Ask Dan & Jennifer

Jeff,
When trust is broken it is hard to get it back, but it sounds like your wife knew you had been dating others as you dated her, so the trust was shaky to begin with. Plus you guys have not had enough time together to really know if you can trust each other or not!

When trust has been violated (or perceived to have been violated) in any way people often feel thrust into a kind of survival mode that makes them feel the "victim" of the other person's behavior. As a result they struggle to "survive" in those old "flight/fight/flee/freeze" modes that are a sign of feeling intensely threatened. You wife then see's you as the "Bad guy" and herself as the "helpless victim". When you try to defend yourself you end up looking MORE like the bad guy.

So what do you do?1) you empathize with her pain and fear 2) you admit to your part in triggering her fear and let her know you understand why that would scare her 3) you respect that she has to do what she has to do and don't try to "make" her do anything. Once you get into therapy with her, continue to empathize with her feelings until she feels really understood. THEN and only then to you talk about what might have happened to make you talk to this other girl. Are you afraid of getting close to her? What if she gets close enough to see the real you and she doesn't like you? Could your calling this other girl have happened because you are afraid your wife will reject you if she really knows you?

Given you really want to be close to her you have to find out what it is inside of you that motivated you to do something to threaten your marriage. Doing it in the context of therapy will help her to have some sense of empathy for the fear or pain that is underneath that behavior.