One of the biggest hurdles to overcome when trying to assess or even save your marriage after your spouse has an affair is determining if you can believe their claims. Often you really want to believe him, but you can’t help but doubt something he’s telling you. After all, he lied to you very easily and effortlessly while he was cheating on you, so what is to make sure that he is telling you the truth now?

An example of this type of concern is something like, “I only found out my husband was cheating on me because I left my lunch at home and picked him up. My husband has been unemployed for four months and has been having an affair with one.” of my neighbors. This woman was in our house and when I walked in and as soon as I saw her I knew something was up. A quick check on her phone and Facebook account showed me that she was right. Because my husband has lost his job, we can’t afford to move and the other woman has lived in our neighborhood for twenty years. My husband swears that he has not seen the other woman and that he will not see her. He says that he will only see her. walking our dogs when I can be with him. He says that he doesn’t date her or have any visits from her while I’m at work. He hasn’t given me any specific reason not to believe him. But since I’m not at home and can only call him, I have my doubts. What’s stopping him from sneaking her in there and just answering the phone like, is he alone? I would like to save my marriage, but I have my doubts whether or not it is possible. I just don’t have the confidence. And since there’s no way for him to prove that he’s telling me the truth, I’m also not sure how to restore it.”

Surely you already suspect it, but most of the women in your situation have the same doubts. Unless she is with her husband twenty-four hours a day (which is not possible or desirable for most of us), there will always be some mystery about exactly what she is doing. And it is normal to suspect that she has done something wrong when she has recently cheated on you. In a sense, as a faithful spouse, you can get a little paranoid.

I can only speak for myself, but after my own husband’s affair, if he was five minutes late or didn’t call me when I thought he would, my mind would automatically go to places where I was doing something wrong or even cheating again. These assumptions were not correct. And they only eroded our confidence that much more. But you can only do so much to avoid this. Over time, as trust is rebuilt and you begin to see your spouse deliver over and over again and end up doing exactly what he said, then you begin to back away from these assumptions.

But until then, you can try to work it out so that the circumstances allow you to trust as much as possible in that moment. For example, maybe it would make you feel better if you dropped by unannounced once or twice just to make sure she’s not there. Or, you can arrange for her to meet you for lunch regularly. Alternatively, you can arrange for him to do something very regularly outside of the house, such as networking, training, or something that will de-escalate and give him confidence in his job search.

Frankly, people can get pretty depressed and hopeless when they’re unemployed, and this may well have contributed to their delusion. This is why I believe it is vital to aggressively pursue anything that has to do with improving your employability in order to keep your self-esteem high.

That’s why I don’t think counseling is a bad idea here either. A man who is willing to go to counseling with you gives you one more indication that he is serious about making his marriage work. And if this is true, you have to wonder if he would jeopardize that very marriage by continuing the very thing that almost ended it in the first place.

I know you feel like you’re being asked to blindly trust him. That’s why I sometimes checked in and why I tried to keep him extremely busy with his job search. But, at the end of the day, you can’t be with him all the time. And there comes a point where you have to decide if you’re going to assume he’s telling the truth until he gives you reason to think otherwise.