He wrote asking me to point him toward information about trust in a marriage. He said his wife didn’t trust him, not because he had betrayed the marriage but because she didn’t trust him to do anything — from managing their finances to planning vacations — as well as she could.
She had been this way when they met, he said, and it wasn’t just a lack of trust for his capabilities but she didn’t trust almost everyone she knew. It was a “flaw” he thought he could live with, at least during the early years of their marriage. Now he’s trying to adjust his needs so that he can continue to accept the fact that she’ll never trust his judgement to be as good as hers.
He said he isn’t planning to divorce his wife, he wants his marriage to continue. He needs help understanding why she’s so untrusting and some good coping techniques for himself because her lack of trust is causing him a great deal of distress.
Love and trust are partners. When you love someone enough, you will trust their judgement and their choices. Perhaps not every decision will be a sound one, but why treat a spouse as though he or she was an idiot, incapable of making any decision whatsoever? Such lack of trust is a recipe for relationship failure.
Perhaps this man’s wife was profoundly hurt by someone she trusted years ago. If so, he pays the price for someone else’s actions. And, should he decide the cost is too much, she’ll “know” that she was right all along not to give another person the opportunity to betray her trust.