Trust is not always an easy thing to build in a relationship. When you trust someone, you feel comfortable, safe, and secure in your individual life and relationship. Though it takes time to build this trust, the sense of security makes it all worthwhile. Because trust is such a delicate thing, it can be detrimental to a relationship when it’s broken. Many couples struggle to reestablish trust in their relationship once a breach occurs and ultimately choose to go their separate ways.
While a breach of trust can be difficult to work through, it doesn’t mean that your relationship is doomed. If you want to make your relationship work after a breach of trust, there are three keys to focus on to help reconnect and reestablish trust.
1. Focus on Communication
If you’re in a long-term relationship, then you likely know how important communication is. However, as the years go by, couples’ communication skills may get worse instead of improving. You may talk less than you once did and grow tired of arguments. When your partner asks about your day, you may not find it necessary to include every little detail about it. While it seems innocuous at the time, your communication skills as a couple may get worse and worse over time.
To maintain a relationship, however, you need to communicate effectively. There’s always room for improvement in a relationship, especially when it comes to communication. After a breach of trust, feelings are tense and uncertain. By maintaining open communication, you will know exactly how your partner feels. You will both find comfort in the fact that you can be open and vulnerable with one another.
2. Work On Moving Forward Instead of Backwards
When there’s a breach of trust in a relationship, it typically revolves around a certain event or series of events. For example, infidelity is a breach of trust that many couples grapple with overcoming. Though the unfaithful partner may show remorse, it can be hard to move on knowing that they’ve cheated on you.
However, if you want to mend your relationship, you have to find a way to focus on the future. It may take time to be able to let go of the past, and that’s okay. You don’t have to be able to forgive and forget overnight. As you continue to work on your relationship, however, you can’t focus only on the past. If you want to move forward as a couple, then you need to work towards picturing a future together.
3. Practice Forgiveness
If your partner has betrayed you, it may be hard to forgive them at first. You may question if you’ll ever be able to forgive them. To push a relationship forward after a breach of trust, however, forgiveness is essential. Of course, there are many levels of forgiveness to take into consideration.
First, the offending partner has to want forgiveness. They need to feel actual remorse and understand how their actions have affected their relationship. If they don’t acknowledge the severity of their actions, then you may run into similar breaches of trust down the road.
You also have to be willing to forgive yourself. When your partner betrays you, you may feel guilt, shame, or even responsibility for what happened. You may fall into the rabbit hole of assuming that if you’d done something different, they wouldn’t have betrayed you. While it’s a common thing to feel, you can’t let it control your life. Be kind and forgiving to yourself, even when it feels impossible.
Finally, you have to be willing to forgive your partner. Many people struggle to forgive their partner after a breach of trust, which is understandable. However, if you want to mend the breach of trust, you have to be willing to offer forgiveness. It may not come instantly, but as you continue to work on your relationship, practice forgiveness whenever possible.
