Have you ever been hurt by somebody that you loved or that
you trusted? It begins to affect everything that happens with
that person, doesn't it? Because after that trust is broken, you
wonder what's true, what's not true. Interestingly enough, it
can even happen with another person before this one. That
someone or maybe several someone's, in your lifetime,
have violated your trust where you get to the point where you
don't know if you can trust anybody. And you find yourself
closed up and not really being open and transparent because you
expect to be hurt. Well, let's talk about that. How do you
build trust? Or, if need be, how do you rebuild trust?
So, what is trust? Trust is when you feel safe and you feel
secure with another person. Physically, that's definitely a
part of it, that I'm not going to be hurt that you'll protect
me if I need protection. But also intellectually, like I can
share what I think with you, we can talk about things even when
we don't agree with each other, we can discuss and learn. It's
when I can trust you with my emotions that I can tell you
what I feel, and you're not going to tell me that I
shouldn't feel that way or that I don't feel that way. And even
if my emotion doesn't make sense to you right now, you try to
understand my emotion and accept that. And even spiritually, so
the things that I believe and the things I value, you will
respect, and you're not trying to change me into some system of
your own. But you can accept me and mine as I accept you in
yours. And therefore, I feel safe, not just physically but
intellectually, and emotionally, and spiritually. Now, we want
that. We want somebody that can love us as we are. Sometimes
it's hard to believe anybody can because we're all screwed up.
That's right; I'm screwed up, you're screwed up, we're all
screwed up. And we know that sometimes we don't act very
lovable or lovely. Well, we want somebody who can trust us
anyway. You see, trust is based on intimacy. And the better way
to pronounce that is into me see. I am going to let you see
what I think, what I believe, what I do, what I feel, and hope
that you can respect that person that I really am and that you
can love me and like me. And if we can both do that for each
other, then I'm going to feel safe in these other ways.
But if at some point somebody has violated that trust, it may
be the very person you're with now because he or she did
something that hurt you. Maybe had an affair, maybe gambled
away the money, maybe has an addiction that's just tearing
your whole relationship apart. Or it may be somebody even
before that, a previous love that you had. And it can be even
before that the relationship that you had with your parents
where you felt that the trust did not exist. And now you're
afraid to be open; you're afraid to be transparent; you're afraid
to trust anyone because you expect that everybody at some
point is going to hurt you. Or if in this relationship your
spouse already has hurt you by some of the things we've already
mentioned or any other way, how can I know if I can ever trust
you again? Well, it can be rebuilt. We've worked with 1000s
and 1000s and 1000s of couples and help them rebuild trust in
each other, develop relationships that everybody
thought had no chance of ever making it because of his actions
or her actions are sometimes the actions of both where the things
that have been done that had been extremely painful,
extremely hurtful. And people thought, well if they try to get
back together, they won't be able to trust each other. And
yet, we've been doing this for decades, actually coming up on
25 years. And we have seen it; we have witnessed it so many
times. And you say then then how do we do it?
How do we rebuild trust? Well, I can give you a couple of ideas.
I can't explain it in great detail in this short video. But
the first is going to be honesty, telling the truth. Oh,
I know that can be scary, particularly when you think the
other person is judging you, that the other person not be
rejecting you. Being honest, it's like, oh, good grief, if
I'm honest, and he knows, or she knows what I really think, what
I really do, et cetera, et cetera, then this thing's going
to fall apart. I can understand your fear about that. But until
you can get to the point that each of you can be honest with
the other about what you do, what you think, how you act,
what you feel, when you can finally do that, trust starts
coming because of the fact that you're not expecting something
else to happen out there. You know where the person is and
what the person is doing and what the person is thinking or
feeling. Many, many years ago, I left my wife for another woman.
It didn't work out. And eventually, I asked my wife if
she would take me back, and she did, and we remarried. You can
imagine what she needed to do to have that trust rebuilt, but
part of it part of it that got her to trust me again was by
complete and total honesty.
I'm not saying I'm perfect at anything; wasn't perfect at that
either. But because I said to her, whatever you want to know,
I will tell you. Just make sure that you really want to know.
And sometimes she'd ask a question, and I would say, do
you really want to know the answer to that? Sometimes she
said, yes; I would tell her. Sometimes she'd say, no, at
least not right now. But if ever I do, would you tell me the
truth about that? Yes. And it wasn't just honestly about the
past; it was honestly about the future. If I ever got stressed,
she would say, well, have you ever thought about going back to
that other life when you left me where you were living anywhere
you wanted to, and you were drinking heavily, and all those
other kinds of things? Does that ever attract you now? And I was
honest, yes, yes. When I get stressed, it does attract me
now. And the next question was, then why don't you do it. And I
was honest about that as well; cost too much. It would cost me
you; it would cost me my relationship with my children.
And because I am a man of faith, it would cost me my relationship
with my God. So yes, sometimes those things go through my head.
But I would never do them because it just cost too much.
And that level of honesty, because I was really being
honest, led her to be able to trust me more.
And so, the second part of that is sensitivity. Knowing that if
you're doing, or saying, or acting in such a way, something
that's causing the other person distress, to pick up on it, to
pay attention. For example, with my wife, back during our
troubles, she went to a concert by the group Chicago. Now, this
was decades and decades ago. But still, if she hears the group
Chicago on the radio, it makes her a little bit sad because it
brings some of those memories back. And so, I'm sensitive to
that. And if I hear that come on my radio as we're driving in the
car, I just change to a different channel. Not because I
think she hasn't forgiven me, not because I think she doesn't
trust me, but because of the fact that I've tried to be
sensitive to what's important to her. And that sensitivity then
will lead you to maybe not do some things you could and to do
some things that you wouldn't think about otherwise because
you want to be connected.
And finally, and extremely importantly, accountability.
It's hard to rebuild trust when they're wondering what you're
doing, who you're doing it with, where you're doing it. So we say
if you're trying to rebuild trust, you need to be as open as
you possibly can be. Now this day and time we didn't have it
back then, but this day and time, I would actually put a GPS
on my phone and turn it on so she could see where I was all
the time. Back in those days, I did turn all the money over to
her because if she knew where the money went, then she wasn't
worried about what I was spending it on. Now you can do
what you think is best for you. But I'm saying if you're going
to rebuild trust, you need to build accountability in where
your partner can feel safe. As a matter of fact, if you're really
trying to rebuild trust, maybe do it to the point where it's
just a little bit burdensome. And not the way you want to live
the rest of your life, maybe six months, nine months a year, I'll
be this accountable to you as if maybe perhaps I were a teenager.
But at some point, I can't live like that anymore. But I'll do
it as long as I need to for you to be able to trust me again.
Now, did you hear that? Honesty, sensitivity, accountability.
Love can be rebuilt. Trust can be rebuilt, but it requires work
and requires patience. If you've ever had a situation where you
needed to regrow trust or redevelop it in relationship,
we'd love to hear how you did that. In the notes just below,
please give us your story. Tell us how you were able to read
build trust; we'd love to hear that. And let me offer you a
free resource if you'd like to have it. It's a free ebook. It's
called How to Get Your Spouse To Fall Back In Love With You.
Understand trust is part of that. And we'll give that to
you. You just clicked that link you see right there. And if
you're not seeing the video and hearing the audio, go down
below, and you'll see in the show notes the link there to
that free resource, that ebook, How To Get Your Spouse To Fall
Back In Love With You. And then we have another resource I'll
tell you about. It's called The Art of Attraction toolkit.
Attraction; we're talking about trust. Believe me, there's a
process people go through when they fall in love when they
really build up trust, and it starts with attraction,
physically, intellectually, emotionally, spiritually. Thank
you for being part of this; please subscribe to our channel.
Please click that bell so that you'll get all our resources
when they first come out and understand this. No matter how
badly trust has been broken, it can be rebuilt and be solid
again.