Can Trust Truly be Rebuilt?

Carrie and Tom met in high school as the cheerleader and the football team's star quarterback, respectively. They married in their early 20's because of their intense physical attraction to each other.  Carrie was just Tom's second girlfriend before marrying, and it didn't take long before Tom lamented his lack of freedom. You probably see where this is going - and it doesn't look good

Tom worked long hours as a budding marketing associate at his company while Carrie stayed at home with their young children. As Tom's stardom rose within the company, Carrie's influence in his life began to fall. Tom would join his coworkers after work for drinks and attended nightclubs during overnight conferences. After a long period apart, Carrie helped Tom unpack from his trip and discovered a love note in his suitcase.  While Tom slept she checked her husband's cell phone and found text messages from the same woman expressing her "loving" adoration for Tom.

When confronted the next morning, Tom denied having an affair, at first expressing feigned anger.  "She just has a crush on me - nothing more," he said.  But then one day Carrie checked the "other woman's" Facebook page to find that she left several messages stating that she'd found the "love of her life," and a reply from Tom saying, "I love you and want to be together forever."   When confronted again with the Facebook posts, Tom became contrite, his face drawn and he pleaded with Carried to forgive him saying that he would "never see her again."

In that moment Tom realized that he might lose his best friend, and Carrie felt like she perhaps had never really known Tom.  They attended marriage counseling, but Carrie constantly worried each time Tom traveled out of town, and she would drill him each time he returned. Their arguments would sometimes result in days without speaking to each other.

Having lost trust in Tom, there was no going back. They were mired in a mud pit of doubts and disillusionment.  The story is true, the names have been changed, and I'll tell you how this ended later in this article. 

But first, suffice it to say that trust is the foundation that makes relationships work. It is the fundamental process of staying true to one's promises and commitments. When trust vanishes, so do feelings of respect, reliability, confidence, safety, love and friendship; and, in their place come overriding expressions of resentment, insecurity, and fear.  The violated person becomes like a detective trying to uncover more reasons for distrusting the violator.

Building (or rebuilding) trust can take months—sometimes years—to make happen; and it may seem that it can never be truly rebuilt. Though restoration invariably takes a long time, it can be lost overnight. Trust is built on proving reliability over time, and doing what’s right—a huge factor in determining success. In any relationship, being considered trustworthy builds respect and commitment, as well as a supportive and stress free environment.

We build trust one-step at a time, by proving our dependability and honesty along the way, until eventually our level of trust reaches the point where we can completely let down our guard with another person. Some people are more trusting than others. Others need to observe what you do. Do you keep your word? Are you on time for meetings? Do you follow through on commitments? Do you own up to your mistakes?

If you’re in a new relationship, or in a situation where you need to rebuild trust, there are certain steps that will get you there more quickly. The first is obvious: be honest. Do what you say and say what you mean. There’s no such thing as a “little white lie”—they are all just lies. Don’t cheat on expense reports; don’t say things you don’t mean. Second, be transparent while using good judgment. Have you ever experienced a conversation where someone shared something with you by saying, “just between us”? These kinds of secret conversations damage trust, as do unnecessarily harsh and unsolicited criticisms, even if they are followed with an apology.

If a violation of trust occurs, consider that the damage has already been done. So begin the healing by sharing things about yourself, including the parts you may not like. To be trusted you need to be candid enough to appear vulnerable and authentic to the other person. By revealing your defects, you are laying the groundwork for the other person to be more trusting, since you’ve gone first. You’re saying in essence, “I’m sharing some sensitive things about me, because I trust you enough to accept me as I am.” Almost always the other person will return the favor, thus taking the relationship to a deeper level of trust.

I've been asked in counseling sessions, as with those involving Carrie and Tom, whether trust can ever be regained once it's been lost.  My answer is "yes," but it takes awhile, and some tears and hard work.  Here are five steps for getting it back:  

1. Confess—but don't dump all of your transgressions at once. Confession as they say is good for the soul - like a chiropractic adjustment to set things right again.  But, no confession works unless you're committed to take full responsibility for your misdeed. The downside is that if you confess the whole mess at once, it may be too much for the violated person to assimilate, and it may even compound the other person's pain and thereby lengthen the healing process. As humans we tend to hyper focus on the negative details that often obscure the bigger picture.  The bigger picture in Carrie's and Tom's situation was that accountability isn't one-sided. A key issue Tom sublimated for years was his frustration with Carrie "criticizing me (him)."  So we called Carrie's attention to those times when she formed criticisms as a normal response. Then Tom offered accountability for his lies and broken vows. He admitted his obsession with being "the stud," and confessed that Carrie's criticism was no excuse for his behavior.   

2. Being defensive, dismissive, or self-righteous about the offense is always disastrous. Openness is required to address the violations, or each person will eventually close his or herself to the other.  Too often people think that forgiveness is a feeling—it is not.  It's  a choice we make in response to an openness to be transparent with each other. Depending on the size of the breach of trust, forgiveness may be a lengthy process, but it isn’t an option.  If you let your anger take control the other person cannot hear what you have to say.  Of course Carrie became outraged after she saw the love note in Tom's suitcase, but over time she came to realize that he'd been forthright in many things, and that he became truly repentant; and, not only that but the 'other woman' noted on Facebook that Tom had blocked her from messaging him. Know that you’re on a healing journey with many twists and turns, and you need to be transparent, but you must also set realistic expectations about how the relationship will change in the future.

3. Uncover the root cause of what triggered the offense, and then weigh the risk of breaking the relationship with the hope of it becoming even stronger. Asking questions to uncover what caused the initial misdeed starts the process, and then each person needs to get help.  Staying focused on what brought you together in the first place will help to reset your frame of mind. If there is a sexual addiction problem like pornography, be willing to attend sexual addiction meetings or see a counselor. If there is loneliness in the relationship, take the initiative to make an appointment with a counselor. Talking about your feelings is the best way to connect again, but always know that the risk of opening up your heart again to disappointment is possible. However, if both parties are sincere, humble, contrite, and committed to a resolution, the hope of an even stronger relationship outweighs the risk of more disappointment.

4. Ask open and sincere questions, and do the same with your answers.  As difficult as it was for Tom to share about his infidelity, Carrie noticed how hard her husband worked to reestablish his integrity in their relationship. Tom committed to answer every question Carrie asked. Sometimes he needed to answer the same questions over and over again so that Carrie could address each angle of her concerns. Still neither became exasperated by Carrie's need to know. Said Carrie, "He never asked me to stop, but he did sometimes ask when we could put things behind us."   Now they're five years distant from the fallout, yet questions still arise, but these occur less and less frequently.  And Tom answers each one with the patience and empathy he must to keep the relationship going.   They've learned to ask healthy questions like, “How did that make you feel?” or “You seem uncomfortable. What’s going on inside your head and heart?” These questions create a feeling of being understood, and that's perhaps the the most essential component of any healthy relationship.  Questions reveal secrets and establish a foundation of trust if asked and answered with a genuine desire to know what the other person needs.

5. Respect each other with empathy. Whether married or not, when trust is broken, the process of healing is painful for both persons in different ways, and mutual respect is vital. The one who broke trust needs to respect the betrayed person's emotions. Tom described it as putting himself in Carrie's mind by saying, “I had to realize that while my transgressions were feeding my ego, I was setting my best friend and the love of my life up for a huge crash. I had to resist my defensive posture to dismiss her feelings, and consider how I might feel if she did this to me."  Carrie learned that, even as the betrayed spouse, she needed to express her respect for Tom in the language he could understand. When someone becomes untrustworthy, a sense of guilt naturally accompanies what that person knows is wrong . Tom already felt guilty. So as they worked to heal their marriage, Carrie empathetically used the right words and tone that wouldn't punish him further. Throughout the healing process, they both had to resist the urge to react to one another in their hurt, responding instead with respect and humility.

For Carrie and Tom, what seemed at first like the end of their marriage turned into a new beginning of trust, accountability, and deeper understandings. Because they talked about the situation immediately and with an open mind and heart, they were able to reckon with each other.  Leaving anger and resentments unsettled for too long can have the opposite effect - divorce.

Tom learned a tremendous amount about his priorities as well as his strengths and weaknesses. For Carrie, the deep wounds took longer to heal before she could trust Tom, and for that matter anyone.  Over time she found that the process of healing actually made her much stronger, and she began to look forward instead of backwards.

If you are hurting from another person's failure, or you are doing something that might be hurting someone you care about, know that you are not alone. Many people are hurting or are on the verge of being hurt by actions that will destroy trust.  

Keeping a mutually advantageous attitude toward one another is key. This means being willing to share your knowledge, your concerns, even your privileged information without any hidden agendas. Whether you believe this or not, giving without expecting anything in return almost always builds trust.  Because it opens the heart of the other person by saying you care enough to risk being harmed.  And though we often tend to hurt the ones we love, it's the process of rebuilding trust that ultimately leads to a richer life - hopefully together, but always stronger than before.

- Randy Kay is a CEO of TenorCorp/PACEsetters, a strategic and talent development firm. Prior to this he has overseen training and development for top performing companies, been a biotech CEO, Board Member for over 20 organizations, executive for Fortune 100 companies, and has published four books and several articles in business magazines such as Switch & Shift and Forbes as well as conducted interviews through numerous networks. He is also an ordained minister and trained corporate counselor. Do you want to grow and develop your career and life? Contact Randy Kay directly (@ [email protected]) or discover more at www.pacesetters.training

“A man who trusts nobody is apt to be the kind of man nobody trusts.” – Harold MacMillan