8 – Restoring Broken Trust

Irresponsibility – Jenny seemed to always have some rebellious behavior to lapse into from time to time. Most days she would be reasonable and responsible, but every month or two, she wanted to do something bad. As she had matured, she chose safer bad behavior, but still had to have her occasional day as a rebel. When she was young, she would be promiscuous, but she put that behind her when she got married. For a while, she would lapse into drunken binges. She gave that up, but now turned to bulimia and spending sprees that left their credit card accounts at their maximum.
Irresponsible behavior can greatly damage trust and respect in a marriage. Some examples include:
• Substance abuse
• Uncontrolled spending, especially when it violates what the two of you agreed upon
• Unexplained absence from the home
• Refusal to take a reasonable share of adult responsibility
If your spouse is being irresponsible, you need to confront it, but don’t imagine that simply yelling at your spouse will bring a solution. You may be facing an issue that has deep roots, and a big fight will probably not help.
Begin by finding a good time to talk about the problem. If your spouse comes home drunk, you will need to wait until they are sober to talk constructively about it. If you are both angry, you need to give yourselves some time to calm down. Don’t put it off too long. You may feel a little better the morning after a problem and imagine that the problem has gone away, but it hasn’t.
Agree on reasonable behavior, keeping in mind that your personalities are different. For example, you may agree that it is reasonable to come home an hour later than expected, but unreasonable to be hours late or gone overnight without a phone call and an explanation. Agreeing on reasonable behavior will be difficult if your spouse is denying their behavior or its consequences. However, if in a sober, calm, moment you can both agree on what is reasonable for married people, it will help the next time you need to confront irresponsible behavior.
Get help if needed. Meeting together with a pastor or counselor may help by giving a neutral opinion on what is reasonable and responsible. Some people have large mood swings that alter their behavior, but may find help from a physician.
For severe issues that don’t get resolved, we’d recommend a separation approach similar to what we described above for abuse. If you separate, make reconciliation your goal and give your spouse a written list of what it will take to be reconciled.
Infidelity – Some people think of infidelity in their spouse as the one thing their marriage could never recover from. When we give ourselves in marriage to each other in front of friends and family, and promise to be faithful, we expect our partner to be faithful. Infidelity is truly a horrible wound in a marriage, but marriages do sometimes recover from it. Other marriages are dissolved and still others choose to stay together, but live in pain without ever really recovering.
The steps to recovering trust, if it has been broken, are,
1) Honesty – Whoever cheated needs to tell the truth. If the cheating partner is still lying about it, there can be no recovery. It will still take some time for the person who has been cheated on to be sure they can believe their spouse.
2) Repentance – This means to turn away from sin, and includes taking responsibility for your actions. The cheating partner may also need to get some help to clearly see what went wrong in their thinking that led to infidelity. If the cheating partner is still making excuses, or blaming someone else, they haven’t truly repented.
3) Forgiveness – Forgiveness is a choice to let go of the anger and resentment you feel. The person who has been cheated on must choose to forgive. Because many things can trigger our feelings, you may find that you have to let go of your bitter feelings again and again. As you continually choose to let go of bitter feelings, the grip they have on you will grow weaker. The Bible tells us, “Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” (Colossians 3:13). If you refuse to forgive the past, then you are going to stay stuck in the pain of the past.
4) Restoration of Trust – While forgiveness can be offered right away by choosing to forgive, trust takes time to rebuild. Trust is based on trustworthy behavior. Someone who has recently been unfaithful should expect and accept more questions and checking of their truthfulness. This is part of the rebuilding process. If you take offense at those extra questions, you have not really taken responsibility for what you have done. If your heart has genuinely changed, your spouse can only see your changed heart by your changed behavior. If your spouse wants to look at your cell phone to see who you have been calling, don’t take offense. Give it time. Genuine trust will not be rebuilt overnight, but it can be rebuilt.
5) Restoration of Mutual Respect – When a relationship has been restored, the pain and the mistrust need to be put in the past. You need to reach a point when you stop bringing up the past. If you go through life treating the cheater as if they “owe” you or as if they can never really be trusted and respected, you will never have a truly healthy relationship. If you keep returning to the pain of the past, you cannot escape it. You will also be stuck in the past if you connect minor offenses in the present (He left his dirty socks on the bedroom floor) with major offenses of the past (He cheated on me).
A couple with rebuilt mutual respect may even find that they have a depth in their relationship that they never had before.
Talk About It – Has trust ever been broken in your relationship? To what extent has it been rebuilt?