Rebuilding Relationship Trust

It’s not easy to rebuild trust in a relationship once it’s been lost. The following is a practical guide to rebuilding trust when your partner has betrayed you in some way. 

Accept your new reality

You can’t plot your course until you accept where you’re starting. If you have been betrayed, it’s important to accept the reality of your relationship as it stands right now. Don’t try to trust someone who has recently deceived you. It doesn’t work, and it makes everything worse. 

Love and trust aren’t the same thing

You can still love someone even if you don’t trust them. Part of loving a person is accepting all of them, including their weaknesses. If you try to pretend that a person is more trustworthy than they really are, it will make it harder for you to love that person. 

Develop trust in yourself

When you lost trust in your partner, you also lost trust in yourself. You learned that your powers of discernment are not what you thought they were. Luckily, discernment can be developed.

Accept responsibility for your choices

You are the one who is choosing to stay in your relationship. Leaving might be difficult, inconvenient, embarrassing, and painful; but it is probably not impossible. Accept responsibility for the choice you are making:  the choice to be in a relationship with someone who has betrayed you. To be clear, it’s probably not a bad choice. We don’t get to go out in the world and select from a long list of perfect partners. Instead, we have partners who are human, and humans make mistakes. 

Learn and grow

Like other relationship difficulties, a breach of trust is an opportunity for personal growth. Take the chance to re-evaluate what kind of person you’re in a relationship with, and how good you are at determining how trustworthy they are. In the end, it’s more important to trust yourself than it is to trust your partner.