"What if I had met another man before my husband?"

[Katie1723]

Personally, I think you have done nothing wrong. Talking to someone does not equal cheating. Ask your hubby if he ever talks to other women in the course of a day. And another thing, lots of times when someone accuses another of something and raises a fuss, it is because they themselves are gulity of the very thing they are accusing someone of doing. Sounds to me like there are some major control issues going on here.
Kathy

 

[strngrnrth]

I was with a man who kept asking if he could trust me. I asked him what he wanted to trust me to do and he kept saying he just wanted to know if he could trust me. I still don’t know quite what he wanted to trust me to do. Nothing I ever did seemed to make him happy for long and he took the most innocent things as a sign that I was cheating or somehow wronging him. Nothing made any difference. But he never made me swear on a Bible (not that a Bible would have meant much to him).
He was a schizophrenic, it turned out, and getting away from him was one of the best decisions I evre made.
I don’t know your husband but he sounds somewhat unbalanced himself. Excessive jealousy is a sign of serious problems very often and so is failure to accept reponsibility for his actions, such as drinking.
It is absolutely normal to have both light and intense conversations with people of both sexes in a public place. Hardly anyone I know would be suspicious unless you were alone in a locked or secluded place for an hour or longer with a man who didn’t know your husband or spent the night with a man without good reason (e.g.a snowstorm, car breakdown).
As for what-ifs, well, I think wondering how another situation would differ ffrom yours is part of evaluating your life and seeing how you feel about things, which is part of thinking. If you’re not lusting, and you’re not planning to cheat, you aren’t doing anything wrong that I can see.
I think you need to stay awhile with your family alone to get some perspective on this situation.

 

[PaulinVA]

I think the problem here is a husband who can’t trust.

Ruby, to feel guilty about thinking, and then REMEMBERING, about “what ifs” from years ago is very strange. The remembering, keeping count part, is that fueled by your husband?

I sometimes think about what would have happened if I married someone else. Not sexual, but practical. Actually, my wife had a coworker who married a very rich man many years ago. We talked then about how different her life was from her coworkers life was because of who they decided to marry. We had an interesting talk about being content with ones choices.

I’ve thought, at times, about what it would have been like to marry other people. I never get beyond the point that since I don’t know the person all that well, I can’t even fathom what it would be like, so I move on.

Next time he asks you to swear you haven’t cheated on him, you tell him to go first.

 

[graceandglory]

Your husband’s fear of you cheating on him does not sound like it has a basis in reality. A lot of times people will project their own thoughts and motivations on to others. It could be that he is angry with you because of his own issues, that have nothing to do with anything that you have done. ** I really would recommend that you look into getting some individual counseling so you can get a more clear perspective on all of this guilt that you seem to be feeling**.

Bingo! Often a woman is more than willing to accept the guilt of both parties.
This book is not Catholic or Christian, but I think it has truth in in nonetheless. I would recommend it as a tool to help you get perspective.

The Verbally Abusive Relationship: How to Recognize it and How to Respond: by Patricia Evans.

Knowing how to respond is very important when two people seem to have two completely different “realities.”

That’s all I’m gonna say.

 

[GraceDK]

Rybywannabe…

first of: you are a ruby… dont let someone make you feel that you are not.
Now what I was thinking when I read your posts is that it sounds like your husband drives some psychological abuse on you … and I dont think he realises it himself.
You say he has been an alcoholic…
well… I used to know someone who had been an alcoholic and drugabuser and upon reading about these abuses I found out that such people are sometimes damaged in the brain due to their drinking or drugs and that it can cause paranoia.
This is a serious state to be in, especially when you are in a marriage. You say that you gave into some kind of admitting you had been longing to be married to another man because your husband wanted you to admit you were cheating on him.

These are my thoughts that I wanted to share. Maybe he is suffering from paranoia - in the sense of not trusting you - because of his former abuse problem…

I dont know… but maybe you could ask some doctor about that…