I’m panicking about my new relationship. After my husband’s affair, how can I commit again? | Australian lifestyle

I was in a relationship for 26 years, married for 17 years and my husband had an affair. It was hidden for a long time and denied until discovered. I divorced but it was delayed and I had to live with him for another two years. I spent a year alone in my new house with my now adult sons. I’ve been in a new relationship for a little over a year now and I’m suddenly panicking about it. I’m afraid to move forward. I’m not sure I can commit again long-term, and if I see him looking at other women (we work together in a female-dominated workplace), I freak out! I’m nine years older than him and I feel like I want to end things to avoid getting hurt. But then I feel like a coward. How can I stop following this route in my head?

Eléonore says: On behalf of everyone everywhere, let me say: what stupidity of your husband. This is such a big betrayal. And the cruelty you are experiencing now is that in addition to teaching you to distrust others, a betrayal of this magnitude teaches you to be insecure about yourself. If I read things wrong once…

Hurting like this teaches us very clearly the cost of trusting people who don’t deserve that trust. It’s perfectly reasonable to prioritize avoiding injury for a while. But in this self-protective situation, it can be easy to confuse isolation with safety. In any case, that’s what panic tells us; cut it, head back, smaller circle, lick the wounds.

In fact, retirement is not secure. It just protects you from a specific type of loss. Retirement and avoidance are not free. Day after day of vigilance, of decline in possible connections, what does this lead to? A life without betrayal, certainly, but also a life with fewer romantic ties. A life without ease.

Moving backwards means there is no moment of acute injury, but it still comes at a cost; the constant accumulation of ways to make our world smaller. Taking the worst of the past as a guide to the future means we will find less in that future to counterbalance the past.

Your situation is not about trying to convince yourself to take risks when safety is offered. It’s a choice between two types of risks: Is it worth missing out on a good relationship to ensure you don’t get hurt by a bad one? Could knowing this give you something to respond to when panic tries to boss you around? Panic might say yes! Keep me safe! And I know it may seem like it makes sense; because I feel like another betrayal would be completely unbearable. It’s like stomping on a broken bone. But in fact, you know something about what you experienced: you know that it didn’t destroy you. You know you can go through one of the worst things you thought could happen, see everything you thought you knew dissolve and move on. You weren’t finished.

You might be more resilient for this; you have met and spent a lot of time with the part of yourself that survives rejection and neglect from others.

One final thing to say about panic is that it can become self-fulfilling. Doubting people, scrutinizing them, and withdrawing can create the distance and mindset shift we so scrupulously seek evidence of. Just as urgently saying “trust me” is not a very good way to elicit trust, acting urgently out of a fearful need for reassurance is not a very good way to obtain it. One way to build relationships of ease and trust is to lead with the parts of you that are not your fear; because fear can obscure the best in you. You might remind the panic that by trying so hard to stop yourself from losing, it risks creating it.

Fear can long outlast the need for vigilance, but you don’t have a choice between safety and threat. It’s a choice between the type of loss you prefer to risk.

This letter has been edited for length and clarity

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