Rebuilding Trust in a Relationship

Trust is a key foundation of a healthy relationship. When you are in a committed relationship, you are a team doing life together and for that partnership to work, you need to be able to trust each other. Trust is like a brick wall that is built slowly over time, with each moment together another brick is added but it can get knocked down in one sudden event or slowly destroyed by a series of incidents. One of the key things that destroys trust is dishonesty. This can take lots of forms though - a betrayal such as an infidelity, hiding an infidelity for a long period of time, hiding key information, not fulfilling promises, and of course, outright lies.

Trust can be rebuilt but it requires both people to put in work to do so and for it to be genuine. It will require some tough conversations where each partner can open up to one another about their true feelings. Below are some ways that trust can be rebuilt for the various types of things that can erode trust.

Betrayals

Betrayals can take lots of different forms but they are essentially a violation of the rules of the relationship. Some of those rules might be explicitly agreed upon and others are implied (for example, you may never have talked to your partner that it is not ok to take your joint life savings and spend it on gambling but it would be implied that this is a betrayal). The most common type of betrayal is an infidelity but there are countless other types.

Betrayals create what we refer to as an Attachment Injury (also called an emotional wound or a relationship wound). They function in a similar way to a physical wound except that they are not visible to other people and they do not heal with the passage of time. Just like a physical wound, they also create a big reaction if something touches on it (such as a partner’s comment or behaviour, being in a particular situation, or even just a memory). To heal from a betrayal, we need to go through a healing process. But before you can go through that process, it is important that the behaviour has stop. You cannot heal a wound when the person is continuing to do whatever created the wound. Once it has stopped, the healing process can begin. The first step is for the person who is impacted to express to their partner how they were affected (using a particular technique that relies on deeper emotions that are called ‘Primary Emotions’) and for the partner to demonstrate their understanding of this impact. This can be hard to do properly without someone to help guide us as the wounded partner often resorts to anger and criticism but the right therapist can help with both the sharing and hearing of the necessary feelings.

After the sharing of the impact, the couple will need to identify how the betrayal could have occurred (again, hard to do accurately and help is usually needed to identify the real cause) and then to address that issue - be it in the partner who has done the betrayal, a problem in the relationship, or something external. In parallel to this (and often it needs to continue for several months after), the partner who has been betrayed needs to see that the changes continue and are genuine. This allows the brain to know that it is not just a short-term change and empty promises but rather, there’s been a real and permanent change in their partner.

Dishonesty

Dishonesty can occur even without a betrayal and it erodes trust. Dishonesty can take the form of outright lies or hiding information that is clearly important for the partner to know. Everyone can have tiny moments of dishonesty but what we are referring to here is significant levels that are unusual for most people. Most of the time, when someone enters a relationship and is dishonest, that dishonesty commenced before the relationship. It is unusual that someone would have been honest for their entire life before meeting their partner and suddenly develop a tendency towards dishonesty. The first step in addressing the problem is for the person who is being dishonest to recognise and accept this. Change is hard enough when we recognise there is a problem but it is impossible without that recognition. The next step is for the person to understand what is driving that behaviour. This can be done in couples counselling or individual therapy. For example, the person may feel shame about who they are and have developed a pattern of hiding things and behaviours. Or they may fear judgement of others and lie to avoid being disliked or seen in a negative light. This pattern then needs to be worked on. It may be helpful to have a mix of individual and joint sessions.

Not fulfilling promises

If someone tells their partner they are going to do something, it is understandable the partner will believe that. Occasionally not following through on commitments and promises is not unusual but when it is excessive, it becomes a form of dishonesty and erodes trust. This can be worked on though. The cause of empty promises needs to be explored and may be that they struggle to tell their partner that they cannot do something or disagree with it. This is a problem that is solved by working through the process used for reducing conflict and resolving differences. Making a promise that is not fulfilled is similar to raising one’s voice to a partner, being critical, withdrawing, and other such problematic behaviours that come up when couples attempt to resolve differences. The page on reducing conflict and resolving differences provides more information on how to address this problem.