Trust is an essential component of a strong relationship. It is what allows you to feel safe so that you can be vulnerable enough to emotionally connect with another person and without it, two people cannot be comfortable with each other and the relationship will lack stability.
Having someone break your trust can leave you feeling hurt, shocked, and even physically sick. It might prompt you to consider your relationship and your partner in a different way.
A lack of trust in a relationship opens the door to a host of other problems, which if left unresolved may destroy whatever is left.
Trust can however be rebuilt or regained, and that is if both partners are willing to put in the time and work it requires.
Together, you must set specific goals and realistic timelines on how to rebuild trust in a relationship or how to rebuild trust in a marriage and get your relationship back on track. Here are a few tips to guide you;
1. How To Rebuild Trust In A Relationship: Own Up To It
Avoiding defensiveness and taking responsibility for your actions and decisions will facilitate the process of knowing how to rebuild trust in a relationship.
Offering any sort of justification for your actions or minimizing them ( i.e, ‘even though I did this, at least I didn’t do that, it’s no big deal, I am a man, or you just misunderstood me’) will only make your partner shut down and feel doubly hurt.
Own up to your behaviors, don’t make assumptions, and be understanding about how those behaviors have made your partner feel by simply trying to put yourself in that person’s shoes and imagine how he/she feels or may have felt.
Dismissing, deflecting, minimizing, or casting blame will not help you in your efforts to come to grips with what happened and work towards the repair.
Make sure your heart is in a state of seeking forgiveness and wanting to heal the relationship by telling them. Apologize for the hurt you caused.
Begin by stating how you feel. You can say “I feel very bad that I betrayed you”, “I feel embarrassed and ashamed by the way I acted”.
Be specific, when possible, regarding what you are sorry about. “I am so sorry I told you that I went to the church when I was actually somewhere else”, “I feel awful that I lied to you about how I spent that money”, “I am sorry that I let you down on this issue”.
Make the conversation more about your desire to change, and your commitment to never offend in this manner again.
2. Know The Details
Being betrayed is damaging for so many reasons, but one big factor that needs to be addressed in order to identify how to rebuild trust in a relationship and move past this challenge is lack of honesty.
When you’ve blown it in a relationship or marriage, it sometimes feels convenient not to tell the whole story. The thinking is that you’ll minimize damage by omitting certain details or altering the truth just enough to spare yourself more fallout.
But lying never restores trust. If there’s anything else you haven’t told them, anything that might upset them, it should come out now. If they find out about more betrayals later, it might be impossible to come back from.
Even in seemingly clear-cut cases of betrayal, the offending partner should be upfront and honest with information, in addition to giving clear answers to any and all questions from their partner.
The underlying causes of the betrayal need to be identified, examined, and worked on by both spouses for the issues to stay dormant.
It might be painful or uncomfortable but talking to your partner about the whole truth is one of the biggest aspects of how to rebuilding trust in a relationship after betrayal.
3. Release Your Anger
You need to acknowledge the depth of your pain and let them out. Let out those strong and angry emotion and just say what you think.
Minimizing or ignoring your wounds will only hinder your chances of healing. Talk to that chair and scream at it. Connect with the pain you feel and cry into it.
Punch a pillow, hit it like it’s the person you are angry at. Yell and cuss at it as well if that helps you to release that tension. As you hit, smash into that frustration and feel exactly what aspect of it is making you angry. Take a walk or hit the gym.
Venting your frustration alleviates tension and stress. It helps take the feelings out from inside of yourself, it helps you to process them.
You almost always feel better and lighter after sharing some indignity, misfortune, or injustice. Generally, it is better to let things out than hold them in.
4. Follow Through Your Words With Consistency
As you are about how to rebuild trust in a relationship, it is vital to keep your words and actions consistent. Your spouse’s image of you has been shaken and they are looking for stability wherever they can.
Once you’ve made a promise, never fail it. No more lies or excuses. All this talking will lead to nothing if you don’t act on it.
Call when you say you’ll call. When you promise to be on time, do just that. Keep doing what you’ve agreed on and show that you are worthy of trust. In the absence of follow-through, your words become meaningless and will only exacerbate the situation and further convince your spouse that you can’t be trusted.
5. How To Rebuild Trust In A Relationship: Listen To Your Partner
Your guilt and shame may make you uncomfortable listening to how badly you’ve made your partner feel. However, it is important you hear them out. You’ve spoken, now is time to practice active listening.
Listen to the pain you have caused and how it is affecting your spouse’s life. And you may have to listen to your spouse describe the same pain over and over for what may lend new meaning to forever.
Listen to their sincere thoughts and what is important to them. Ask what you can do, listen to what they say and do your best to make it happen.
Listening validates their feelings, makes them more invested in you because they feel heard, and re-establishes your severe trust thus repairing the broken bond.
6. Make Your Life Transparent For The Other Person
Transparency is non-negotiable after a betrayal if you intend go about how to rebuild trust in a relationship. It is living a life of zero deception.
It means the life you are living is the life your partner knows about. It is recognizing that there should be no secrets in your relationship.
This means that it is necessary to share where you are going, who you are talking to, and anything else that could be perceived as secretive to your partner.
Give your significant other complete uncensored access to your text, phone logs, email, etc. for a few weeks to months after your betrayal, until they can feel relaxed again.
Your partner will be able to see what’s changed, what’s different, and what’s improving both in your behaviour and also in the ways you two interact.
7. Patience Is Needed
Picking up the piece and rebuilding trust and faith in your partner requires a lot of time and conscious effort. This means that when trust is broken, it can be a long and lengthy repair process and, if you are committed to it, then you have to be in it for the long haul.
It means you may have to have the same conversation over and over, if that’s what they need. It means recognizing that her anger and sadness are valid and giving her room to express her feelings.
And that not giving her the time needed can cause problems later if the other person hasn’t fully regained trust. The issue can pop up in arguments long after you thought trust was restored if you don’t take it slow and keep the lines of communication wide open.
So be patient and never pressure the other person into showing you more trust. Remedy whatever you did wrong and continue to have an open forum with them for as long as they need it. It is the couple who give each other time to heal that end up staying together.
8. How To Rebuild Trust In A Relationship: Forgive
When someone betrays you, your mind and emotions scream at you to hate, punish and never forgive. It’s hard to let go of those feelings.
Nonetheless, forgiving someone for betraying you will actually benefit your relationship. Once you have communicated and gone through the process of really sitting down with your feelings (when you no longer hold negative feelings), you can start the process of forgiving each other.
Make a conscious decision to love by trying to let go of the past. Not only will you need to forgive your partner, but you also may need to forgive yourself.
When trying to understand a situation, we have a tendency to generate explanations for why things happen, even if they are irrational.
We often blame ourselves, and this can keep you stuck in self-doubt, which can in turn hurt your chances of your relationship’s recovery. Self-forgiveness requires self-compassion and learning that; even with your flaws and vulnerabilities, you still have tremendous self-worth and deserve to be treated well.
Also, try to remember that forgiving your partner isn’t saying that what you did was ok but it is the choice you have made to let go.
9. Counselling Can Help
After a betrayal, it can be hard to know what to do or even where to start. Sometimes all it takes is an impartial third party to help you figure out how to get your relationship back on track.
If you find that a few months after a betrayal you are increasingly anxious, your moods are often low or feel constantly on edge, or the conversations you are having with your partner feel like they’re not getting anywhere, consider seeing a counsellor who can help guide the process.
You might need help to control the damage caused to your identity, your self-esteem, your feelings of security in the relationship. And that’s what relationship counselling helps us with.
The key, however, is to obtain help from a specialized treatment professional. Make sure they are licensed, have a great experience, and come with references.
Relationship counselling works its magic because it is a safe forum to discuss issues that when handled by the couple alone, can too easily spin into ill-temper and recrimination (the counselor acts as a sort of mediator between the spouses and facilitates healthy and effective communication).
It helps in assessing where trust has been broken and provides an opportunity for the individual to work through the hurt and trust issues in order to recover intimacy and goodwill.
10. Focus On Building A New Relationship
Your relationship may not look the same on the other side, but it is possible to think of how to rebuild trust in a
relationship, and indeed build something new.
Once you feel like everything has been addressed, leave everything the door and start a new. Commit to putting aside those inventories in your head that you are keeping on all the little things they have ever done wrong.
What we focus on grows. Put in the same intensity you did in the beginning of your relationship all over again; that same intensity of learning about each other, and caring about each other, and being intentional with each other.
Have an open and honest conversation about how you both want to move forward into a new phase of your relationship. Design a vision of your future together and how you want it to be and touch on both the short-term and long-term goals.
Do something that makes you laugh, smile and reconnect in a positive way. Go on dates, ask questions, treat each other like you just met and you want to know yourselves better.
It may seem weird, but it’s ok, it can really help you. These new memories will instill hope in the relationship and remind both parties that they are capable of having a happy life together.
In conclusion, it is important to note that mending broken trust is a choice; a choice that needs to come from an authentic place. So what choices will you make concerning that betrayal in your relationship?
Are you willing to work things out? (Not to forget that this broken trust presents couples with the opportunity to work through problems and make their relationship stronger in the process).
If yes, then ensure to practice the already outlined tips on how to rebuild trust in a relationship. They’ll surely help you. Thanks!
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