How do you learn to trust again?

After spending the last few days caring for a friends child while she moved her personal effects & furniture out of the home where she'd been living in a a crumbled marriage, I wanted to bring up something for discussion.


A little brief history: The man was married 4 times prior to receiving the holy ghost. His last wife left him for someone she had met online. I have talked to the man at length about this right after it happened, and he never saw it coming and was totally devastated by it.

Up until this time, the man lived a very wild lifestyle, and gave God no consideration at all. This was the trigger for this man turning his life around and getting into church. For a couple of years, he was very faithful to church and seemed to have really turned over a new leaf. He appeared to have moved beyond the devastation caused by his wife's internet affair, and her leaving him.

Enter new woman who had previously been married to a man who would not hold a job, drank to excess, etc. She did not want their son to be raised in that type of environment, so she chose to leave the marriage.

Fastforward several years, and these two people seem to have made a fresh start in their lives. Both have been filled with the holy ghost, and wanted to move on with their lives. They dated a couple of years, and then married. They were both active in church, both seemed to be happy and things were going great for them. A few years into the marriage, things changed drastically. He became very controlling, didn't want her to have friends, didn't allow her to have access to any money, verbally harassed her over every phone call she received. Even the calls from her own parents. Would not put gas in her car for her to be able to do anything without him present.

He started making all kinds of accusations toward her-- the main thing was his accusing her of sneaking to my house to use the computer to have an internet affair. In reality, she had no knowledge of how to use a computer, and here having me look for and help her print off some pictures her church needed to use for patterns with an overhead projector to decorate this past summer at VBS.

She was not guilty of any of these things, and she really wanted the marriage to work out-- but because of what had happened with the woman he was married to prior to this-- he has totally destroyed this marriage. She has given up hope. She still loves him, but can only take so much of the emotional and verbal abuse he is giving her because he will not let go of the issues he has that were caused by his previous wife.



How would someone go about moving beyond something like this?