Trusting after an affair is no easy task…
My husband was always my rock. We were solid, and I knew that he would protect me no matter what. His love and dedication were FIERCE, and he held my heart close to his. Nobody would ever hurt me, as long as we both were alive.
He was my safety net, always there to catch me if I fell. You know the “Trust” game where someone stands behind you and you fall backwards, knowing that they will catch you? I really never trusted too many people with this game, but you could bet your ass I trusted my husband to keep me from falling to the ground. I guess you could say he completely had my back.
Since the affair, this game makes sense to me in a whole different way. Not the way I want it to make sense, mind you.
So there I am standing, and he is behind me. He says, “Don’t worry, Sweetheart, I won’t let you fall”. I believe him, as I always have. I begin my descent.
Unbeknownst to me, he starts talking to an old girlfriend, just as “friends”. He is still keeping an eye on me, but his attention isn’t on me solely. They start flirting, and he really isn’t paying much attention to me. I fall a little further, and I hear him say, “trust me, you’ll be okay”. Phew!
What I didn’t know was that they were sexting and he barely has an eye on me. I ask him to reassure me – that he is still there behind me. I hear him mumble something. At least I know he is still there, but I am VERY scared. I am falling fast.
They finally move into the sexual part of the affair, and his attention is not on me…at all. It is eerily quiet, but I tell myself that he would never let me get hurt, so I continue to trust him, and that he will catch me soon.
The silence is deafening when I say, “Honey, can I still trust you to catch me?”. I suddenly get a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. He is not there. His interest in her was overpowering his commitment to catch me, and he has stepped aside.
His eyes and mind are on something else completely. He forgot about me, and his promise to keep me from harm. Someone else needed his attention, and me falling backwards suddenly didn’t matter anymore.
The pain. Oh the terrible pain. My head hit the pavement, and my mind is racing. What happened? How could he have just left me there to fall? He simply walked away and let me suffer? The heartbreak is unbearable, and disbelief fills my mind. How can I trust that he will never do this to me again?
What does it feel like to be cheated on?
This is what it feels like when your partner has been unfaithful. They promise you time and time again, that nothing is going on, even when you ask for reassurance. When your body goes “splat” on the ground, because you trusted him/her, it is the most horrendous pain ever. It is a pain that sears through your entire body, and of course your heart, because you trusted so completely. It’s a pain like no other, as it hurts in so many ways, and it digs into your very being.
And they wonder why betrayed spouses have a hard time trusting again. Because they let us fall and it hurt like hell!
I don’t want that kind of pain ever again.
