Trust in Marriage

So I have this friend, he's married and has 4 kids, 2 of which are actually his.  I've known him since 2001, almost a decade.  Sure we dated a couple times, but things just never worked out.  Not because he is a bad guy, but because I just wasn't into him like that, despite him being such an awesome guy.  He's been married 4 or 5 yrs now and the entire time his woman (or should I say girl with how she's acting) has never liked me or trusted him to talk to me.  I don't understand why as I am the one that broke up with him both times we dated and both times it was because I just knew it wasn't what I wanted and I knew it wouldn't work out well in the end.  I'm glad I made that decision so long ago, but he's always been one of my best friends.  We have never talked about anything inappropriate when we do talk; however, this girl has never liked us talking.  It was so bad that my friend would sneak to text me, deleting the texts before he got home.  Now, we rarely ever talk, though he's a friend of mine on Facebook and MySpace, because of his wife.  I am planning a trip to Texas and thought that since they live so close to the town that my biological father is now in, I could meet this crazy woman and all their kids so that she can see that I'm not a threat and never was.

However, I got a message from him today asking if B would be with me when I come to Texas.  I informed my friend that no, B's deployed and I would be making the trip by myself.  He then says that it's best that I not come and visit as it's a "respect thing."  I am not sure how that's a respect thing.  I see it as this woman is so distrustful that she's not even willing to meet the woman she's seen as a threat for so long.  I did not say that I wanted only to see him.  I made it perfectly clear I only wanted to see his entire family.  However, this woman has serious trust issues and so, instead of telling my friend what I think of his woman, I said it's cool and dropped it.  But I'm raving mad about this!  I've never done anything for this woman to have a reason to believe that I would try and take her man.  I've never said anything that would make her think this either, however she doesn't trust me or him.

I honestly feel if there is no trust in a relationship, there cannot be a relationship.  Despite what I did over a decade ago, B trusts me.  He knows the reasons behind what happened a decade ago and doesn't hold it against me.  He even encourages me to see and talk to my friends, whether male or female, ex or not.  He knows that if they're an ex, I have no desire to be with them.  We broke up for a reason, and usually distrust is the reason.  Most of my life, all my friends were guys.  Does that mean that I got it on with all of them?  Hell no!  The only ones that I have are the ones that I dated and would never go back to that again... Like I said, we broke up for a reason.  B trusts me completely, and I him.  So how does a person stay in a relationship, get married, have kids, and not trust their spouse?  How does someone stay with someone who does not trust them?

I was with a man who did not trust me.  Some of you know about CR and our rocky relationship.  For those that don't, I'll give you the run down of the 3.5 years for distrust and heartache.  CR and I were fine at first but soon the trust fell out of the relationship because CR couldn't stand me having guy friends.  We broke up the first time because a guy I knew kissed me and I didn't tell him about it.  We got back together a month later, but it was soon evident that he still didn't trust me.  I had a stack of pictures, most from high school and the first couple of years after, sitting on an end table, face down, that I was fixing to put away and he discovered them and became irate that I even had them.  It didn't matter that I hadn't seen most of those people in years or that they were only friends, it was "disrespectful" to him to have pictures of other guys in his apartment.  Excuse me?  I guess there was no trust.  And yes, I did stay with him after that.  When we broke up the 2nd time, it was an escalation of that and other incidents.  Things were so tense between us when we broke up the second time, between my pictures of all my guy friends, to the fact he would get pissed off that I was going out with my girl friends and so I would stay in, but I couldn't stand it.  And of course we got back together after we broke up, but didn't live together that time.  This time, things weren't as tense, but mostly due to the fact that I wouldn't tell him when I hit the bar after hangin at his place, but eventually we did break up a third and final time, not due to trust issues, but due to the fact he wouldn't follow me to grad school.  I will admit that the trust issues were part of it, but we didn't say that.

That story proves that if there is no trust, there can't be a real relationship.  I've broke up with other guys for less, and have broke up with guys because they didn't trust me.  Why I stayed with CR for so long?  I don't know anymore (and we broke up a lil over a year ago), other than I loved the guy even though I knew he was completely wrong for me.  I knew there wasn't anything really there.  I knew that without trust it would never work out, and if he didn't trust me after living with me for 2 yrs, he wasn't ever going to trust me.  But here my friend is in a very long term relationship with a woman that won't let him talk to one of his long time friends.  I wish I could tell her off, but what would that accomplish?  Nothing but a big fight with him and his wife and I'm not going to be the one to tear them apart.  Hopefully, one day, he realizes that he doesn't deserve to be treated like this.  And if you are in a relationship like that, please know that you do NOT deserve that, whatever the reason for the distrust!