Looking for Support for Communication/Trust Issues

[4-year-stand-still]

I am 30 years old and have been married for 4 years. I am at the point in my marriage where I can recognize the same pattern of communication/trust issues with my husband. He says that he is working on these things, but at this point I haven't seen much of a change, have developed mistrust, and am wondering if we will ever have kids. I was aware before marrying him that he had emotional problems and was abused by his stepfather. I wonder how much of this affects him and have tried to be patient with the problems that could stem from that situation, but at this point, it seems like he is trying to keep me out of parts of his life and he has always been very secretive. I am a born again Christian, and my husband claims to be as well, but we do not share the same moral standards.
Over the past 4 years, I found him doing things that were not necessarily wrong from his standards, but they were secretive and hurt me. A trail of things that he passed off as absentminded or ignorant I am beginning to believe have perhaps been deceptive and selfish. He is aware how I feel but does not seem to do much to change.
He has always had work/college relationships that I was unaware of until after the fact. I have "caught" him having study groups with women in his college (he studied for El Ed and most people in his class were women). I also "caught" him at dinner with a bunch of "friends" (including a couple girls that I did not know he worked with) when he told me he was going for his regular weekly dinner with his one guy friend from work. When I confronted him about these things he said he was not aware his behavior hurt me. I have never caught him red-handed in anything, but I have found him on several occasions in situations that gave me a bad gut feeling. His previous job gave him a lot of freedom running errands for his boss. A few times when I called him when he was supposed to be at work he would tell me he was running an errand. He is very disorganized. He forgets his cellphone all the time, has lost his wedding ring, and the few times he was not where he said he would be he always came up with a reason why he was not there. It is hard for me to believe that he could know how to cover his tracts so well if he is up to something, but it gets harder all the time to trust him when I have found him in so many situations that seem suspicious and I wonder if I ever really knew him at all. I have told him I don't trust him, given him ultimatums, and even told him I will leave if I am in the way, but when I do he seems apologetic and agrees to do whatever I say I need. Then after the fact I see very little change.
Now he will be starting a new job with a consistant schedule, in a small town, even in the same school where I will be working, but I am not sure now if I even trust him.
He will be starting his new job in a week and I am back home finishing loose ends. Even since he has been gone to our new apartment and our life seems it will get more simple I find it is becoming more complicated. He has told me several things about the apartment, his job, our health insurance, that seem unlikely that when I follow them I find out otherwise, and again he gives me the reason why he misunderstood or forgot to tell me something...without missing a beat. I pray all the time that God will guide us both and open my eyes if I am missing something, but like I said I never see anything concrete. I just have an uneasy feeling in general.
Does anyone have any feedback??

[graceforme]

There are people in this world who really can't help but to lie (pathological liars).  They even lie about things that don't make a difference.  I know - I was married to one.  And it has been almost 30 years since we divorced, and he has never remarried.  But, he's still telling the same old lies to anyone who will listen.

Your husband needs professional help.  Children who are abused are affected for life,  and it takes professional help and allowing the Lord to heal to recover.  Urge him to seek professional help (Christian), even if it has to be an ultimatum.  And then follow through with what you say you will do.  If you give an ultimatum and then settle for whatever he does, he has no reason to believe that you are serious.  And be thankful that there are no children caught in the middle of this mess.  You certainly don't want children to have to suffer through this turmoil.

I will be lifting you and your husband up in prayer.  He needs help and I pray that he will seek the Lord first, and then professional help.

Keep looking up. 
God Bless.

[4-year-stand-still]

Wow! Your bluntness is refreshing. You have given me a new resolve to stand up for myself, and let what happens, happen. I see now that I have not been as demanding with him because I've kind of lost sight of what I'm asking for. This helps me to see that I need to trust my own gut feelings more often. In this case I can see that I need to act in "tough love" and no matter what the outcome is I believe this is God's will for me. Thanks for praying for us :)

[BAH-BLAH]

I have no idea. But there are also people who look so hard for things...they find them. By that I mean (and I have lived this) they are so convinced that their suspicion is correct, that they will find a way to take the truth, which is not something bad, and cast it as something bad, and in theor mind it MUST have been something bad, and these bad things accumulate and later it comes out as "he did this and this and that and that" when in reality those are all major stretches of what happened.

Again I have zero idea about this couple, but based on one post on a board, its always best to stay at 30000 feet and see all possible roads.

[4-year-stand-still]

Well, isn't it funny how God works. I just got back from talking with my pastor and his wife, and they pointed out to me that I knew these things about my husband before we were married-his broken home life, abuse, etc. and that since I have no trust at this point I may be seeing things that are not there. They said the only way I will ever know if our marriage will work out is if I go with him to his new job. They encouraged me to be patient with him changing (only when he sees he needs to change) and that he could very well just not know how his behavior is destructive. They said that I should not take things personally that I know to be his character. Basically, I should give him the benefit of the doubt unless I have evidence to the contrary. If I let him know how these things make me feel, rather than reprimanding him I might get a better response. They said the first part is to look at our realationship realistically. They agree that my marriage has not turned out to be what I expected, but that the only way to save it is to fight for it. If he really cares about "us" he will eventually change on his own, as all people do over time. I guess I feel like my pride is wounded. I left a good job to be a better wife, have given a lot of time and money to support him, and now that he is getting what he wants I am encouraged to just keep doing what I have been doing, with my eyes opened, and with an open heart. They said that if the time comes that it does fall apart God will give me the grace I need at that time to face it, but that I should not keep past hurts at the forefront of my mind. That makes sense, but when I look at my own life...how often I forget to just trust God.

[4-year-stand-still]

I have to say one other thing, "BLAH, BLAH." I may have made his behavior sound more harmless than it MAY have been. For example, since he works with several women and went to school with mostly women I understand that the odds are, he will have to interact with them from time-to-time, but my concern was that he was always secretive and when I found out about certain situations, they made me suspicious. If he were more open with me maybe I wouldn't have been so suspicious. Thank you everyone. I appreciate hearing different points of view, whatever they may be.

[BAH-BLAH]

I have to say one other thing, "BLAH, BLAH." I may have made his behavior sound more harmless than it MAY have been. For example, since he works with several women and went to school with mostly women I understand that the odds are, he will have to interact with them from time-to-time, but my concern was that he was always secretive and when I found out about certain situations, they made me suspicious. If he were more open with me maybe I wouldn't have been so suspicious. Thank you everyone. I appreciate hearing different points of view, whatever they may be.

From 30000 feet here, it COULD sound like you start from the premise that he was in school with all these women, that he did or will work with a lot of women, and those facts dont sit well with you from the get go. THEN, under that umbrella, with your starting point being one of discomfort at the concentration of women around, then it gets more suspicious. IOW it seems there is SOME level of suspicion going in.....before the actions...based solely on the circumstances and the presence of the women. Maybe Im wrong. And actually I hope Im right, because it means he is innocent, and you have easier problems than a cheating man. A jealous tendency, even a mild one, will eat you alive. It will consume you, it will grow, and it will manifest in ways you cannot imagine.

So best to do whatever due diligence you need. Follow him, check his phone records, hire a PI, whatever (I know it sounds extreme but there were times when I prayed my wife would do that years ago...she did manage to get over all the jealousy) and after a few times of seeing that he IS just blundering or forgetful or whatever, then drop the suspicions for good (unless of course a REAL reason pops up)  Then you just need to work on him speaking the open honest FULL truth.
I can tell you with 100% truth, in the first 10 years of my marriage, say after the first 3, and therefafter, I was prone to white lies. I traveled alot on business. There are virtually no women in my field, and those there are not lookers, are married, are not in any way enticing, and besides I was not looking for a fling. So, I have a business dinner with some customers and wife asked about the group....."any women?"....Ive lied and said nope, none. Or if she asked  "who was there?" id say Joe Smith and Tom Jones, omitting Beverly Griffin or whatever, just not revealing everyone. Why? because she dripped suspicion and it led to a 30 minute grilling. More, she'd drop lines in arguments like "you are obviously having an affair on the road or you wouldnt say that or feel that way"...and it was easier to lie tknowing I was 100% innocent than it was to go through that. Had she caught the lies, she would have been CONVINCED I was cheating. Im not endorsing lies.....no way...and we are 19 years married and after a huge upheaval where she cheated, we are in a great marriage, and she doesnt do that, and I tell the truth..if I meet a woman, I tell her everything about it. Oh, she slips into jealous mode on occasion, but as I got older it slides right off me, because its HER problem, not mine.

Im offering a possible reason (not excuse) for the lies. I cannot know if this is the case w/ you, but if he senses your distrust, and a women is at a dinner, and he is innocent, he may lie. Not good, but possible.

[yesult]

ok, well here's another one. (Feel free to pick through and discard anything that you don't feel applies as I don't want you to feel falsely accused or ganged up on here) -  and I wrote this out while the last two posts were being written, which might add more light to the whole thing, but anyway.

Your pastors have given you excellent advise. I have to admit that I was actually feeling for your husband while reading your first post. I don't mean to sound judmental, but just by going by the brief things you posted - it sounded to me like you've been trying to mold him into what you think he should be.
And I was wondering why you thought you had the right to demand that he have no contact with other women socially? If you feel uneasy about him, that might be because of something you yourself might be battling internally and are projecting on to him. To try to cut him off from other women when he's given you no evidence that you can't trust him is very wrong. (And I'm not trying to be down on you so please don't take what I've said personally, and obviously I don't know the situtation because I'm not there.) But if my husband tried to treat me the way that you've been describing in this post, I think I would be pretty angry.

Abuse can do a great deal of damge, but when you marry someone you marry them for better or for worse. To try to change a person can cause a great deal of pain in a relationship. And abuse is a horrific thing that does such deep and traumatic damage to a persons soul that a person can spend decades working through all the layers. It doesn't usually take that amount of time but it can. Your husband would need your love and support more then anything, not to be constantly given the impression by the woman he loves the most in the world that he's failing her. If you feel uneasy because of a porn problem, or words he's said that make you feel uncomfortable about his faithfulness then yes that can rightly cause deep mistrust but unless you have something concrete, your accusations and ultimatums could just compound the problem even further. There's a lot to be said for a womans 'sixth sense' in these kinds of matters, but we're definatly not infalliable either. If you've asked God to show you if anythings there and nothing has come up, that's probably your answer right there. God isn't limited and he takes a marriage covenant very seriously.

I'm glad you've got access to such sound counsel as the things you've posted, your pastors sound like good people to go to for support in this. But I think it might also be helpful if you think about your own responses regarding your husbands friendships with women. When a person has been betrayed in the past in a relationship or have slept with their partner before marriage (or with others) trust can be severly undermined within a marriage later on. However unless those things are dealt with, we can actually end up pushing someone we love away, without meaning to thorugh our fear. And not necessarily saying that that's your situation here, but it's worth a thought if something like that has happened.

Anyway, I'm sorry to hear of your struggles and unhappiness in this situation and all the best with it, hope things start getting more ironed out in the relationship soon. Will add my prayers and welcome to the forum.

God bless

Yesult

[4-year-stand-still]

Maybe it is time for me to clarify some specifics. I came from a conservative household where we were not even aloud to dance, but my husband after high school trained at a professional ballet school. He is not one to care about stereotypes that go along with this, and I always liked this about him. After we were married I immediately supported him with this activity, but one spring I found out he had been in months of rehearsal without telling me. All along I thought he was working. He told me he shifted his schedule to be in the production. Needless to say, I don't think many people would feel comfortable as it is if their spouse were twirling other girls around the dance floor, but when I found out that he had been doing this we had a serious discussion about boundaries in a relationship. There have been several other incidences as well.
For example, he had a work friend (a girl) who he was friends with before we met. She had gone on to another job, but after several years returned to his work. Her first week back he told me about their past friendship and I told him how glad I was that he had a new friend at work. A few days later I found out that the two of them had run a work errand together, just the two of them, for no reason than that they wanted to hang out. I tried to picture if I would ever do the same thing with a guy friend at work and I could not picture myself doing this-especially without checking with my spouse first. I could go on and on. Another time we had a wedding to go to for a mutual friend but I had to work. I got the time off to attend but he later decided he did not want to go after all. I went out for the evening and then came home to find he went without me to the wedding and told everyone I was not there because I had to work. I can see I'm going on and on, but because there are people who seem to not have the complete picture of why I am suspicious/jealous I felt it was time to share. I have other examples, but for the sake of my husband I don't think it is necessary to share these with you.

[chosenone]

I can see why you are concerned and feel that you cannot trust him in light of what you have said. Some people do lie easily and it also sounds as if his boundaries for your marriage are different from yours. It is hard to trust anyone who lies. How do you know when they are telling the truth?
However your pastor and his wife seem like very wise people in the advise they have given you.

[BAH-BLAH]

Maybe it is time for me to clarify some specifics. I came from a conservative household where we were not even aloud to dance, but my husband after high school trained at a professional ballet school. He is not one to care about stereotypes that go along with this, and I always liked this about him. After we were married I immediately supported him with this activity, but one spring I found out he had been in months of rehearsal without telling me. All along I thought he was working. He told me he shifted his schedule to be in the production. Needless to say, I don't think many people would feel comfortable as it is if their spouse were twirling other girls around the dance floor, but when I found out that he had been doing this we had a serious discussion about boundaries in a relationship. There have been several other incidences as well.
For example, he had a work friend (a girl) who he was friends with before we met. She had gone on to another job, but after several years returned to his work. Her first week back he told me about their past friendship and I told him how glad I was that he had a new friend at work. A few days later I found out that the two of them had run a work errand together, just the two of them, for no reason than that they wanted to hang out. I tried to picture if I would ever do the same thing with a guy friend at work and I could not picture myself doing this-especially without checking with my spouse first. I could go on and on. Another time we had a wedding to go to for a mutual friend but I had to work. I got the time off to attend but he later decided he did not want to go after all. I went out for the evening and then came home to find he went without me to the wedding and told everyone I was not there because I had to work. I can see I'm going on and on, but because there are people who seem to not have the complete picture of why I am suspicious/jealous I felt it was time to share. I have other examples, but for the sake of my husband I don't think it is necessary to share these with you.

I still stand by my post. The jealously and wording that comes through about the "twirling girls" is a red flag. I would suppose that if I knew my mate was a dancer, I would have known they would twirl or be twirled by the other gender. To then include that in a list of grievances seems like a jealous spirit, and that maybe that was something you thought you could change after marriage.

[4-year-stand-still]

I still stand by my post. The jealously and wording that comes through about the "twirling girls" is a red flag. I would suppose that if I knew my mate was a dancer, I would have known they would twirl or be twirled by the other gender. To then include that in a list of grievances seems like a jealous spirit, and that maybe that was something you thought you could change after marriage.
[/quote]

You can think I'm jealous, if you'd like. What I said was that I've always admired that my husband has quirky interests (dancing, gymnastics) What I don't appreciate is that he did these things without my knowledge. The point is whether I have a slight jealousy streak or am more like a wild banchee who will not let my husband breath, my husband knows that my trust is now broken. IS THERE NO ONE OUT THERE ON THE CHRISTIAN WEB WHO HAS ACTUAL ADVICE??

[BondServant]

I have advice for you...

P - R - A - Y

Pray for your husband.  Pray for yourself.  Pray for your relationship.

Then let go and let God.

Let go of your suspician and distrust.  Let God handle your relationship.  Be open and honest with your husband.

That's my advice.

Bond

[4-year-stand-still]

Best thing I've heard all day. Simple and to the point. I will continue to pray about the situation but I'm going to have more faith God will take care of it. Thanks.

[lightshineon]

 My thoughts on lies, there are no white lies, and if he cannot be trusted in small things, why trust him in anything? You cannot trust him, but, not all is hopless. I would pray, and approach him tell him no more lies period! Tell him, if you catch him in a lie you will not trust him on anything. I would make myself clear, about it.