Trust broken in marriage, how to move forward?

I’m so glad to hear your husband is actively seeking help because all of this is his problem, not yours. You’re not responsible for fixing his insecurities, past or present. If he can’t handle your friendships, it’s something he needs to get to the root of on his own. You’re an adult and allowed to be friends with whoever you want. If you’re not already in therapy yourself and/or couples therapy, I couldn’t recommend it more. I hope you both find the help you need because you deserve a happy and healthy marriage!

Feathers are being ruffled. As uncomfortable this may feel, transitions are beginning to unfold.

You can be in a relationship with someone for many years and never know them. It doesn’t matter whether you’re married and/or have children together. What enables you to see a persons true colours is through their vulnerabilities. I cannot stress this enough - people in relationships need to understand why they are in a relationship? What does it mean to be in relationship with another person?
Usually it’s because people people have unmet needs, unfinished business, pain from their upbringing throughout their life and they sought a relationship to have those needs met by the other. As soon as the other isn’t fulfilling those needs in some way, guess what…feathers get ruffled, people get triggered, their pain that they’ve been masking suddenly slips away and what you actually see is the human being behind that mask.

It may be ugly to look at and to experience, but you would be getting the true formalities of the persons character, personality, mental health state, where they’re at emotionally, how they perceive themself and perceive people and the world around them.

This is where your relationship gets interesting because you will begin to understand whether your relationship was built on solid or rocky foundation and I find for more than 90% of relationships, they are usually built on rocky foundations simply because you don’t actually know who you are dealing with. Most people don’t even know themselves because they’ve spent most of their life working excessively hard to become somebody they are not! People have learned to manipulate themselves.

The truth is, yes you can go to therapy/couples therapy etc and if you two really want to work on your relationship and you’re both committed to dropping the masks and really allowing yourself to see each other then it will work.

I'm sorry you're going through a tough situation in your marriage. 😕

I would encourage you to see this through his perspective. Imagine your husband is at a hotel with a woman that he has known since childhood and has always kept in touch.

How many stories do we hear about people carrying a torch for someone from the past even while they were both married?

I don't excuse his behavior, but his jealousy is TOTALLY valid. He could have handled it way better, but it seems like you're more sympathetic to "friends'" mental health than your husband's.

IMO you did do something wrong. We have a responsibility to be above reproach when it comes to relationships with the opposite sex, but you chose to go to his hotel to catch an uber because it was "easier". Not even sure what that means..it seems like you also broke his trust..

I hope you can see past your anger soon to see where you were also wrong here and examine if your marriage is what you really want. Best of luck ❤️

Also, couple's therapy 💯

Also, if you were gushing about your husband and said he never did this before, how did you get to not knowing if this is repairable?

I know we don't know the whole story, but I think you may also need to examine your feelings for your friend.

I wish you the best!❤️

The therapist is their to facilitate, not to give advice which is what a lot of people fail to understand. You as the client are the tool in therapy and your journey to self discovery. The therapist is the mirror.

I think you both could really give this a shot. But there will be some things that you and you alone will have to work through and your husband can only do the inner healing on his own. You cannot carry his issues for him and vice versa.

I think the most important lesson you’re going to learn through this process is a better understand of yourself, why you attracted a person like him in your life, you’re insecurities and much more.
Based on the fact you decided to not speak to your friend anymore, shows me that you carry anxiety and your stress response is to appease the other person and the situation to eliminate confrontation (people pleasing). There’s a lot of fear, fear in saying no.

As daunting as it sound, you only discover your light through your shadows 🌺.

Unpopular opinion: It's probably not a great idea to go to a hotel alone with a guy friend you haven't seen in years. I understand how poor optics of the situation could've caused him to draw conclusions.

I know you're an adult and you can do what you want, but when you agree to be married to someone you take into account how they would feel, or how you would feel in their shoes. You can no longer operate as if you're that single teen anymore. You have to consider how things would appear. Imagine your husband went to a hotel with some random woman who just landed into town. You'd have concerns, also.

Girl I’m sorry but why were u at a hotel?

I can understand why you were upset, and there are obviously pre existing issues here that need addressing. However, given you say your husband has now admitted mental health issues that he is willing to get help for, and couple’s counselling is on the table, I wouldn’t write him off. It sounds like the main issue here is that he has been burying his feelings for a while and this unfortunate coincidence of you going to a hotel for an innocent reason has brought it to the surface. Whilst I get you feel unfairly accused and humiliated, your husband also has a lot of feelings to deal with, and he is unlikely to be able to let go of the view that he had a point, until you two do the work together and he addresses his own issues. Whilst his actions were not right, you can see why he overreacted initially. He absolutely should have dealt with it differently but it came from a place where he was scared of losing you and being hurt, not because he’s some psycho, from the sounds of it.

I’m shocked how much judgement there is on this post from other women. You went to the hotel for an Uber, doesn’t mean you were in bed with your friend. Sounds like you were enjoying the time with him , chatting, not quite ready to go home yet until you got there. And there has never been reason to imagine your husband would react in the way he did.

What is coming up you with his reaction? Sounds like you’re in shock that what you thought you had together (complete trust) , isn’t there. That is confusing and hurtful. And instead of acknowledging that, hes told you about his own mental health as a justification for how he responded . (Not saying he doesn’t genuinely feel that way)

If you want to get back to where you were, it’s okay to hear him and also say how you felt that day and how you feel now. Remember the reasons you fell in love with him.None of that is a lie, it’s just being challenged right not with seeing a behaviour you haven’t seen before. Wishing you the best x

Update: thanks for the POVs, lots to chew on.
For those questioning the optics here of going back to the hotel it was for the simple reason that the Uber drivers kept cancelling the bookings so it took ages and it was easier to hail a cab for the short journey to return to the hotel to then get an Uber there. Literally that is it!
And for those questioning any reasons of doubts put on my husband : he didn’t have to have any as I was communicating my every move the entire day so he knew exactly where I was at all times!
So yea, 3 weeks on and I’m still uneasy about the whole situation but I’m willing to put in the work for therapy and counselling if that’s what it takes. He has been apologising and trying to love bomb me but it was too much so I told him to stop as it felt unnatural and just manipulating.

@Monique your insight was eye opening. Thanks for that. Discovering things about a person until shit hits the fan isn’t the best feeling but no one is perfect and it takes two to make a relationship work. Lots of reflection to be had for sure.