Have you ever considered “What makes rebuilding trust so hard?” In thinking through this one, several items come to mind. I haven’t rank ordered them in terms of priority, although each are important.
One is ‘the fear of vulnerability’ or of being hurt again. Once you have been hurt, you’re unwilling to put yourself into a position where you can be hurt again.
Trusting the cheater requires that you expose yourself to potential hurt again. This is hard, since the part of your heart that was damaged is still bruised and sore from previous hurt.
Another is the hesitancy to believe what they tell you. After you have been burned, it is hard to believe what the lying cheater is telling you.
You may be telling yourself, “They lied before, what is to stop them from lying again?” The answer—NOTHING! They can lie to you again.
You feel there’s little that can be done outside of taking them at their word again. The cheater may want “Instant Trust”, but that just doesn’t happen.
In the area of lies, it will take time before you can believe what they tell you and not cringe every time you suspect them lying.
A big one is the “hide and seek” game. It’s hard trusting someone who hides key pieces of information. When they don’t tell you much, you can’t trust much.
You can only trust people you know and what you know. When the cheater doesn’t tell you much (claiming either privacy concerns or some other crap), there’s little you can trust them on.
Another biggie is the spiritual element. If they don’t have a close relationship with God, how can you trust them?
It is hard to make any kind of investment in someone who does not have spiritual values of any kind. God is associated with trust.
When they have no place for God in their life, how can they have a place for trust? When they are close to God and have a godly walk, they are more trustworthy, since they have a higher authority to answer to.
When they use religion for personal gain and assume the role of god, they are also hard to trust. In such cases, they talk about God, but somehow the lines between who they are and who God is, blurs.
Another challenge is that the cheater wants to ‘move on’. They push for getting past everything quickly. They don’t allow time for trust to rebuild and emotions to heal.
They want to get on with their lives and ‘not dwell on the past”. Such cheater do not understand trust.
They are still very self-centered and are not looking at the affair from other perspectives, nor do they understand the ‘traumatizing effect’ of the affair. (The traumatizing effect, as I term it is how time freezes the events of the affair).
These are some of the major reasons why it is hard to trust. They may help you put into words what your own personal challenges are in overcoming the issues of trust.
In the video, “How Can I Trust You Again?” I give you ways you can start rebuilding trust. There are five key ingredients that make up the foundation of trust. Putting them back into your relationship can make a difference.
Best Regards,
Jeff
2 Responses
Thank you for writing this article. A few years back my wife and I experienced a very traumatizing situation on my account of lying and cheating… As described above, afterwards, I wanted to get on with our lives and not dwell on the past. This only made things worse between the two of us. There was a sense of malice between us. I hurt her and she wanted to hurt me. It led to us becoming more enemies than husband and wife. I inevitably ended up cheating again and she left me. I should’ve known better and the truth is, I did. I just failed to do right.
I wished every moment of my existence were obliterated after seeing and finally realizing how bad and deeply bruised her heart was. We eventually tried to work it out after finding out she was pregnant with our second child, shortly after she left. Things were okay. We were building up the trust again. Our love wasn’t where it should’ve been but we were getting there. I worked very hard to be the man I should’ve been from the beginning.
So about a year goes by and things are looking up. I got a good job and though we have our moments, we are overall good. That is, until someone from the past calls me out of the blue. She was my friend who, when my wife and I were going through our drama, I made a pass. She called to ask for help with a situation that she was having with her husband who was abusing her. I, feeling like there is no harm, offer my moral support against my wife’s wishes.
My wife was livid. Needless to say, it was mentioned that all of my good work went out of the window… As in, no longer valid. What kind of things can I do to regain her trust. I love her and I just want to assure her that I’m with her and no one else.
Thomas,
When going through the process of rebuilding trust, there are often tests. Some of these are set up, and some, like yours just happens. A line from the movie ‘Entrapment’ captures the sentiment, “First you test, then you trust”.
Your wife will need to find out if she can trust you in terms of passing a test, otherwise it is just blind trust. Hopefully she will give you another chance. This is part of her letting go of her hurt and getting to a place where she can trust you without reservation.