Can You Ever Trust Him Again? It's a Trick Question

"I will never trust him again," I wrote in my journal. Over and over. In blue ink and black. "I will never trust him again."
You've probably said it too. Written it in your own journal. Said it to your therapist, your friends, yourself. To him.
A woman was recently asked on Twitter whether she believed she would ever trust her husband again after he'd been unfaithful. Her response? "I intend to spend the next 50 years finding out."
It sounds flip.
But what she's saying in the absolute uncomfortable truth.
You trusted him before and it turns out he was untrustworthy. So whether we trust him or not doesn't change his behaviour at all. It only changes us.
There are nuances, of course. I'm not advocating for total and absolute trust of a man who's revealed himself unworthy of trust. But I am pointing out that we don't really know who's trustworthy or not until they either betray us, or they don't.
And I'm making the case too that whether or not he is to be trusted is the wrong question. The right question isn't about him at all. It's personal:
Can I trust myself?
Because whether or not we feel safe in the world has far more to do with that question than whether others are trustworthy or not.
And learning to trust ourselves is something we have far more control over than others' actions. Trusting ourselves is about paying attention to what feels right or wrong, safe or unsafe, true or untrue.
Trusting ourselves is about personal integrity. And when we live our own lives with personal integrity, we'll be far more selective about those we share our lives with. We'll become impatient with the friend who gossips about other friends. We'll stop simmering in resentment with those who are consistently late and instead prioritize our own time. We'll notice when our guts or our hearts or our brains – our motherboards – set off alarms (whether barely perceptible or blinding red lights) in certain situations.
Trusting ourselves isn't like some sort of emotional armour that shields us from any cons, grifters, gaslights or garden-variety cheaters. But it does, nonetheless, offer protection. When we trust ourselves, we notice things. We pay attention to our inner pilot lights. We know who we are and what we stand for. And we know what we won't stand for. Trusting ourselves isn't hyper-vigilance. That's rooted in fear. Trusting ourselves is rooted in self-respect and the clarity that comes with knowing where the line is drawn and what we will do when that boundary is violated.
I don't know whether or not your husband will cheat on you again. I don't even know whether my husband will cheat on me again.
But I know this.
If anyone betrays me – whether the betrayal is large or small – I trust myself to respond in a way that honors and respects me.
And approaching my life – my marriage, my relationships, my work – from that place is far more predictive of joy than whether or not I can trust him. Whether or not he's trustworthy remains to be seen. So far, so good. And I have the rest of my life to find out.