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 trust issues with someone you've been with for years
Every time anyone has told me they needed to know the truth in a situation like yours, they ended up obsessed, depressed and distressed. There are precious few real truths in life. I suppose you could hire a private detective, and maybe that might find you your truth, but if the PI found nothing you wouldn't trust it and if he/she found out that an affair is going on, you'd want the truth about why. And if you hired somebody to discover why and they told you "because a and b and c, then you'd probably be tormented about why a,b,c. Find a counselor and sort out your problems -- see the counselor either with your husband or without, but if he will go at all, go together first or at least set it up together first, or he'll feel like it's your counselor. If you two have been together for 18 years you can probably fix your relationship if you both want to. Lots of people sort of drift apart while their kids grow through childhood and then in mid-adolescence start to wonder who it is that their spouse turned into. Sex gets out of sync and communication gets choppy and incomplete. It's a part of normal marriage and kid rearing on planet earth. Then they end up either splitting up, settling into an angry, stuck-together roommates relationship, or if they get working at fixing it and if they get lucky they get their marriage together and move on to partnering into old age. The Truth in life is really not all that knowable and even when it is, it isn't that helpful. Everything is a bunch of guesses and faith. My general bias in life is that people should try to focus on making their best guess about what is most practical -- in the long run for their happiness -- and it is almost never most practical to "know" some "truth." The only really practical truth might be whether a decision to go one way or the other would be better -- but even if you could know the truth of how this or that decision will work out, knowing what will happen in advance may mess up the probability that it will happen at all. Another bias I have is that people who have invested 18 years ought to try to fix their relationship instead of tossing it away. If he's having an affair that's probably only a representation of not feeling very married -- which you don't seem to feel, either. If he did have an affair and you fix your relationship and the affair stops, you may be better off not knowing the "truth." It would get between you a lot. Your brain would have you anxious whenever you began to get close -- which would mean it might be never -- when the real problem might be that you and your husband drifted apart for years and he did things that were potentially toxic because he wasn't bright enough to think to fix the marriage. If he did have an affair and you fix your relationship and the affair stops, the only truth you would need to know is whether he makes you feel loved and seems to be bonded with you and respectful of you -- and the truth that you can keep working to make sure you don't slip apart again and that you can survive it if some time in the future everything goes down the drain in spite of your work and you do break up. 18 years is a long time. The question you might start with is do you want to be sitting with your husband in rocking chairs when you're in your 70's talking about memories you share with him or shared with somebody else? Then, as I said above, find a counselor -- a good, level headed one who people you trust recommend (one married awhile and not divorced several times, if possible) -- and don't get stingy if it costs a few bucks.
Good luck. Dr. J  see the head-cleaners home page for a link to more information on dr. johnson or for links to other shrink rap articles |
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