Dear Alpha Bitch,
I am currently separated from my spouse because of a betrayal of trust in our relationship. I had recently -based on the suggestion of a marriage counselor- began keeping a journal for the first time in my life. The counselor's exact words were to use the journal to "express what I would never say out loud". About a month ago, I find out that he not only read the journal while I was at work, but he told a friend of his about it, looking for a second opinion.
He told me he did this out of concern, wanting to help me, but he also knows the reason I internalize so much, to begin with, is that I have difficulty trusting anyone, and this has made it worse. Going behind my back and sharing things with other people that aren't his to share was humiliating. At this point, I can't see the point of staying with someone I can't trust. This isn't as clear as just him cheating on me or wasting our savings because he said he did it because he was trying to help.
I guess what I'm asking is do good intentions really excuse what he did?
Dear Libby,
Just like the angry fingers I see on my commute each morning, body language is key!
I understand what it's like to lose the trust of someone close and them not feeling so close anymore. If it helps to be corny, trust between two partners is like a bridge. Whether it's intentional or not, sometimes one of the two blows the bridge to smithereens with C4 and you both have to rebuild it (now, I give you that putting only two people in charge of bridge construction is piss-poor city planning on a municipal level, but it's necessary for this metaphor to work, so please bear with me). As you rebuild it, you see that a lot of the original wood was too damaged to be salvaged, so you have less to rebuild with. That makes for a bridge that is NOT as strong as it was before the accident.
When that happens, you have to be more careful on that bridge than you were before because now it's shaky. I don't know if you have ever seen an action movie or not, but Nobody feels safe on a shaky bridge. However, if there is enough of a bridge left that it still gets you across, and you can live with being careful, the wood you did save will petrify over time and the bridge will be stronger than ever, and you won't have to start over with an alternate route. METAPHOR ACCOMPLISHED!!
What I'm saying is if your husband really was trying to help, it means he's trying too, albeit in the worst possible way. There's no question that he screwed up and the ball is in your court, Libby. If you really think you can't trust him again, that's on him and you should let him go. But, if you believe the pure motives behind what he did, there may be something bigger worth fighting for.
