Learning to Trust in a New Marriage

Learning to trust in a new marriage can feel like an impossibility when you come from emotionally abusive relationships.

My husband and I rarely ever argue. We are THAT couple! We will tell you we never fight and it is very true. But that was not always the case.

I had come into this marriage with a lot of baggage from an emotionally abusive marriage and a lifetime of having to tiptoe around certain people in my life.

Throughout my life I had become an expert at bottling things up and would try to avoid conflict like the plague. I learned to apologize when other people were at fault, just to end any arguments so that they didn’t spiral into a fight.

I was married to a narcissist who was an expert gaslighter. Everything was my fault. He made me feel that way and he made sure everyone else knew it too.

Through years of being emotionally beaten down and made to feel like I could step on a landmine at any moment in my own home, I developed severe anxiety and PTSD.

So, coming into this new relationship, I tried my best not to rock the boat. I bottled things up constantly. I wanted so badly to avoid upsetting him because I feared getting the reactions I had in the past.

Bottling Things Up

The problem with bottling things up over time is it becomes like a soda bottle that is shaken; you open it up and everything just explodes.

This is what happened in my new marriage.

When I could no longer bottle up anymore on a specific issue, I would explode.

What I WANTED to see was him feeling bad when I would cry. I wanted him to show emotion. I was looking SO hard for the safety to open up to him and I was looking for any open door I could walk through so that I felt safe.

But he had also come from a marriage where emotions were used as manipulation tactics, so he had learned to approach conflict from an analytical standpoint and emotionless position rather than from an emotional position.

It was a tough mix! We would go for a long time without an argument but then we would have a firestorm!

He was confused most of the time because he couldn’t realize why we were fighting about something only to find out that it wasn’t the actual issue. It was only the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back.

When we would finally get to the real heart of the issue, he would ask me “why didn’t you just talk to me about this?” and I couldn’t answer because, at the time, I didn’t even know I HAD PTSD and anxiety!! I just knew I didn’t feel safe opening up because every time I had in my past relationships, it ended up in a huge fight.

Beauty for Ashes

My marriage was slowly eroding. The fear I had of conflict was actually creating more conflict. It was going to become a self-fulfilling prophecy if I did not make some changes and learn to trust.

No one deserved more trust than my husband. He is the most loving, understanding person and I think that is what made it more difficult for him when I did not trust him with my feelings.

But God has a way of doing a work in us when we allow Him to.

I cried out to Him in prayer because I had enough! I had enough of living in fear. Enough of living on eggshells. I had enough of not trusting people with my heart. And I had enough of failed relationships.

I adore my husband and I wasn’t about to lose him because of what other people had done to me in the past!

I committed to letting God take my fears and my past and give me beauty for ashes!

Daily, I prayed for my husband, but I also prayed for God to give him the wife he deserved and to allow that to be me!

I clung to these verses on learning to trust:

Psalm 56:3

When I am afraid, I put my trust in You.

Proverbs 3:5-6

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.

Isaiah 43:1

But now, this is what the Lord says—
    he who created you, Jacob,
    he who formed you, Israel:
“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
    I have summoned you by name; you are mine.

And the one that had the biggest impact on me was Jeremiah 7:8:

But look, you are trusting in deceptive words that are worthless.

Now even though this verse is not about the harsh words people speak to you, it is true nonetheless.

I was trusting more in the words people had said to me, in childhood and in marriage, than in what God says about me.

I knew what was said to me in gaslighting me in the past was not true, yet I allowed them to seep into my spirit. The words spoken to me created such a level of anxiety that I couldn’t even speak my mind anymore out of fear.

Not only were they not true, they were worthless. They added nothing to me and took away my hope, my joy and yes, my faith. Learning to trust in a new marriage meant learning to let go of the deceptive words from the past.

But God….

God answered my prayers. No, it wasn’t overnight. No, it wasn’t a drastic change.

But slowly, as I began to grow in faith and courage, I started opening up more.

My husband didn’t get defensive, didn’t yell, or get offended.  He listened and understood.

When something bothered me, I learned to talk about it and as I saw it was met with grace and not anger and blame, it encouraged me to open up more.

In doing that, I found what marriage was supposed to be like.

We no longer argued because we were able to talk to each other before issues arose.

Now, we literally never fight! We may disagree at times, but we rarely argue, and we never have big blowouts at all.

In fact, we joke around about it because we realized that when we do argue, it is usually because each of us is trying to put the other person first. He says it’s not a bad argument to have! Our biggest issue is trying to make the other person happy and that is why we butt heads!

I’ll take that any day!

I am thankful for a God that I can trust in far more than any man’s words. He gives us beauty for our ashes! I am thankful for a man of faith and trustworthiness who, along with the God he serves, taught me (with great patience and grace) what love truly is supposed to look like.

Learning to trust in a new marriage first meant learning to trust in the God who loves me and never leaves nor forsakes me!

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Diane Ferreira

Diane is a wife and mom, a Jewish believer in Yeshua (Jesus) and founder of Worth Beyond Rubies, a blogging ministry to help encourage women and teach the Jewish roots of Christianity. She lives in Northwestern Connecticut and when she is not blogging, you will find her spending time with her husband and kids or up in her craft room designing custom tumblers, making reading pillows or quilting!  She is also an avid amateur genealogist and loves researching her family history!

Latest posts by Diane Ferreira (see all)

• Learning to Trust in a New Marriage - February 7, 2019