Regaining Broken Trust in a Relationship

Trust is the rock upon which all relationships exist. If that rock is chipped away by deceit, over time the foundation crumbles. Nothing hurts more than feeling betrayed by someone you love and trust. Betrayal can come in many forms, such as dishonesty, disloyalty, unfaithfulness, or withholding.

Here are few things to keep in mind before jumping in the process:

It is not a easy thing to rebuild the lost trust but it isn't impossible either.

Giving and taking all the time needed to even think of rebuilding trust is completely okay and valid.

Both sides must be willing to come to the table and be open, honest, and vulnerable. They must also care enough to want to put forth the effort that is required to make the relationship work again. It is not a one sided process.

There is a question to ask before you embark on restoration of the relationship: Is the person and relationship you had worth the emotional effort? Its only a question you can answer for yourself.

For rebuilding trust in the relationship again, effort of only one party might not be enough. Both part will have to make the effort from their mind. One one hand, the person who broke the trust might have to learn from the mistake and apologize and work on assuring it won't happen again. On the other, the one whose trust was broken will have to be able to accept the mistake and forgive them.

The few things the one who broke the trust could do might be:

Come clean

Before you approach the individual to come clean, know what you are going to say. Make sure your heart is in a state of seeking forgiveness and wanting to heal the relationship by telling them. If you are angry and blaming them for your wrong doing in any way, then you are likely to cause more division rather than getting on the right path toward healing the relationship.

Talk about your past, the value of the relationship for both of you, and the need to get through this to have a fresh start together. Simply blurting out I broke your trust is risky and likely to lead to yelling, screaming, and a verbal fight. Start the conversation with talk about your genuine care, love, affection, and/or care for the individual. You need to be apologetic and sincerely remorseful for your wrong doing. If you arent feeling remorseful, then you may need to do some soul searching and look at yourself honestly about your actions and how they affect others.Try to put yourself in the shoes of the person you have hurt. How would you feel if the situation was flipped and you were the one who had been hurt and whose trust was broken?

Open yourself emotionally

Once you have completed the first step and have come clean about your offence, then the next step is to be open emotionally. What this really means is that you need to listen to the sincere thoughts and emotions from the person you have hurt. Listen with a heart that is willing to see what you did wrong, a desire to never hurt them in this manner again, and a willingness to help them process their hurt by simply listening with empathy.

Ask for forgiveness. It wont be a one time thing to ask for forgiveness. Especially when the other person is talking about how you have hurt them. The necessity for more apologizing will correlate with the level of hurt you inflicted on the other person.

This is also a time when you, the offending party, need to do some soul searching.What was it that caused you to break the trust? Resist the temptation to blame others. Seek understanding from within yourself. Look to your inner fears and you are likely to find some answers.

Make meaningful conversations

Meaningful conversations following the coming clean and asking of forgiveness is the next step in the process of healing the broken trust. When emotions have calmed and anger has begun to subside, the other party may be willing to sit down and hear why you did what you did. Again, it is never appropriate to place blame back on the victim. Instead use what was revealed to you in your soul searching process as a starting point for making meaningful conversations.

Talk openly about those fears and what caused you to do what you did to them. It helps the other person realize that the issue was not with them.

Understand the root cause.

Finding out the real cause underneath of why the trust was violated helps those who have been victimized feel less burdened by any feelings of responsibility for the cause of the trust violation.

The goal is understanding the root cause and the underlying emotional issues, so that healing can happen in the relationships.

The few things the one whose trust was broken might be:

Forgive

Forgiveness is the first step in healing the relationship on the end of the victim. Holding onto the hate, anger, and negative feelings will only make you feel worse. Let those feelings go by allowing yourself to forgive. Forgiveness means that you are willing to work through the wrong doings that occurred that broke the trust. You are willing to care for this person enough that you want to work with them emotionally to process through the pain to restore the relationship. If you arent willing to forgive, then the relationship is forever changed and likely will never be on the level it once was.

If they haven't admitted their wrong doings, give them few days after you discussed the matter initially.

How you present the topic is of great importance. If you approach them with self righteous anger, then the outcome of that conversation is not likely to produce good footing toward them admitting their wrongs, nor will it help to bring a start to the healing process.

Approach the person with empathy. You never know what kind of other issues they are dealing with in their heart, mind, and soul. Give them the courtesy of kind words and a calm tone of voice, for the sake of your relationship.

If the person is unwilling to come clean after these steps have been taken, then you may need to simply move forward. You can have forgiveness in your heart for the person and their wrong doing even if there is no apology. This allows you to move forward without harboring any resentment and pain.It unburdens you to forgive them, whether they chose to apologize and admit their wrongdoings, or not.

Open conversations

This is the time when you need to share with the person who hurt you, how they hurt you. You need to express yourself using I feel statements.

Expressing yourself with statements that begin with I feel approaches them with your personal emotions rather attacking them with what they have done. If the other person feels attacked, then there is likely not going to be productive healing happening in the conversation.

Request what you need to get back to a healthy relationship

You need to discuss how the trust was broken, what is required to heal the relationship, and how your relationship will work moving forward. Set reasonable expectations to regain trust. Discuss these matters without making demands. Talk about what would make you feel comfortable and help to rebuild the trust. If the other party cares enough, they will be willing to meet your reasonable requests.

Dont keep your feelings inside.

Trust broken can bring up all sort of feelings, emotions, and even past unresolved issues. When you keep these things inside and never unburden yourself emotionally by talking through things, you allow the emotions to fester.Dont allow the pain to become an even more painful wound by allowing it to fester because of your unwillingness to open up.Find someone who you trust and open up to them about what has happened. Let yourself process the emotions so that you can move on.

Heal yourself to heal the relationship

Depending on the level of the pain inflicted and the sort of trust that was broken will determine how much healing you need. This wont happen overnight. It involves time, patience with yourself, and professional help when needed.Some ideas might be: Talking it out, journalling, focusing on activities you love doing. Get all your questions answered. Make sure you ask all the questions you want answered from the person who violated your trust.If you are working together to make the relationship work, they should be willing to answer your questions. Having unanswered questions can prevent you from healing.

These all steps might be helpful if you are working on regaining trust in a relationship. You cant just say lets start over because that wont solve any of the problems or heal the emotional issues.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

What do you think would be the most difficult challenge in regaining the trust again?

Do you have any other points you want to add in it?

Have you ever had experience in regaining trust in relationships? If yes, how did it go?

I hope you have an wondefloofle day ahead