How to Rebuild Trust in your Relationships
Are you working on rebuilding trust in your marriage or with your significant other? Perhaps you are the one having trouble learning how to trust someone again? Let’s go through a few points on how to learn if someone is safe to trust again, and how to rebuild the trust if you are the one that took things down this path. Rebuilding trust in a relationship can be a challenging process that requires consistent behavior over time, and commitment from both partners to try to heal.
The first very best thing you can do is take responsibility. If you are the one who has broken trust, then accept your actions, acknowledge them, and do not minimize or try to justify them. A lack of accepting responsibility will feel like blame-shifting or gaslighting your partner to make them think they are the ones in the wrong. This only further damages trust.
Along with accepting responsibility comes with not being defensive. If you become overwhelmed by feelings of guilt, shame, or embarrassment then you will become defensive the next time your partner is distrustful of you. Even if you have done nothing wrong currently, own the action of the past and accept that your partner not trusting you now is a natural consequence of those past actions. If it has been quite a while since trust was first lost, then it usually means that you are still being defensive, which prevents further healing.
The next most important point is to be as consistent with your behavior as possible. If you say you are going to do something or go somewhere, then you need your actions to follow. You cannot allow for fault here, as every time you are inconsistent it will further separate you from rebuilding trust. Your partner may be thinking something like “I knew that you could not keep your word, that’s why you’re untrustworthy.” And if your partner is not showing by their actions that they can be consistent, then it is understandable to not fully trust them yet. Actions will speak louder than words.
Understanding the boundaries and triggers of the hurt partner is also key. This means if there are things that you do that cause your spouse or partner to remember or relive emotions or thoughts from the past, then you try to avoid doing those actions as best possible. Along with not getting defensive, this will usually help your partner feel respected and cared about. This will also help forgiveness of yourself or of your partner, to see their remorse and empathy and changed behavior.
This changed behavior must be transparent, which means no more secrets or the appearance of hiding things. This may mean no secret passwords, locations, and access to everything needed for transparency. This of course all comes with time, and if you are struggling then please seek out professional help from a trained therapist.