Trusting Him

[light&courage]

Me and my husband will be married for a year, and we have been together for four years. I have always had problems trusting him fully. When it comes to girls he has a bad habit of doing the wrong thing. My biggest issue is the fact that he doesn't think about my feelings before he does something. Especially after we have had conversations about what offends me, what I feel like cheating is etc...

He still goes out of bounds. Over and OVER again. Over the first 3 years the cause of me not trusting him was because of phone calls and conversations he would have with people he was in a relationship with, or had sex with. (After we both decided we wouldn't contact anyone from previous relationships/encounters) Now because we are married it has led to porn, (to my knowledge). I have found him on multiple websites, one searching for women to speak with (on an affair site), as well as on others where he messages them and attempts to webcam with them.

And yes we have sex regularly. Sometimes I say no, but i don't feel like having sex EVERY day. But this is just what he does regardless.

Also within the last past two months he has decided he doesn't want to be a Christian anymore, and is believing in all sorts of things. Please someone give me some advice, I don't know if I should keep forgiving him for the same things over and over, and feel emotionally withdrawn towards him and not wanting to be sexually involved at all, or just end this.

 

[Thunder Peel]

It appears you knew him for three years before being married. Did none of these warning signs ever appear? It would be difficult to know someone for that length of time and not see that something's wrong.

 

[light&courage]

Yes, I saw them... but you know everyone struggles with something. I wanted to be able to love him and forgive him and still try to have a great relationship. I then could at least rest on the fact that he would turn to God for help. And for a time it'll seem like everything is perfectly fine, like he was working on himself. But then he just starts again out of nowhere. But now since he is no longer a Christian... I don't know how he could even try to tackle these problems just by himself. Or if he'll just keep at it.

 

[ValleyGal]

What a hard position to be in! Why did he decide he did not want to be a Christian? Is it because he would have to make sacrifices for your sake (such as his use of porn, etc) or is there something else going on?

He is not going to change his behaviour. If he was interested in how it affects you negatively, he would already have taken steps to address it. But instead, he continues, telling me that he does not really care about your feelings. There are two things which make up commitment - care and consistency (combining these two is powerful!). He is consistent about his flirting with sin, but he does not care about how that affects you. Therefore, he lacks commitment to you and this will not likely change.

You can only change you, and how you respond to his lack of care. You could enforce a boundary like "you can choose porn all you like, but I choose not to share my body with a husband who engages in the use of porn" and stop having sex with him, or you could leave, continue to suffer and "forgive" while resentment takes root as contempt, or any other number of options you can come up with. All you know is that you can't continue to live like this and have a happy marriage at the same time. So you need to consider all your options and the consequences of each, and then make a choice of how to proceed.

It is a hard decision.... I'm so sorry you are hurting like this.