I feel stuck. Although my husband believes himself to be a good person and wants to be, his survival strategy since childhood has been to figure out what the person across from him wants to hear or see and present that, even when it isn't real--and he's very convincing. The thought of trusting him again makes me panic. I have no way to know if the professed changes in his attitudes and perspectives are for real or not, and even if they are, his capacity to translate that into behavioral changes is oddly limited, due to a TBI he suffered long ago. We have been in therapy (couples and individual) for 2.5 years with change coming very slowly, and are about to complete EMS Online. We are both working hard, but each passing week of the program makes me feel more triggered and hopeless, as I don't feel like we've been able to build the foundation you assume we have by now. My biggest question remains how to discern if or when it's safe to trust him again.