My husband and I have been married for a year and have been together for two and a half years. In two or three of his previous relationships, his girlfriends (and in the last case, his fiance) were cheating on him, apparently with several different guys -- or at least, that's his side of the story. I understand that this leaves him feeling like he can't trust people, and I've done my best in the past two years to be understanding of his distrust towards women in general.

But now, we're married and have a beautiful little baby boy together. I quit my job to work as a stay-at-home mom and provide full-time love and support to our child. I went from being independent to having to ask for money. This isn't about the money, but I just want to say - I'm not the kind of girl who would use somebody like that. And after two and a half years, he should know that!

The other day, I got a new hair cut. Raising a child takes almost all of the time out of my life to do anything for me, so I hadn't really had a chance to play with it until last night. My husband works a rotating shift of nights and days. Last night, he was on nights. After I'd given my son a bath and put him down for the night, I heated up my hair straightener and tested out a couple of different hair styles for my new do. I unplugged everything, tied my hair up like always, and went to bed when I was done.

Also, I don't usually wear make-up and he knows this. But yesterday while my son was napping, I decided to put on some eye-liner, just to see how I felt.

This morning, my husband gets home while I'm still in bed. He goes to the bathroom and sees my hair stuff out and when I get up, he mentions that I had left the hair straightener out. Okay... it was unplugged... what's the big deal?

He literally says, "Why were you doing your hair? Were you trying to look nice for some guy that you were having over? And what about that make up you put on yesterday? Seems to me that you're trying to look nice for somebody."

All I had to say to him was, "You know what, its been two and a half fucking years. I've never done ANYTHING to make you think I'm cheating, or going to cheat, or maybe already have cheated. I'm not that type of person. I'd just leave you if I had interest in somebody else. So when is this going to stop?"

"Well, its just a little weird. You never wear make up and who does their hair before bed?"

My reply: "I can see it already. Before I know it, you're going to be all 'Why did you shower? Trying to look good for somebody?'"

I've been patient and understanding of his past to the best of my ability, up to this point. But honestly? My patience has run out, and I'm tired of him thinking I have outside motives of trying to look nice. Am I trying to look nice for somebody? Yes! My husband! Myself! Is there anything wrong with that!? This isn't the first time this EXACT scenario has happened. How long am I supposed to just tolerate his distrust and excuse it by the bad relationships he's had in the past? He won't let me go to a bar without him, because he's absolutely certain that the reason I'd want to go with some of my friends is so that we can all go pick up guys, get drunk, and have sex with strangers. He jumps down my throat if I look at a good looking guy for a moment too long, even if he's all the way across the store. He thinks the reason I'm trying to lose weight is so that other guys will find me more attractive, when I'm actually doing it so that I can conceive a second child and have an easier pregnancy the second time than the first. Oh, and when I got pregnant with our son (we weren't married yet), and I told him... his first question was, "Are you sure?" and his second... I shit you not... "Is it mine?" And it wasn't until I had the baby and his mother compared my husband's baby pictures to our son that he believed it was his.

I'm just TIRED of this. I want a normal, healthy relationship where its OK to talk to guys (as friends!) and its OK to play with my hair before I go to bed. I want to be able to put on make-up without expecting the insulting and never-ending accusing questions. I want to be able to wear something other than t-shirts, and not have to explain to him exactly how long a dentist appointment is going to take, so that he can start to assume I'm banging some other guy if it takes me a minute longer.
 

That's the thing, too. He is punishing me for the things his exes did. His distrust of me is completely based on his being betrayed by other people. And I can understand how he could be distrustful at first, I really do, especially considering his past. But after two and a half years? He's still so closed off to the idea of trusting me that he thinks I'm cheating when I do my hair.

I like to think that I've been very patient and understanding these past two years. I have been nothing but good to him, done nothing "wrong" (in terms of infidelity) and am a very responsible adult. I understand that being cheated on is hard - though I don't know from personal experience - and that when it happens more than once by more than one person... well. That's a huge slap in the face. I have done everything I am capable of doing of earning his trust, and I haven't gotten anywhere with it. He seems to think that its gotten "a lot better", is what he told me a couple weeks ago... but it hasn't. Not noticeably better, anyway, from my shoes.

In the course of our relationship, especially since we started seeing each other seriously... he's accused me of cheating on him because I bought a new shirt that was somewhat fitted, because I wanted to buy new bras, because I was looking at lingerie, because I would occasionally put on make-up, because of hair cuts/doing my hair, and because of missed phone calls while I was in the shower or giving the baby a bath. One time, I went over-night to visit two close friends an hour away from here, and he was mad at me for not giving him a play-by-play of absolutely everything that happened over there. I left for a week to see my sister, and he got mad because I didn't update him every twelve hours on how I wasn't having sex with strangers. I used to have a very close male friend that lived all the way across the country, and my husband ruined our friendship because he thought we were having phone sex because he really didn't believe that our friendship was purely platonic. I play an online game called World of Warcraft... and he used to think that the reason I played the game was to try to hook up with people online that he would never know about. I mean, its endless.

Its like he has absolutely no intentions of ever trusting me. If me giving up my very closest friend in the world (who just happened to be male), dumping all of my friends that were promiscuous, never going to a bar without him (except once, which sparked a HUGE fight and I very nearly left him over some of the things he said), and not even attending innocent concerts isn't enough for him, then what the hell is? What more is it even possible to do to prove to him that I'm not the cheating type?

He has this weekend off and I am considering talking to him about going in for trust councelling or some sort. Marriage councelling, if we have to. He is ruining my friendships, my family relationships, and my self-esteem with this. I can't so much as send somebody a text without telling him who I am texting, where they live, exactly how we met and what our friendship is like... and once we've established that its harmless... then he has to know what we're talking about. In detail. Screw that -- if I have to give him all of the details of every conversation I have, then I'm just going to avoid having conversations with people when he's around.

If he isn't willing to at least make an effort to get over this... then the only option I'm really seeing is to leave him. Because not only do I not cheat on him, I have to go out of my way to prove it to him on a daily basis. Just saying that I'm not isn't good enough for him, and it should be. And we fight about it all the time, and its beginning to make me miserable. My self-esteem is delicate as it is, always has been, and when I have to constantly tell myself that I am a good person even when he makes me feel otherwise (from the accusations)... its just not worth it. I didn't marry him with the intentions of having to defend my integrity from him for the rest of our lives. I deserve happiness, and going on like this is definitely not going to lead me to it.

Betrayal is hard. I've been betrayed by loads of people (though admittedly none of them were lovers)... and it doesn't stop me from trusting people to do right by me. I know this has been a real struggle for him... but its gotten beyond the point of being understandable. Its downright ridiculous, and borderline controlling. If he isn't willing to let it go, then he shouldn't be opening himself up to be in relationships at all.

And I'm not going to lie -- there are more issues in our marriage than his distrust. We have money problems, sex disagreements, and we bicker about exactly how important our materials are. We mock each other, and we (especially I) give cold shoulders when we're mad instead of sitting down and talking about it. But despite all of that... I think the trust problems are tearing us apart faster than all the rest of the combined, and the distrust is honestly the thing that hurts me the worst.

His distrust extends beyond infidelity, too, by the way. It wasn't until a couple of months ago that I had access to our online bank account so that I could go grocery shopping without him... because he didn't trust me to not spend hundreds of dollars (I'm actually quite the penny pincher). That is getting better, however - its really a shame that the more important distrust isn't.

Thank you for bringing that up, actually... because sometimes I get so sucked into my own anger and frustration that I exaggerate or completely ignore any progress he does make.

When he says he's more trusting than he used to be, I can only figure that this is purely in his head. I don't know how often he wonders if I'm cheating, and maybe he's wondering about it less. But he still asks me about it once every month or so, and its been like that since the beginning. In fact, in early fall, he got a UTI somehow, out of nowhere, and he actually came out and asked me if I'd been cheating on him with somebody with an STD. He's had UTI's before, so he knew that's what the symptoms were pointing towards, but he still had to make sure I hadn't given him an STD, contracted from my imaginary boyfriends.

In other areas of our lives, yes. He's improved. He seems to have better control of his temper, and we do actually make stronger attempts at conversation anymore. And like I said, he's beginning to trust me more with money - I am, in fact, being put in charge of grocery shopping.

I'm worried about bringing up counselling, because he thinks its stupid and pointless (I tried once to tell him that I felt like I should go in for help, and that was the reaction I got), and I know he's going to fight me on it. But I am very willing to go in with him so that we can jump over this hurtle. Its too late, though - I've already detached from the relationship. With every argument that we get into, I care less and less if we make it through to the other side. I've been working with myself to get back into it, and its working, obviously, as I'm upset about the cheating accusations.

re: we're married and have a beautiful little baby boy together.
... my first reaction to posts where there's kids is = DO WHATEVER IS RIGHT FOR YOUR CHILD!!! 
Your child is the #1 priority of this marriage and need and deserves the very best parental role models you can give him.  So do whatever it takes to PROTECT your child from the damages of faulty parental role models. 

Basically, I see your story as an abuse issue which is going to harm you child unless you either reverse it back to love or take your child (and yourself) away from that TOXIC environment.
FOR THE SAKE OF YOUR INNOCENT CHILD get into some kind of professional counseling, therapy, support group or whatever you can find to SAVE your very own child from further DAMAGE in that abusive family!
God help your son!