Rebuilding Trust In a Relationship

Something that can single-handedly destroy any relationship is when trust is broken. This can be through lying, cheating or anything else that constitutes betrayal.

There are many ways that trust can be broken:

• Cheating, of course, is number one on the list. When one partner goes outside of the relationship and has sex with someone else, it brings about a situation in the relationship that many don’t survive.
• Lying to your partner about something important will also break trust. Your partner won’t know when you’re lying or not after that.
• Talking badly about your partner to others is disrespectful as well as trust breaking.

Once trust is broken, it can be next to impossible to rebuild. The first step is deciding how badly you want the relationship to survive. If you really want to make it work in spite of what you’ve done, you need to understand that it’s not going to be easy. You’re going to be on probation for a long time. Expect to have to explain your every move for a while. Also, don’t be late in coming home or calling when you’ve said you would be. Once you lie about something, it’s going to be difficult to convince your partner that you won’t do it anymore.

When you say you’ll be home at a certain time, it’s vital that you be there within at least 5 minutes of the set time. If you get caught in traffic or were delayed at work, you had better take a couple of minutes to call ahead of time to explain what’s going on. It may be necessary to make more than one call depending on what has caused your delay and how long you’re going to be. This may be a bit annoying but when you cheat or lie to your partner, you can expect to be making it up for a long time to come. If you want to repair your relationship, it’s not going to be easy on you and it shouldn’t be.

If your screw up was talking badly about your partner to others, assuming your partner still wants to try to work on things, the hoops that you’ll probably have to jump through may be even more irritating.

First of all, though, think about why you said the things you did about your partner. Is it possible that you really want to end the relationship and this is how you were getting that out in the open? Why would you say negative things about your partner behind their back if you really are in love with them? Yes, those are some things to think about because being talked badly about by someone that’s supposed to love you can be very hurtful.

The bottom line is that if you want to make the relationship work in spite of what you did to ruin it, there are things that you’ll need to do to rebuild that broken trust. You must be willing to toe the line for as long as it takes or walk away now.