How to Rebuild Trust When it’s Broken
Trust is the foundation of all healthy and thriving relationships, especially with an intimate partner. Without it, individuals struggle with being vulnerable, feeling connected and emotionally safe together. So when trust is broken it destabilizes the relationship, disrupts the connection between partners and changes the perception of the partner who experienced the violation.
Trust isn’t just broken through infidelity whether it be a sexual encounter/affair or even an emotional affair. In fact, trust is most often broken in relationships through an accumulation of small violations over time causing one partner to feel devalued and/or unimportant in the relationship and to their partner. Small ways trust often is broken in relationships include:
Withholding Information, Keeping Secrets, Lying whether blatantly or through omission or telling “white lies” to “protect” someone’s feelings or avoid a confrontation.
Making promises you can’t or have no intention of keeping and/or not following through on commitments or agreements.
Incongruence between actions and words. Saying one thing and doing another.
Being unreliable, inconsistent and/or unavailable, whether it be physically, emotionally, financially, etc.
Constantly forgetting birthdays, anniversaries or other important dates and information your partner has shared with you.
Not taking responsibility or being accountable for your behavior and/or blaming your partner for your behavior.
Use of manipulation to get your way
Selfishness, double standards and/or being a hypocrite
Withdrawal of emotional or financial support including lack of care, consideration, compassion and empathy.
Disloyalty to partner and/or breaking your partners confidentiality
Abrupt change in the values you entered the relationship with. For example, your belief about monogamy.
Prioritizing work and other relationships
Misrepresenting yourself and/or your intentions for the relationship.
It’s critical to understand these “small things” are just as damaging if not more so than infidelity. When these “small” violations accumulate there are negative consequences. You can experience increased anxiety, feelings of loneliness, build resentments, feel insecure and even struggle with self doubt or shame. It can also trigger fears of rejection, despair, loss of joy, cause a breakdown in communication, and symptoms of grief and loss. Not to mention it can have effects lasting beyond the relationship and into new relationships.
When your trust is broken the first thing to do is STOP and REFLECT on the impact it had on you. It’s crucial you understand how you’re feeling and whether or not you want to continue the relationship. While some trust violations are big and some are small, there are no hard and fast rules about when to end the relationship or whether to stay and work on repair. There are a lot of contributing factors to this which is why it’s such a personal decision and one that you get to decide for yourself. Knowing whether you desire to continue the relationship is important because it informs how you address your partner. Taking time to reflect on how you feel also allows you to move through the initial stages of shock and disbelief that often happen. Giving yourself space to process the impact and your feelings helps you develop more clarity so you can clearly articulate yourself when you navigate this conversation with your partner. Being able to process your feelings will also help you regulate your emotions so you can feel more grounded in yourself and your experience.
Next, you’ll want to decide on how you plan to address the behavior of your partner. If you plan on continuing the relationship, you also need to know what you need to hear, feel, see and receive from your partner in order to experience repair with them. Is an apology enough or does there need to be some bigger action taken? How will you know they understand the impact it had on you? Are they remorseful and committed to making sure it doesn’t happen again? Having a clear picture of what this looks like to you will help you know if you receive what you need, and if not, you’ll know what’s missing from them and can share that so they can work to repair trust with you, if they choose.
After you’ve taken time to understand how you feel and what you need, the next step is to bring the other person’s attention to where and how your trust was violated. It’s important to share your feelings and the impact this had on you, as well as your boundaries, expectations, or needs to stay in the relationship. Then give them space to respond.
This is your opportunity to see whether they take accountability, provide an apology and explore with you on how to make sure this doesn’t happen again or whether they dismiss or minimize your concerns/feelings, make excuses for their behavior, and/or blame you.
Giving someone space to respond, allows you to learn more about them and can help you determine if you want to continue in the relationship. You may have decided you can move past this when you reflected on it earlier, however when you address the issue with them if they minimize your emotions, make excuses or even blame you, you can change your mind about maintaining the relationship.
It is important to note that someone can share their reasons (what led to their choice) and still be remorseful (context is important and different than making excuses, so listen for whether they talk about what happened and still take responsibility for the harm it caused). Listening to your partner’s perspective could also highlight a dynamic in your relationship that impacted them which you aren’t aware of, so pay attention to what they say by being open to really hearing them, asking clarifying questions and reflecting back what you heard. Creating an environment where both partners can be vulnerable about their feelings and experiences is necessary and something both of you are responsible for in order to have these types of conversations.
Open and honest communication is how trust is not only built in relationships, it's also the way to rebuild it. Which is why communicating your needs, expectations and boundaries are critical to having a healthy and harmonious relationship. It’s the responsibility of both people to be present for the conversation, remain open even when hearing things that feel triggering and/or are from a different perspective. This is why it’s important to seek to understand them and to be understood. This by no way means you need to tolerate disrespectful, harmful or even abusive behavior or communication.
Remember, repairing trust in a relationship takes time especially depending on how significant the trust violation has felt. Patience is necessary by both partners. Telling your partner or expecting yourself to be over it already, isn’t helpful and can continue to erode the very trust being rebuilt. So be patient and honest about where you are in the process, which will help your partner understand what you need.
When rebuilding trust, you might need to seek professional help from a therapist and if that is the case there are lots of qualified couples therapists. However not all couples need to go to therapy all the time. If both partners are committed to repairing trust in the relationship, here are some ideas for activities to help rebuild trust:
Read a Relationship Book Together - “Daring to Trust: Opening Ourselves to Real Love and Intimacy” by David Richo provides a great foundation for explaining trust in relationships and has exercises you can do individually and/or together.
Show and Tell Your Partner Something Significant - Share something important to you and explain why so your partner can have a deeper understanding of you and your values. Give each other several minutes to share, allow space for your partner to ask clarifying questions and then reflect back what they’ve heard to make sure they understood the significance to you.
Engage in a meaningful activity together like volunteering for a cause that’s important to you. If you can’t agree on one together, then each of you pick one, explain why it’s important and do both of them together.
Set up weekly relationship check-in’s where you both honestly share how you're feeling. Here are 6 questions to get you started
What are 3 things you’ve appreciated about our relationship this week?
What do you feel we need to improve in our relationship this coming week?
Where have you felt loved by me this past week? How can I improve on this over the next week?
Do you feel supported by me and is there anything I can do so you feel better supported?
Is there anything you’re worried about that you haven’t shared with me yet?
Are there any activities you want us to try together this coming week or in the near future?
Remember, you teach people how to treat you by how you respond to their behavior. When you let little things go, your partner doesn’t know something bothers you and overtime little things build up and turn into bigger things. Speaking up and addressing trust violations when they happen will be uncomfortable and yes your relationship could end. I can’t deny that, which is why some people choose not to address little things. However, I’d argue that avoiding them is uncomfortable too, causes emotional damage and your relationship could still end. So when it comes to trust violations, my recommendation is to address them early and if you need help, find a therapist who can support you.
Lastly, partners who care about the wellbeing of their relationship and the impact they have on their partner want to know these things. So be brave and share when your trust is broken quickly. It’s one of the kindest things you can do for yourself, your partner, and your relationship.
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