Hello momturtle, I have read all of the posts on this and empathize with what you all are going through. I have dealt with this with my own husband in the past and now a dear friend of mine is currently dealing with this issue right now. Her husband is a youth pastor and has a bad habit of becoming too friendly with his youth girls as well as other women he meets in the ministry. He is also a part-time counselor so he also has a lot of female clients. The clients are usually what gets him into trouble. He feels compelled to be there for these women by diving into their personal lives and these women who are emotionally, spiritually, and intimately needy latch onto him sucking him into an emotional affair. He usually communicates via, facebook, texting, and cell phone calls. When his wife would find out about the relationship he would usually deny it at first, then become angry with her for confronting him, than lash out at her because she would ask him to stop all communication and then eventually apologize and make promises to stop all contact, get rid of facebook etc.
I thought your last comment in your post, "If your able to make your husband stop your lucky" and "How do you build trust back after a thing like this?" is exactly how most of us feel. I, as well as my friend, are still learning how to forgive, forget and trust without constantly feeling like we need to be checking up on our husbands. Fortunately, my husband agreed to go to counseling for this issue as an attempt to save our marriage. He struggles with issues from being abandoned by his birth mother and adopted mother as well as being sexually abused as an adolescent. As a result of these issues he finds himself getting sucked into the emotional trap of needy women before he even realizes what he is doing. He also realizes now that he has a great need in his life to be needed by women.
My friends husband also is dealing with serious past abuse issues which contributes to his behavior. Most of the time he is not even aware that what he is doing is dangerously inappropriate and teeters on the slippery slope of adultery.
I say all of this in light of your husbands current behavior towards younger women and also in how he responds to you. Do you know if he has unresolved trauma from his childhood? I'm not saying this has to be the case or that it is an excuse for what he is doing and how he is treating you but it could explain his denial about his behavior and his anger towards you.
You stated that this issue has gone so far as to stop your daughter from inviting this particular girlfriend over to your house. If his behavior has caused that much turmoil in your home life that even your daughter is aware that something is not quite right, (even though your husband swears that he is just friends with these girls) then he has crossed over a line that either he is not fully aware of or he is rationalizing it away and refusing to accept that what he is doing is wrong. Based on his reactions to you I would say it is the later of the two. You are correct in saying that we cannot make our husbands stop what they are doing. We cannot make anyone do anything that they do not wish to do.
If your husband is telling himself that he is not doing anything wrong in order to feel better about himself so that he can keep doing what he is doing he is going to resent you for telling him that he is wrong for doing what he is doing. That does not mean you should turn a blind eye to his behavior, instead, consult the Lord on how to approach your husband concerning all of this. (Forgive me if this implies that you have not done so already, I'm certain you have spent many hours crying out to the Lord concerning this).
What I mean to say is perhaps his resistance to the truth about his actions may be a direct result of his need to preserve a damaged spirit and prevent painful unconscious issues from coming to light. Without the help of the Holy Spirit no one will perceive or accept the truth about a self-centered and sinful life pattern. I know confrontation is hard (I absolutely hate confrontation) but if it is done in a loving and Godly manor it will be worth it and productive in the end. Ask God to help you to be calm, loving and uncondeming even if he responds in an angry and irrational way. This might help him feel better about his self-worth and allow him the freedom to be vulnerable without having to be defensive.
My heart goes out to you and the pain that you are dealing with. It will take time for your heart to heal from these wounds but I firmly believe that God's love can cover over a multitude of sins that have wounded our spirits. Jesus came to heal the broken hearted, to set free the captives to sin and to release those who live in the darkness of their past (Isaiah 61:1, paraphrase mine).
Jesus Christ came to set us free and when we let him do so, we are free in deed!
