Reader’s Question

My significant other has fundamental distrust of me. We are a mature couple, both divorced over 10 years and approaching our one year anniversary of dating exclusively. She’s a bright, bubbly, spontaneous joy to be with. We see each other several times a week and we have a blast together in every way except one — about every other week she’ll unexpectedly take the notion that I might be seeing other women. I am absolutely not.

Sometimes she gets quite upset and accuses me of having this whole other secret life of deceit when we’re apart. I try to be very understanding and patient during these times and while my reassurances and vows of fidelity are helpful the problem subsides only to reappear too soon. It’s frustrating that I don’t know how to reassure her. I’ve tried opening my email accounts to her, showing my cell phone records and offering to take a lie detector test. Is that weird? I’m beginning to fear our relationship is in danger of ending over something that never happened.

I know she has a history of being abandoned in a couple past relationships and her (deceased) parents were somewhat apathetic or indifferent toward her, yet she manages to be cheerful and engaging most of the time. Our relationship is 99% magnificent, and I’m totally devoted to her. She has recently begun seeing a psychotherapist, which is great, but that’s a slow process, and the incidents are happening more frequently than her visits. What’s a faithful, concerned man to do?

Our Clinical Psychologist’s Reply

Your significant other doesn’t have a fundamental distrust of you — It’s a distrust of her feelings that everything is going well in the relationship. The problem here is Emotional Memory. When we experience emotionally traumatic events, such as being abandoned in previous relationships, the brain memorizes both the details of the emotional misery/reaction and and feeling state at the time of the event. Thus, memories of emotional events actually contain emotions — that’s why we automatically smile when we see a friend and tense when we see someone we don’t like.

An individual enters a relationship with all their emotional memories intact — good and bad. If we’ve been traumatized by what we thought were safe, faithful partners in the past, the sense of trust that develops in the new relationship actually causes us to remember (and thus reexperience) those prior devestating relationships. You’ll notice that she accuses you of the same thing each time — seeing other women, a secret life, etc. That’s what’s in her memory. Suddenly, you’ve become the other boyfriends.

Importantly, these Emotional Memories are being triggered by situations she has little control over. It’s like the millions of people who experience a difficult weekend every Mother’s or Father’s Day due to the previous loss of their parent. Sadly, as you suspect, these Emotional Memories can damage and actually ruin good relationships. When that happens, both partners are left with the sense that they have no idea what happened to an otherwise wonderful relationship.

I’d recommend:

1. Both of you need to read the Emotional Memory article to recognize what’s happening in the relationship.
2. Both need to be alert for what triggers these Emotional Memories. It might be a mood, an event, a restaurant, etc.
3. While it’s weird, the surfacing of Emotional Memories may be directly linked to her monthly cycle, as neurotransmitter levels (and thus moods) change during that time. That may explain the predictable cycle that creates these events.
4. She should be screened for depression as well. She might want to take a few depression screening tests on this website.
5. Encourage her to continue with her psychotherapist and offer to attend if needed.

As a team, you can manage and eventually correct these damaging Emotional Memories from the past. If we’ve had any kind of a life, we’ve collected them — good and bad. I experience a neurotransmitter surge when people talk about Las Vegas — but my legs shake when they talk about starting an IV or having their blood drawn. In both situations, I’ve been there and done that — and the brain remembers both the details and the emotions.