I'm afraid that I'm not able to trust, love, be in a relationship with another man or woman.

Hello and thank you for posting your question in this forum. This is a rather difficult and complex concern but we will attempt to help you deconstruct it as much as possible.

You note being afraid to trust, love, or be in a relationship with another person. However, you have also noted that you are currently in a relationship with someone and have been in that marriage for many years. Is this marriage still going well? Or is it in any danger of falling apart? Are you able to trust within the context of that relationship and, if so, how do you get to that point? These are important aspects to consider. Perhaps what you also mean is that you might want to seek a relationship with another person outside of your marriage. If that is the case we would want to consider if the person you are currently married to would consent to such an interaction. And if they did then it seems you may continue to deal with some of the previous trust concerns, you have mentioned. Again, in order to understand why you are currently not able to trust we must really have a good sense for how you got here. We need to analyze what broke your trust and when exactly it happened. Trust is the most important thing in a relationship. Arguably, there is not a more important element to the quality of a relationship or its workability than trust. So the loss of trust is the most painful thing which can occur. We again must wonder how did you get to that point? Are you able to sit and reflect on this and decide what might be able to rebuild your trust? That would be an important starting point. A relationship with a high level of trust might be one that you build slowly with another person, where you develop your knowledge of them (and then of you) over a long period of time. Nothing should be rushed during this time. Over that time you could learn to trust this person and they could learn to trust you. The rebuilding of trust is certainly possible but has to be mindfully motivated by your own internal orientation toward that aim.

Another place to start is to work on yourself and build trust in yourself and it does appear you are already doing that sort of work. You meditate, practice yoga, and are involved in other activities which allow for the development of your mind and body. These sorts of activities also perpetuate greater self-efficacy and are important for those reasons. Ultimately they will allow a building of greater internal trust. Then you can build on that by moving forward into the world from a place of real strength.

So to summarize, it is possible to rebuild trust, mainly through working on adjusting our perspective on trust or building our internal self-efficacy as a catalyst for greater trust. Thank you again for posting your question in this forum.

I wish you good luck in the future as well as good physical and mental health.