Losing your romantic partner’s trust is likely to create a major barrier to enjoying a happy, fulfilling romantic connection and that intimacy that we believe defines a long-term, committed relationship. It doesn’t take a big lie (such as cheating) to lose your partner’s trust. A petty, trivial untrue statement will make the other person lose trust because he/she will inevitable assume that you if can lie about small things, you are just as likely to lie about the more significant matters in a relationship.
Trust and reputation for honesty take time and work to build, especially when your partner has been “around the block” and has been lied to by his/her prior dating partners. Once you lose your partner’s trust, however, getting that trust back can be a challenging task. Having your lover forgive you is one thing, but having him/her fully trust you again is a completely different component of your relationship that simply cannot be restored with the mere words “I forgive.”
If you are in the situation where you lost your relationship partner’s trust, you must also be frustrated because your partner is probably reminding you of that one or several lies and making you “pay” for that over and over again.
Indeed, it’s pointless for your partner to continue bringing up the incident in which his / her trust was violated, but often a person can’t help but go back and make you feel guilty about what you have done – primarily because your act bothers them so much. So what can you do to rectify that situation besides not giving new reasons not to trust you in the future?
I would like to suggest to you several very useful steps toward restoring your dating partner’s trust:
1. Try to understand and relate to what your partner is going through and to how difficult it is believing someone after they gave you a reason not to. Truly put yourself in their shoes and try to imagine how it would feel to be lied to, and how difficult it would be to trust the person who deceived you once before if you exected full honesty and mutual trust from each other till that moment.
2. Treat the recurring comments of your partner about your prior lies with patience and realize that there is no way around but letting time take care of your partner’s anger and bitterness. Sure he or she will bring up the incident of catching you on a lie over and over in the future, even after regret and apologize many times. Saying “sorry” is easy. Saying “I forgive” is also not that hard, but truly forgiving and moving on after losing trust in your partner or doubting his or her honesty takes time. In other words, you should be aware that there are no instant fixes to this problem and there is no way restore trust and get it back overnight. Only time can make your partner truly forgive, forget and put the problem behind both of you.
3. Put a positive spin on the incident. Continue assuring your partner that you have learned a lot from the incident, that it made you a better person, and that you have realized better than ever before how important it is to be truthful in a relationship.
4. Lastly, be firm about insisting that your partner doesn’t continue making you feel guilty about what you have done because it doesn’t do any good to either of you or to your relationship, and that the sooner she stops bring that up, the better off both of you will be.
Getting trust back takes time and effort, but if you care about your partner and your relationship, it’s certainly worth the effort, and overcoming the loss of trust can eventually bring you closer to your partner than you have ever been before.
credits to: practicalhappiness.com
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