I thought they might have found the secret. I asked if they were still married and both said yes. Then I asked them how they were able to rebuild the trust with their husbands (because, to my mind, it’s not a marriage without trust). They looked at each other and started laughing. “Oh, honey,” one said, “we’ll NEVER trust them.” And I knew I was in the wrong place. I was in a place where women could resign themselves to staying in marriages where trust was irrevocably broken.

Does trust matter to you?  How much? On a scale of 0-10 where “0” means it doesn’t matter at all, and “10” means it matters the most, how would you rate how much it matters to you? 

Playing along with a narrative of a rebuilt relationship that doesn’t include trust is the whole game for many women who remain married to the man Dr. Omar Minwalla identifies as a  compulsive abusive sexual-relational disordered man—CASRD man (rhymes with “hazard man”.) When marriage and life partnership promises and vows are violated, trust is gone. We don’t trust them. Will we ever be able to trust them again?

As the treatment program unfolds, that assumption that we will not be able to trust these men ever again is everywhere. By time you’re done with all your requisite “check ins” with him charting his inner circles activities,” “slips,” “danger zones” and you adding in all the stuff you either saw him do (like flirt with a waitress or stare at your son’s teenage female friends at the sports event) or found on his phone (Victoria’s Secret website, flirty texts with a co-worker, complaining about his wife to her sister, etc.) the treatment program has used its own tools to show you that you can’t trust him. Every single week you learn why all over again. If there’s a reprieve and he self-regulates for a week or even a month, you’re just waiting for the other shoe to drop. He will become more arrogant, abusive, ill-humored and critical. Someone has to pay for his “sobriety.” Trust doesn’t really have much of a chance. And don’t forget to get that device monitoring software installed, updated, and checked every day. 

You’re not a wife. You’re the warden. You’re not building trust. You’re building a false sense of control. This is why I’ve said from the beginning that the treatment program is designed to turn you into a codependent person when you weren’t one to begin with!

Women tell lots of stories about how their “recovered” husbands “don’t mind” when she says they can’t see that movie, or watch this show on television, or go to the beach. He “doesn’t mind”. Wow! What a guy. And if something unexpected happens like walking past an attractive woman and he gawks, he quickly asks his wife if she was uncomfortable about that. What a guy. And when you go to events where his affair partners are going to be, he hardly talks to them at all. What a guy. And when he passes the polygraph (that he passed before he admitted his sexual and sexualized activities) he wants a parade. What a guy.

You still don’t trust him. And you still can’t trust him. The moment you let down your guard and your software and your circle talks and your polygraphs, it’s over.

Except it’s not. You’re told to expect him to “fall off the wagon.” You are urged not to “throw all this hard work away.”  Even some creatures from the treatment industry swamp manipulate you by suggesting “it would so unfair for you to have gone this far and then have another woman gain all the benefit.” Good grief, there’s apparently a line-up of women waiting for you to divorce this prize so they can have him! 

Even if you sign on again, all the hard work will never generate a life partner you can trust. You are expected to lower the bar again, and keep sharing your life with someone you can’t trust.

It so confusing. There’s talk of love, except you don’t get any. There’s talk of forgiveness, except he is not changed by it. There’s talk of a fresh start, but even that’s gone stale after…well how many times you created a “fresh start.”

Some women stay because they need to get their kids through school without a fight over the money to pay for it. Some women stay while they go to school themselves or retrain so they can support themselves and their children when they divorce. Some women stay until certain financial “plays” are completed and improve their position in negotiating a divorce settlement. I understand all of these. These are strategic choices that are part of the larger plan of extricating themselves from this abusive relationship and being equipped to be financially independent when he decides to stop paying child and spousal support. I get it. Going back to court often is a revolving door that keeps you dizzy and in debt for years. Being independent is a better choice.

What I don’t get is women who talk constantly about his “progress” on cutting down the porn habit, or breaking it off with the co-worker, or going to his counsellor regularly, or attending a treatment center for a whole month, etc., as if that is giving them an adult relationship of positive mutuality. But do they trust him?  No. They can’t.

No. Like the women putting out the chairs that COSA meeting, they don’t and they never will. 

An even bigger point is to wonder why women think he’s going to stick around with them? Have they never thought that he might have a strategic plan, too? Maybe he’s busy patching up his reputation and making like a dutiful husband and father, because as soon as he can, he will dump her. And all their truth-telling then will just sound like sour grapes while he waltzes away with his new version of a life partner.

Women mistakenly believe that because they have offered him so much grace and support, he won’t consume it all and turn it in his Plan B. When these men know themselves that they can’t be trusted, they also know that the life ahead is going to have more discoveries, harder work to hide things, and a constant drama they don’t want. Your grace, your support, your 50th “second chance” can be re-purposed in his version of a “fresh start” in a heartbeat by a man who truly can’t be trusted.

Maybe it’s time to stop sacrificing your life and your children’s lives for someone you don’t trust. Your lives and their lives are the most precious things you have. Treat them as if they are. Don’t attach to someone you do not trust. Don’t model that mistake for your children. Think about it. It just doesn’t make any sense on any level. Get out of the prison. Hand in your warden’s pass. Teach your children what trust means and why it matters. Let them grow up without the new version of his secret life.

Not sure where to start?  See a lawyer. Start stashing money away or buying prepaid charge cards. Retrain or go to school. Develop your plan and the timetable. Redirect your energy away from the black hole of his recovery and invest it in yourself and your children.

Let’s talk, your story is safe here.

With you,

Diane.