It’s not just her trauma that keeps her skeptical of you.
When you secretly led a double life, you operated from a position of power and control. Now, as you try to live out the amends process, you're tangled in your perspective versus hers and it leads to adopting a powerless stance. Your best empathy won't create true equity or trust. Instead, you need to cultivate an understanding of dialectics and examine the self-protection that keeps you hiding. Let me show you a different way.
Whats keeping you stuck can be resolved quicker than you might think.
A Note from Hope
As a specialist, I've worked with hundreds of couples who want to heal but get stuck rebuilding trust and safety.
I call this the "fallow period" where the work and toil of rebuilding has not produced enough harvest to make it all feel worth it... yet.
When couples are stuck here, the trauma of the betrayed partner is seen as the culprit; the reason for the delay. Couples go to therapy to work through this trauma together but the glaring issue is almost always overlooked. There is a power imbalance that hasn't been addressed and it won't be fixed until the person responsible for it does the necessary work to dissolve it.
Specifically for men who have betrayed their wives, recovery and addiction treatment does not address the dynamics that keep the power in play. My mission is to help serious men in advanced recovery to finish the work - to become husbands who've examined the equity gap they've created and show up as the men they are capable of being. The kind of men that their wives are hoping for and, in time, grateful for.
This will be the toughest work you've done yet - but it's here for you when you are ready. I look forward to leading your through this process.
-Hope Ray, LPC CSAT CHFP CCPS