Dear Dr. Love I am 19 years old and I have been married for a year.My husband joined the navy in Dec of 1999 after telling me that he cheated on me 3 weeks after we were married. I left him in Feb of 2000 and now he is calling me begging me to come back to him.I love my husband with all my heart but I am scared he will do it again. How do I learn to trust him again while dealing with military life? He is my world and I would do anything for him, but I just can’t deal with pain like that ever again.He said he has changed, but how do I know that is true? He is promising me the world now, but he is in Florida while I am in Texas. He wants me to move to Califoria with him in a few weeks, but that is a long way from home if things do not work out.What do I do? I love him so much and I think that he loves me because he is still chasing me and begging for me to come back to him after 5 months of being apart. Please help me!! Thank you
You have good reason to worry.What makes him so sure that he won’t cheat again? Bottom line, when a partner cheats he is communicating angry feelings. The cheating behavior basically says, I am mad at you, so I am going to do something that will pay you back.This guy acts on his angry feelings rather than talks. He needs to be working on this pattern so that he doesn’t cheat the next time he feels angry with you. He needs to identify what you have said or done that has made him angry with you and tell you about it.Usually a person feels angry when his needs aren’t being met. So, he needs to tell you what was missing for him in the relationship or what you were doing or not doing that upset him.Mind you, I am not saying that you are at fault or to blame for his affair. He must take total responsibility for his inappropriate actions, but at the same time, you must be willing to own the possiblity that you might have, however unwittingly, said or done something to upset him.If this relationship is going to make it, you will both need to get to the place where you say, ‘this relationship had an affair, ‘and we need to find out what is ‘sick’in the relationship and heal that aspect.This is the only way to protect you both from future affairs. Let me know how you make out.