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My husband and I have been working really hard on reconciliation. We go to therapy about 2 times a month and this has actually helped us communicate through a lot of things. It has now been just over 8 months since I found out and I felt like things were really just getting better, but lately my intrusive over thinking has gotten the best of me lately. I get a lot of anxiety thinking about him on social media even though he hasn’t used it since January. We have started to go to the gym because we want to feel better about ourselves and I love it, but I find myself laser focusing on him to see if he even looks at another girl..it’s not healthy and I don’t want to be this person. It just brings up that original worry of not being able to fully ever trust him again..and is it ok to never want him on social media again..?

At 8 months out I was still on an emotional rollercoaster. Once broken, trust takes a lot of time to rebuild. It's honesty, transparency, and consistency OVER TIME. I am about 6.5 years out and I would say that I trust my husband and I do not have anxiety or fear about him cheating again, but I will probably never "FULLY" trust him again, whatever that means. Maybe I never did trust him fully in the first place (I mean, I did learn of his A by going through his phone and I probably wouldn't have done that if I trusted him fully). After being through this previously, I can't imagine ever having 100% trust in another person. I feel comfortable that any doubt I might have is healthy in that it will make sure I take care of myself in the future.

On your social media question, I don't know how to answer that. My husband's A was not related to social media in any way and he's never really used it all that frequently so it's not a concern of mine. I certainly don't think your position is unreasonable at 8 months out, particularly if the A was related to social media.

IMO, no one can be fully trusted if that means 'do a right thing at every turn'. We're all imperfect. We all can make mistakes and wrong choices.

So - also IMO - the questions for R are something like:

'Is my WS doing trust-building actions and only trust-building actions, as far as I know?'
'Is he doing enough to satisfy me?'

The cure is learning and deciding to trust yourself. My W is pretty much an ideal WS - confession, immediate NC, no more lies, no blameshifting, no minimizing. I know she's a lot less vulnerable to an A than she was. But I'm prepared for another A. I'm confident that it would be devastating, but that I can survive and thrive.

That's not meant as bragging. Rather, I'm saying if you do the healing that you need, the issue of 'full trust' becomes a non-issue - not immediately, but soon enough.

At 8 months out I didn’t trust anything. It took me at least 12 months to reduce my anxiety level and stop letting my life be tuned by my anxiety.

Sadly as a betrayed things can be going well in the R process and marriage but the intrusive thoughts will appear and up-end everything.

It takes a long time to stop allowing the thoughts to send you into a downward spiral.

The only thing that saved me was the fact that I had enough $ to walk out the door if I needed to. And I had a solid post-nup and an exit strategy.

I had confidence in myself. It helped me tremendously.

I’m close to being 6 years out so at 8 months I can say I was still in shock and processing. R is an arduous, long process and really REALLY hard. It’s been full of pain for me but also full of really beautiful moments. I am trying to reconcile with myself as well. I don’t think I will ever trust anyone ever again after this so I’m trying to stop thinking my trust with H will ever be 100%. It’s ok for your feelings and emotions to ebb and flow as long as WS is showing consistent signs of trust rebuilding.