Healing broken trust is one of the most popular topics we work on with our clients. It is that the trust arrives on foot and leaves on horseback, which means that it is very easy to break. Establishing trust and relationships takes a long time and can be undone in a moment, so many people come to us asking about how to heal broken trust so that they can save their relationship.
Broken trust is one of the things that devours relationships the most, so it is great that you are already going out of your way to find information on how to fix the situation!
In today’s article I’m going to go over how to fix broken trust, the solutions that are available to you, and what you can do to prevent broken trust in the future.
Whether you are trying to protect your relationship from a break up or if you and your partner have already separated, you will find information on how to navigate through this situation and restore the love and trust that once existed between you.
If trust is broken in your relationship, it is important to understand that your willingness to rebuild the trust will determine your odds of success. If neither of you are willing to work towards rebuilding the trust between you, the relationship will have a very tough time surviving.
The first thing to take in consideration is how are your significant other (or ex) is feeling right now. If trust has been broken and they tell you that they need some space from you, you need to make sure you are giving them space.
If you beg plead for forgiveness, they can easily end up feeling pressured and suffocated. If this person starts to feel cornered, they might push you away even more.
To start by giving your significant other some space, and in doing so you will be able to take a step back to make a stronger comeback.
Or she needs to understand that you respect them fully, especially because they will not trust a person who does not respect them.
I know that you are feeling stressed out by the situation and scared at the prospect of losing the person that you love, but you must always think about how your actions and behavior affects them, especially when it comes to rebuilding trust!
This person will need time to digest the situation, analyze the situation and how they feel about everything. This doesn’t mean that you can’t do things that will have a positive impact on the situation. Give them a chance to let their wounds heal while you work on healing yours.
Like any wound, the trust in this relationship needs time to heal. If you keep picking at it, you’re not going to give it the chance to actually heal.
So let’s make sure that we don’t let this scar!
While you’re giving your significant other the space they need, you need to take some time to analyze howe exactly the trust between you broke. Was it something that developed over time or was it because of something specific? Did you go through their phone or their emails?
Did the trust break because one of you cheated on the other? Did your insecurities get the best of you and make you do something that caused these tensions in the relationship?
When trust is broken, the fact of the matter is that you have to identify what happened if you want to fix it. About the specific actions caused the trust to break, but Make sure you analyze what exactly happened to bring you to that situation.
Make sure that you are very honest with yourself in this process. If you broke his or her trust by going through their messages, then you have to ask yourself what brought you to do this.
Did someone else hurt you the past and are you making your partner pay the price for someone else’s mistakes? Or did your partner do something that made you suspicious and therefore lose trust?
More often than not, when it comes to breaking trust, it has more to do with our relationship with ourselves than our relationship with our partners. We go through their things we because we are afraid that we aren’t up to snuff and that they could find someone better. So many times, broken trust is rooted in a lack of self confidence.
I was recently working with Annalisa on how to rebuild broken trust in a relationship and she was telling me that she had gone through her boyfriend’s text messages because she was terrified of being proven right about her suspicions.
Her suspicions that he was being unfaithful to her were stemming from a wound from a previous relationship in which her ex cheated on her, and she was so worried that her current boyfriend was going to do the same.
He caught her looking through his phone trying to see if anything was going on between him and his coworker, because she wanted to protect herself against the pain of the disappointment she was worried she’d feel if it turned out that her suspicions were right.
She didn’t find anything, but the relationship suffered because the trust was broken. So she needed to work on developing solutions for her insecurities in the relationship that stemmed from her past relationship.
Signs Of A Toxic Relationship | The Ultimate Guide To Escape Unhealthy Love!
If your significant other is the person who broke the trust in the relationship, you need to ask yourself if they are willing to look at who they are, if they’re willing to reassess their values, and whether or not they’re willing to do what it takes to heal the broken trust.
You are only in control of your own emotions and you can’t control your partners actions. Unfortunately, here she is not willing to make the effort to heal the broken trust between you, there’s not much you can do.
If you are the one who broke the trust, then you need to focus on concrete actions that will lead to long-term solutions while you give your partner space.
So, what happens once you have pinpointed the root cause of the broken trust and have implemented the solutions required? The next S of communicating the fact that you’ve understood the problem and have made changes to your partner. They need to trust you and believe that the changes are real.
That’s why it’s so important to Focus on concrete actions and be very careful about avoiding making empty promises. I know that it’s tempting to tell the person you love that you will do anything to make things right again, but words aren’t enough to fix broken trust. Your partner is going to need to see tangible evidence that you are making long-term changes. When trust is broken, your partner is going to be skeptical so you need to make sure that you don’t give them reason to doubt to you.
When you begin to talk to you significant other about the solutions you been implementing, don’t be afraid to use concrete examples from your relationship. Tell him or her that you recognized the specific problem and explain the solution you can provide. Tell this person about the changes you have been making because you’ve understood what needed to happen. Be careful to avoid things that could sound like empty promises.
“I swear I’ll change!”
“I promise that will never happen again because I’ll be different…”
We want your ex to come to the conclusion that you have involved and made the necessary changes on their own. If you try to concretely tell your ex that things will change even though they haven’t, it’s going to paint you in a negative light. That said, if they can observe you and your own life behaving in different, more productive ways, they will come to the conclusion that’s things could be better between you in the future.
Broken trust in marriage and relationships can be healed when you develop new patterns. The more you do something, the more your partner will begin to trust that this is how things will stay – so make sure that you’re developing positive patterns that restore their faith in you.
Let them know that the issues you faced with this broken trust motivated you to change and become better. Show them that this situation can actually be a blessing in disguise because it highlighted what you needed to change and pushed you to change it.
If you two are separated, then use this conversation as a means to Open up communication again. Let them know you feel more connected to yourself now and would love to have an opportunity to see them face-to-face and show them everything you’ve been working on since the breakup, and to see how they have been doing.
When you are working on healing broken trust, this is a good way to approach this situation without making your ex feel to pressured and without making you feel too vulnerable.
Signs Of A Toxic Relationship | The Ultimate Guide To Escape Unhealthy Love!
If you truly want to hear broken broken, you have to decide to forgive or to be forgiven. Now is the time to make a conscious decision to love by letting go of the past.
Again, it’s all about mindset so be open to growth. If you want your relationship to grow, you must lead by example! If you want your partner to evolve, you have to show them how to do it.
Be open and honest about what you really want, and let your significant other do the same. Trust often brakes because one of the two of you is too afraid to really be themselves and share what is on their mind.
So take this opportunity to really think about what lead up to the trust being broken, what you can do about it, and how you can communicate it to your partner in a productive way.
I have gone over some general information in this article, but I know that every situation is unique. If you have questions about your specific situation, please don’t hesitate to write your question in the comment section below. You can also get in touch with me or member of my team for tailored advice that will help you reach your goals as possible. Join the Happily Committed Project Learning how to transform your relationship and helping it reach its full potential.
We are here to help you every step of the way.
Wishing you all the very best in life and love,
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29 Responses
My wife wants a divorce and me out of the house in 30 days. She says she will never change her mind. I did break trust by going thru her phone and finding some incriminating texts between her and her ex. I placed a camera in our bedroom to try and catch infidelity. I had been cheated on in the past and have trust issues and insecurities from that. She is riding an emotional anger high currently and being very cruel and hurtful towards me. I did try apologize to her but she was close minded and wouldn’t hear it. I truly am remorseful over my actions and love her dearly. Just want my marriage whole.
Hi Jim, your wife will need some time and space to calm down after what happened, and then you can start to work on regaining her trust. If she feels suffocated, she’s going to pull away even more.
I have been dating a guy from work for about two months. My insecurities got in the way and I broke things off with him, but realized what I did and asked for his forgiveness and if we could start over. He agreed and started out fine, but now he’s distant and says things that hurt sometimes. I am allowing him to come to me when he wants to hang out and so far that’s been everyday. Last night he made me steaks and everything was fine, but he’s not as clingy or lovey like he was when we first got together. Is he not trusting? Is he hurt? What should I do? I am trying to be very oatmeal because I love him and want us to grow from this, but I want to be close to him again. Any suggestions on what to do and what he’s going through right now. Note it didn’t help that I worried and wanted serious conversations every other day with him because I noticed his distance. He said we can’t just go back to the way things used to be and just wants to date right now. What does this all mean?
Hi Sarah, the best thing to do would be to put some distance between you. Limit seeing him to once or twice a week maximum at this point. You are seeking reassurance but the pressure is pushing him away. Men pull away when they feel their partners are being clingy or needy. If you can spend less time with him, you can focus more on your personal life and your personal/professional goals, he will see that you’ve taken him off the pedestal, and instead of feeling pressured, he will feel more inclined to pursue you.
A problem occurred 6 months into our relationship. I posted a picture that my partner did not approve of. They found out and confronted me but out of fear of hurting them, I lied that I posted it. They already knew I lied but we both continued happily till a month later. Where I confessed, it really hurt them. They lost their trust in me, and even when I try so hard to fix it, I seem to just make it worse. They tell me they want to see action, but I get stuck. Because I’m not sure what they mean by that. It’s only getting worse since it’s almost been 6 months since this happened and it’s reoccurring. I keep hurting them because of their doubts of me. I want to fix it, I just don’t know where to start
Hi Samantha, here are a couple articles that I think will be useful:
Trust building exercises
Signs of an insecure man
Couples communication
I was in a relationship with a man and we were to be married. I bought a 5th wheel (expensive) and he had the truck. He was disengaged from our relationship. Wanted to plan the next trip, but was unable or unwilling to show affection. No hand holding, no hugs. Not even a “good night” when I was going to bed without him. We very seldom shared intimacy. He always used the excuse that he had PTSD. Because of the lack of closeness & paying for many things in our relationship, I was suspicious. I did look in his phone and found a few inappropriate messages. I moved out the following week and sold the 5th wheel. He later told me he had been planning a romantic getaway in the 5th wheel. I had purchased it, yet was still expected to buy the rental for campsites we stayed at. I truly thought I was in love with him. I had so much fun when we were out together. I had a vision of spending the rest of my life with him, yet I know he was not fully into our commitment. I want to let go, but struggling with this.
Hi Linda, letting go is a very hard thing to do, but it is also the very thing that can grant you access to true, long-lasting happiness. We are here if you need a helping hand, and I encourage you to read this article that is designed to help a person move forward past heartache. If you’d like more in-depth information and tools, I encourage you to check out our product that we’ve created to help you move on with grace and peace of mind. Wishing you all the best!
I broke trust between me and my girlfriend by getting jealous , by saying hurtful thinks to her and embarrassing her in front of her friends now she doesn’t want a relationship anymore we are friends still , we do talk everyday but not like we use to. How can I fix this?
Hi Patsy, you’ll have to begin the attraction process again in order to create a new dynamic.
My boyfriend and I have been together for almost 3 years.. When we met I was just in the beginning of my divorce and he was already divorced, we both have 3 kids…. I broke his trust by not being honest about texting with 2 men from my past.. now he doesn’t trust me, and I don’t know how to get the relationship back to where it was..
I was in a ten month relationship with my girlfriend, and I do love her and care for her so much, but I have discovered that I have an addiction to adult content and sending inappropriate messages to other people. I have always wanted to stop it, but I’ve been unsuccessful on stopping it. I never cheated on her physically, but I did it electronically, by sending inappropriate photos. Anyways, she found those messages, and she wants to leave me. I know I shouldn’t have begged her to stay but I did and she’s willing to give me one chance, and I really, really want to change, to be a much better person to her. I’ve blocked adult content on my devices, I’ve deleted a lot of contacts, I’ve deleted social media, and I told her that I am currently looking at getting therapy to get over my addictions. I just want to make sure I do everything I can to build the relationship on how it used to be and possibly even further than what it was, I know it will not happen quick but I am willing to spend as much time as possible to rebuild her trust.
Hi Brandon, hats off to you for getting in control of the situation. You sound motivated and determined, and this is a recipe for success! Wishing you lots of luck.
Hi am Mary and in a long distance relationship, before we met I was with my ex but things had turned sour between us so when I met my LDR I had the strength to breakup with my ex, my LDR n I communicated often, and we were so much in love, my ex kept fighting his way back and since we have been together for 7 yrs his family and all came in. I was confused at a point because he won’t stop pestering ad asking for forgiveness, and we were staying together more often than not, so at a point I wanted to consider the number of yrs and forgive him so I cut my LDR on communications for two days and promised my ex we will be together agn. But after spending the night with him I knew it was a mistake and that I have to give myself the chance again to be loved . I told my LDR the truth we are together but he says I have broken the trust and how he felt about me is no longer there … But he is always there and that we should give time, he still cares for me and is always supporting but the heart that lived me is no more there so he needs time. I really want to help this healing. Process without giving him pressure cos I love him too much and I don’t wanna loose him.
Thank you.
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I have been in a almost 7 month relationship. First 2 months we were smitten. Third month in he was asleep at my house. His cell phone was blowing up. Anxiety got the best of me and I looked. He was messaging back and forth with a girl from his past. She had sent him a few crossing the line of friendship pictures of her breasts. I woke him up and we got into a fight. We didn’t talk for several days and then decided we should. Though he was apologetic and said he removed her from his life I. Every way possible, I just found out she reached out to him again. He reopened communications with her. We talked about this, again, and he still hasn’t answered the question of why? He keeps telling me I need to trust him. He doesn’t understand that, that’s not a overnight process. I apologized for going into his phone. I believe a relationship should be very candid and open. I recently caught him turning his phone off at night on 2 different occasions recently, which he’s never done before. Both of us me have been trying to rebuild the trust. We both have friends of the opposite sex but when the line is crossed, game on! To me if a woman can feel so welcomed to talk to my man it’s not her fault it’s his and I have to wonder what he does behind my back. Am I crazy? Help!
Everything is very open with a very clear clarification of the challenges.
It was really informative. Your website is very useful.
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My boyfriend of 6 months and I have been going through a rough patch recently. He is 25 and I am 18. From his last relationship, he gained deep trust issues but was willing to have faith and trust me. I broke that trust two times with white lies and the third time I logged into his Instagram using a third party app so basically spying on him. The reason I did this is because one day he said a comment “if I didn’t want you to see it I would have just deleted it” and that really stuck into my head and caused me to do that. I am regretful and don’t want to ever do it again no matter how curious I may get plus he’s never given me a reason not to trust him. I am also happy he caught me even though it broke all of the trust basically. I’m wondering how to regain it. I love him and I truly do but any trust he had before is now gone. I ask him what he wants to start rebuilding the trust and he never really knows what he thinks would work for him.
I have been with my boyfriend for a year now. We live together. But about a months ago out of nowhere he left said he didn’t know what he wanted and did some hurtful things with his ex when he was gone less than a week later he came back begging for me back. I took him back and am working really hard on trying to forgive him but now a month later I am still so angry everything he does irritates me and I feel like I’m losing feelings. He is working so hard on fixing this I don’t want to lose feeling but I feel like him hurting me the way he did made me goi from being head over heels to just emotionally numb. I want to be head over heels again I just don’t know how.
Hi Rachel, ideally, there should be a bit more distance between you. You still have some healing to do as a result of his actions and this is hard to do when you’re spending so much time together. In addition to that, it’s very hard to crave a person’s presence if you don’t have the opportunity to miss them. You have to take some space to heal, and then you need to lay out a new foundation for your relationship. Start to date again, get to know each other again, trust each other again. A month is not a long time at all so it is normal that you would still be feeling very strong emotions!
Wishing you all the best,
Team Happily Committed
My girlfriend and I have been together for a year now. She has come to the conclusion that she is done with me making the same untrustworthy mistakes. She is no longer seeking forgiveness and is now pushing away. She has given me more than 5 chances to get it right. Every time I feel like I am ready to make that change and then I create another problem due to stupid actions. She believes that my countless inabilities to change my actions conveys that our relationship will be tarnished. She says that you don’t love me enough to change your actions for me. You keep making stupid mistakes that I should be smart enough to not make anymore. I just want to understand how I should approach the fact that I have received chances to improve and failed every time.
My girlfriend and I have been together for almost a year. She has some deep trust issues from her two previous relationships. One was physically abusive and manipulating while the other lied repeatedly. A few weeks ago she was out of town with family and I told a white lie that I was home when in fact I was at a friends house for a few drinks. She asked where I was and I told her I was home, she immediately called me out and I continued to tell her I was home, after two days of this I couldn’t stand to continue the lie and told her I was at a friends for drinks. She thinks I was doing something unfaithful with another girl. She now doesn’t not trust me at all and doesn’t believe me when I said I was at my buddy’s house for drinks. She is ready to leave because she thinks I will continue to lie about small things and that will lead to lying about more significant things. I do truly love her and told the lie about being home not to worry her but also so that she wouldn’t nag me about staying out late at my friend’s house. I immediately was remorseful and told her this. She has agreed to see me and talk about this but is still ready to leave.
My boyfriend and I have been long distance for almost three months. We live in separate states and when I went to visit him for the holiday everything was perfect. Like best weekend of our lives on cloud 9 perfect. But then he went to work on Monday and I was alone at his house and I went to put some things in one of his drawers cause I was leaving to see family for a couple days but going back to see him that weekend. When I opened his drawer I found intimate items from his ex, which he had already disclosed he had and Had been very open about with communication) but my insecurity and trust issues led me to text him while he was at work (a very high stress job) and it didn’t go well. He asked me to leave the house early because he didn’t trust me not to go through his things and felt like I had violated his privacy and trust. I never had asked for permission to put things in a drawer so I understood why he was upset. But now he wants to break up because he says he can’t trust me ever again not to be sneaking through his stuff. I have taken ownership for my mistakes in this and told him that I knew I should have asked for permission and that I lashed out because of my insecurities, not because of him. But he won’t hear it. His ex wife was a very suspicious person and never trusted him and his ex girlfriend was living a double life while she was seeing him. How do I prove that I’m not those girls? How do I assure him my actions were not meant maliciously? Just thoughtlessly. He doesn’t even want to talk about it, just ‘rip off the bandaid’. How can I convince him to at least try?
Hi Kendal,
Your boyfriend is going to need some time and space to calm down before he will listen to reason. Allow him some space for now, and try to reopen dialogue about the situation once things have settled down in a week and a half or two. If you try to force the conversation on him when he’s not ready to listen, it will push him further away. When you do have this conversation and things are calm, you will need to lay out the foundation for a more productive way of communicating. He cannot shut you out completely and not hear you out every time something happens that bothers him. That will make the relationship crumble. So for now, give him some space, and in the meantime, I encourage you to read this article that will give you some tips on communication!
Wishing you all the best,
Team Happily Committed
I lied about my sexual past. Only because it is embarrassing. When he found out he was angry and told me that the best part of our relationship is how open we are to each other. I tried explaining that because it was in my past (years ago) I just didn’t want to talk about it. We have been together 3 years and now he won’t speak to me. Says he can’t believe anything I say now. What do I do?
So I’m a preschool teacher and it’s been really tough in getting a good steady income for myself while trying to save for my own place in the future. I went on a certain website where the people on there are already financially stable and like 5% of the people there offer a chance to show how they grew in their business and offers to do like an internship. Well i went on this website for that exact reason but unfortunately 95% of the websites deals with certain agreements that I was not interested in but that’s the main thing they offer on it. I found this website when I was in high school but didnt go through with it and ignored it until now. I replied in a professional way to a message that was sen to me on that website but that’s when I entered pandora box. My boyfriend found out and saw the message and he said that hes not really mad since I apologized and explained to him my reasoning for being on that website but when he looked through my old profile which I was stupid enough not to change that’s what broke the trust because it looked like I was trying to hook up with someone instead of looking for a way to get a second job or internship in business. Right now I’m giving him space and I want to mend the broken trust I just dont know where to start or what I should do
So I recently got back together with my ex and I have broken the trust in our relationship. I lied to him because I was too afraid to share what was on my mind. He says he can’t bring himself to trust me and I don’t blame him. Truth is, I have a very bad habit of lying. I find it easier to lie than to tell the truth. I don’t lie about where am I am, or who I’m with that sort of thing but more so about things regarding myself. For example, if someone were to ask me a personal question such as how many guys you’ve dated I would say 3 to make myself sound cooler even through my answer is really 1. I guess I haven’t really accepted me for me which is why I lie. I’ve apologize and given my ex space needed. My ex is willing to work things out with me and give me another chance. How do I start on regaining his trust back? How do I prevent this from reoccurring in the future?
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