Repairing Trust in Your Relationship(Marriage)

Repairing Trust in Your Relationship

Humans with their sinful nature at some point proof to be untrustworthy and this has to be rebuilt. It sometimes needs just a remodelling or rebuilding process to make up for the trust. Some people at times feel that certain relationships are not worth rebuilding and they feel cutting it off but this is never the case with marriage. One of the purposes of marriage is to teach us how to rebuild trust when it is broken.The first thing to do in repairing trust is to make a sincere confession of the truth. If it be betrayal, the betrayer has to first confess the whole truth. The whole truth does not mean every intimate detail that puts too much of a burden on the shoulders of the betrayed spouse. The rule of thumb on how much to confess is this: If I want to seriously rebuild trust with my spouse, I confess anything that, if it were to found out later, would undermine the rebuilding of trust. If information has been withheld in the form of a secret, or if one spouse has been lied to about anything, the need for a sincere confession of the truth always marks the starting point. Couples who try to sweep any kind of lie under the carpet risk lessening, or even losing, the intimacy they long for. The primer point in this step is to confess to God the creator (of course confession must come with repentance else it is not necessary), and to make a commitment not to come back to it.Next, the betrayer has to be completely open to the partner or the betrayed, for the purpose of healing. The spouse who has had an affair has given up control of his or her life at least for as long as it takes to rebuild trust. He or she gives up control by becoming an open book to his/her spouse. No secrets allowed. Cell phone bills, travel itineraries, whereabouts at any given point in time, complete accessibility, all of these are part of our becoming open to our spouse about all aspects of our life. Anything less than complete openness restricts the rebuilding of trust. There can be nothing that remains hidden, or else when it is found out, and it will be, it will destroy the trust that was re-established. And the second time trust is breached is more serious. There is the old adage that says, ‘Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.’ Few marriages can survive the ‘fool me twice’ syndrome. The betrayer must also be sorrowful about his/her act. Without it, it’s like building a brick wall without cement. The goal of rebuilding trust is that at some point there is genuine sorrow on the part of the one who lived the lie, and genuine forgiveness on the part of the one betrayed. Without both of these conditions, the marital reconciliation is going to be very superficial and very unsatisfying to both parties. Again, the principle is the same, even for the little lie of omission, or the little white lie. When confronted by your spouse, you need to confess the truth, become completely open about the subject, and show genuine sorrow for the betrayal. Every lie in a marriage is a form of betrayal, and so regardless of the seriousness of the betrayal, the process is the same. You have to be patient in rebuilding trust. The length of time needed depends on the seriousness of the offence. A small lie of omission may take a couple of days, whereas an affair may take a year or two just to get to level ground again. So rebuilding means both the offender and the offended need to be patient with the process.