How To Rebuild Trust In A Relationship

At our practice, we specialize in working with couples. One of the most common questions we are asked is how to rebuild trust in a relationship. Trust can be broken in the relationship in several different ways. These ways differ from long term affairs to hiding money, lying about spending habits, or sharing information with someone else. Many times the hurt partner is thinking to themselves, “can trust be rebuilt?”, while the other partner is wanting to know how to regain someone’s trust. 

Before Rebuilding Trust In Your Relationship 

The first thing you need to do before rebuilding trust in a relationship is to figure out what trust has been broken. Even in rebuilding trust after the discovery of an affair, it is usually not the affair that is the most problematic; it is the fact that there were lies and omissions about the affair. Most people can deal with anything problematic., but lying, hiding, and not being transparent is usually the biggest problem in relationships. To start to rebuild trust the person who broke the trust must do the following 

Take Accountability 

If your partner has no trust in you, you have to be honest with yourself about what you did. You don’t always need to know why you did what you did (therapy can help you figure that out), but you do have to understand how your actions impacted your partner, and you must take accountability for those actions. 

Stop All Defensiveness 

We are not in the rebuilding stage yet. If you find yourself justifying, explaining away, or being defensive about anything connected to the breach of trust, you are not yet ready to rebuild trust. When you are defensive, you are not looking inward. What you are doing is protecting yourself from your shame and guilt or other feelings about what you have done. 

Show Empathy

Before you can fix a relationship after the trust is broken, you must show empathy to your partner. Empathy is not just saying I’m sorry but understanding the deep feelings that your partner is feeling and trying to hold and support it. This means you need to understand what your partner is feeling (not why). This means saying, “I can see you are hurting or you are scared.” When you get focused on WHY your partner is feeling, you miss the opportunity to connect and show empathy. Once you understand what they are feeling, you need to validate it. This means telling them that it is ok they are feeling what they are feeling. You do not need to agree with their feelings, or even like their feelings, but without validation, you show no empathy. Without empathy.

Watch this video on empathy by Brene Brown.

Rebuilding Trust In A Relationship

Once you are taking accountability for your actions, showing no defensiveness, and showing deep empathy towards your partner, you can then move into rebuilding trust in your relationship. I have used the following framework with hundreds of couples in couples therapy, and this simple yet profound understanding of trust can be the framework for rebuilding trust. 

To rebuild trust, I have developed a simple math formula that can help you build trust.

Trust = Time / Consistency 

Time – the longer you can show consistent behavior, the stronger trust grows. Yet if you break the consistency, it will take even longer to heal. 

Consistency – This is what you say or promise you will do. Your words and actions must always be aligned with each other. If you say that you care and love your partner, you can not raise your voice or be un-empathic. If you say you can check my phone, but then get angry when they do that is not consistent.

Let us take a more in-depth look into this formula for rebuilding trust. 

Consistency In Rebuilding Trust 

Consistency means what you are saying and what you are doing are 100% in alignment. Many people struggle with putting alignment into consistency. Some people will change all the right behaviors but fail to verbally acknowledge what they are changing and what they want to do, while others will promise to change but their behavior never does. In order to show consistency in behavior, you have to verbally acknowledge what you want. By saying things like, “I love you and want this to work,” or “I want you to know what happened today, I need to show you how much I spent today.” Whatever you are verbally committing to make sure your behavior is exactly in alignment.

Time In Rebuilding Trust 

The longer you are consistent with what you say and what you do, the more trust gets built. Time alone will not rebuild trust. If you break your consistency, it will most likely wipe out all of the trust you have built-up to this moment. 

A Stronger, Healthier Relationship 

If you have had a breach of trust in your relationship, you can get through it. You can form a healthier relationship because of it. If the trust that was broken was due to an affair, please check out our post on how to start to cope with an affair. If you are interested in reading more about the science of trust, check out this book by Dr. John Gottman about the Science of trust. 

Therapy To Rebuild Trust In A Relationship. 

If you and your partner are struggling to rebuild trust, a trained therapist can help. At Richer Life Counseling, our therapists are trained to help you We can help you learn to stop your defensiveness and learn to be vulnerable with each other. We can help you set boundaries and suggest many behaviors that help build trust faster. If you live in Las Vegas, contact one of the therapists listed below to start rebuilding trust today. 

Contact us today by calling or texting 702-518-1546, email,  or booking a session by hitting the appointment request button. We can normally get you into a session within 24 or 48 hours.

We offer both online therapy (learn more about online therapy here) and in-person therapy at our Las Vegas office. Our office is located in West Las Vegas right off the 95 & Rainbow. Our address is 222 S. Rainbow Boulevard | Suites 113-114 |Las Vegas NV 89145