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The Biggest Enemy to Marriage
Trust is fragile. Once broken it is hard to mend. This is all the more so in a marriage. When trust is gone, the marriage is on shaky ground. Thus it is imperative to restore trust to save a marriage that is heading for break-up. Let me share two critical elements in restoring trust.
Two Critical Elements to Restore Trust
Although it may be difficult to restore trust, it is not impossible. Trust can be restored through two main elements. These two elements are attitude and action. There are attitudes for both partners to adopt. Firstly, on the part of the erring partner, to restore trust there must be openness, accountability and assurance. In essence, these three things are different attitudes. Allow me to elaborate on these three attitudes.
The attitude of openness is displayed by allowing the aggrieved partner to ask any question he or she wants for as long as necessary. It is better for your partner to ask concerning anything that still troubles him or her than to keep it inside only for it to flare up in future and destroy trust again. The attitude of openness leads to accountability.
Being accountable to your partner is a crucial step in restoring your partner's trust in you even though it might be an inconvenience to be accountable. It is important that you bear with the inconvenience and not give in to irritability, impatience or frustration. If need be, allow yourselves to be accountable not only to one another, but to another close friend or marriage counselor. Having an objective third party friend helping out goes a long way in restoring trust. Once openness and accountability are achieved, the third attitude of assurance becomes much easier to attain.
Your partner needs to be assured because she might be thinking whether it was a mistake marrying you. Thoughts such as, "If he has done it before, he may do it again," will be running through her mind. These thoughts make your partner feel extremely vulnerable. Moreover, your partner may find it more difficult than you to leave the past behind and move on. Be patient with her. This is because what she wants is different from what you want. You want closure and to move on whereas she wants assurance. So give your partner the assurance that she needs. These three attitudes are for the partner who is in the wrong to adopt. But trust cannot be fully restored without the other partner. The partner who has been betrayed also has attitudes to adopt to restore trust.
On the part of the aggrieved partner, the attitude of letting go of the past failures of your partner is essential. If you keep remembering and harping on the wrongs of your partner, you will never be able to trust him or her. Your attitude should be to forgive and forget as far as possible. Do not hold your partner's wrongs against him or her. Closely linked to the attitude of releasing the past is the next attitude.
The next attitude is that of believing the best about your partner. There must be intentionality in giving your partner the benefit of the doubt and believing that he or she is trustworthy. Coupled with that is the attitude of giving second chances. This does not mean condoning infidelity or deceit but it does mean that you are willing to keep on trying provided there is repentance and change by your partner. Now let me share about the next element required to restore trust, that is action.
Correct attitudes would lead to correct action. The erring partner should take appropriate actions such as changing behavior, breaking off an affair or becoming a more responsible spouse or parent. The other partner must reciprocate in like manner with actions such as acceptance, support and cooperating with your partner in rebuilding the relationship between the two of you. Restoring trust is a process, built through persistent, sustained and appropriate attitudes and actions of both partners. Cooperate with one another. Help one other trust each other more. As mentioned, get another couple to hold you both accountable. People usually do what is inspected rather than what is expected. To discover all about attitudes and actions that can improve or save your marriage, get my FREE report, "Practical Tips on Improving Your Marriage" from http://www.savemarriagestoday.com .
Conclusion
Trust is the foundation of any relationship. The closer the relationship, the more important trust is to that relationship. There is no other relationship closer than marriage for two human beings. Thus restoring trust is imperative to save any marriage.
Desr Mr. Lee.......Thank you so very much for the best advice on the subject of restoring trust in marriage . My husband is a chronic liar and has finally sought help. I am so hurt and damaged and your advice has helped so very, very much. May God Bless you. Jan
You are very kind, Jan. Reading comments like yours really makes my day! The greatest fulfillment I have is knowing people are encouraged and blessed by reading what I write. So thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Without infidelity, but rather with a series of events that look really bad, I found myself at this article. You gave me some great ideas to try. Thank you so much :)
Hi, thank you for your question. My sincere apologies for responding late. When the aggrieved partner does not want to let go of the past, it's basically a defense mechanism. Past memories of being hurt is something to hold against the offending partner 'just in case' it happens again. That's why the aggrieved partner still holds on to it.
The other thing is that holding on to the past indicates that the aggrieved partner has not fully forgiven the offending partner. Either that, or the aggrieved partner has forgiven but has not forgotten the hurt. Obviously, no one can forget the past BUT one can firmly decide to leave the past behind to move ahead. This is what the aggrieved partner must be helped to do.
If you are the offending partner, you need to help your partner to leave the past behind and move forward together with you. The most important key to do that is to show her (or him) that you have indeed changed.
Everything about you must be different. Review everything in your life that has any link with the person you had a wrong relationship with. Then make changes....no matter how radical it is. For example, if the person you had a relationship with was an office colleague, you need to change your work environment in some way. Either request a transfer to another department or better still, get another job. I know it might not be so easy to do but I'm sure you get the idea. Do all that is necessary to show you have changed. If you still have any items (such as photos or reminders of any sort) of the person you had a relationship with, destroy them. I teach those in my marriage counseling classes to get rid of all photos of ex-girlfriends/boyfriends even if they feel no attachment to it anymore. Believe me, it's better this way.
The more your aggrieved partner can be convinced you have changed, the better. This is the most crucial step in getting her/him to leave the past behind and move forward with you.
» left by andrei from philippines (123 days 16 hours ago.)
I am a husband for two years and I admit, I broke the trust of my wife due to illicit relationship with other woman. I am so honest on telling her the detailed issue. My point of not telling her so as not hurt her more. These thing had happen when this woman admitted that she likes me and that was the first time I've heard a woman telling me how she appreciates myself. I was flattered and we have communication through texting. She knows that I am married. Though no sexual acts made but the fact we had a good time talking over the phone and text messages pushes me to like her also. This had happen when we were not in good terms with my wife. Have already quit texting her and focussed on restoring the trust of my wife. This article helps me a lot. Thanks...
Thank you for your comments, Andrei. I'm glad my writing helped. I wish you all the best in your marriage. Help your wife trust you again by showing her that you have changed. Remove every connection you had with that other woman. This includes past photos, memorabilia, gifts etc (if any). Love your wife unconditionally. Guard your heart...don't allow your feelings to go towards any other woman. If you go through a bad patch in your relationship with your wife, talk to a male friend or clergy about it to get emotional support. In this way, your devotion will always be for your wife and no one else.
» left by Carol Aquino from Philippines (114 days 19 hours ago.)
Good day to you,Abraham..
I saw your article about restoring trust in a broken marriage and this applies to me since my horrible nightmare just happened nearly two weeks ago..
I have been married for 10 years now,and so far,my misunderstandings with my husband were mostly about third parties.We rarely fight,for we get along well together.Until only around two weeks ago when somebody informed me that my husband had a secret affair with his former employee in our restaurant business.When our restaurant was opened two years ago,the woman was hired by my husband,and from that time on,I was a bit suspicious as to why my husband has been so close to her.Even when there was a time we are in a vacation,he decided to brought her a hand bag as a present,saying she was a devoted manager of our business.I was convinced,and so it goes.According to a witness,my husband has been courting her for two straight years,persisting and waiting for her to say "yes" to his love.When she finally proposed to my husband the day AFTER our 10th wedding anniversary,I could imagine how happy husband feels at that time!That they are finally sweethearts after waiting for two long years!I wasn't aware of this,for I rarely go out at night,the time they usually go out for a date..secretly.They are confident thinking that because I was an understanding and a weak wife nothing will happen nor stop them from what they are doing!I was speechless when the witness show to me a photograph of my husband embracing that woman!"That was really him!",I cried to myself.I couldn't believe and was in a state of shock.I did not expect my husband will do this to me,for he promised me during our marriage that he will love no other woman but me,that is why he proposed to me.They have been together as secret lovers for two months,until I discovered it just now!If you compare a 10-year marriage to a 2-month relationship,there is a BIG difference, for my husband gave all his love,care,sincerity,and thoughtfulness to that woman as he seldom do it to me,his legally-married wife!I confronted him but he keeps on denying until I show to him pictures in which I also found in his wallet,for he knew I never search his wallet because of my trust in him.He sat silent,unable to talk,looking at his pictures with his woman.That is time he finally confessed and ask for forgiveness.
I couldn't just forgive a person who betrayed my trust, especially that he was my husband!I have loved him, feed him, gave him blessings, care for him,and yet, he did this dreadful thing to me!It is true that I sometimes refuse to make love to him because of my stress of running my errands with my children and household,but that doesn't mean I don't love him at all.No wonder during these past month he no longer asked me for it,it's because he already had an affair, and they get along well together!I had confronted the woman as well,bursting out all my flares and angers to her that I nearly want to slap her face!I couldn't stop crying,and my children were already affected.I decided to end up our 10-year marriage in legal separation.
But my husband insisted of asking for forgiveness promising that he will never do it again.He refused to eat for three days as a sign of his suffering and regret.I did not pay attention to him,for my heart was as hard as a stone.Now it's my time to get up and make him pay for all the wrongs he have done.He should not test me,because I knew he did.He said he was tempted, full of lust for that woman,who was 25 years his junior!That he was only using her because of her body,and gave her many endearing,sweet words so to make her fall in love with him.But the question is,why should my husband go further deeper into a very serious relationship with that woman if he is only trying to use her?Why he is always saying "I love you" to her everyday as he seldom did it to me?Am I still in his mind if they go out together?
Until now,my wedding ring in my finger is still missing,a sign that my love and trust for my husband is completely gone.I cannot guarantee that if I forgive him, he will never do such immoral things again,especially he doesn't admit so easily.The woman is still around in our town,as what the witness said she got away.Almost everyday I keep on forcing my husband to send ALL messages of her and his to me,because I know they are always texting and calling to each other before of my sudden discovery.
Please help me what to do.I am in deep trouble now.If only I could back time,I have to correct everything, and perhaps,by not marrying my husband at all.I have no peace of mind and in my heart,the wound is still there.It seems as if it will remain in my life forever..
Thank you so much for posting these articles on the web. My wife and I have been fighting alot more lately and she wasn't very happy in the relationship. I took a job where I was traveling all the time and wasn't at home to work things out. Finally I started to suspect things and got into all of her private things such as phone, emails, computers. I found some stuff on there and started to get furious and just started to accuse her of having an affair. Finally she came home one day and I started in on it again and she told me that we needed some time apart. Luckily for me she kept me in the house and I started to realize what an idiot I was. Reading these articles has been extremely helpful to me and it has changed the way I think about life and marriage.
» left by Johanna from Australia (31 days 13 hours ago.)
Dear Abraham,
Your advice is eagerly received however, my husband has broken my trust so many times during our 15 years of marriage that I find myself considerably uncaring about him. I have forgiven so many times but I guess not entirely forgotten and I just don't know how to get over this last episode of outright lies and deciet. Each time he has behaved contrary to what it means to be married I have never been able to find out the whole truth and that has caused me to not totally let go because I know that he will behave in this untrustworthy manner again. He does not like it when I find out truths about where he was or what he did but he has never divulged to me the whole truth. He seems to think he has some power in being able to behave in a bad way and not have to be accountable in any way. In fact he thinks me downright sneaky if I catch him out about what is really going on. He keeps saying he will change and he has learned to control his anger but he still acts as if he is a law unto himself. He says that he will change but I can only judge that on a future consistency basis so for now I would like to adopt a wait and see attitude. I know this is not what God expects from me but at the same time I want no more of what has been the past. I will re read your advice and try through prayer to find the attitude for restoration that you speak of. I feel in my mind I can do it buy my heart is telling me he will get up to no good again. It may take 6 months or 5 years but it will happen. What can I do? Johanna
Hi, Im so glad I read this message. I agreed on the changes made and I even told my husband that he had to change. This is not just an "Im sorry" and it goes away, this is one of those "I need to see your sorry"
Im really having a problem with stopping the pain I feel inside! Here is what happened,.. Last week I came home to find my husband distraught, he could not sleep, he is a day sleeper and he works nights, Im a night sleeper, but he could not sleep because what he was doing was eating him up but my question is was it really because it was eating at him and that is why he could not sleep knowing he HAD to tell me what he had been doing or is it because he might have screwed up the computer because of what he had been doing? He told me he might have crashed the computer because of what he had been looking at. Im sure you have guessed what My husband had been looking up on the net and has been doing it off and on for the last year and a half or so. But He could not do it for maybe 6 to 8 months as our computer was not in our home, it had to be fixed and we forgot to get it back where we have a laptop and really dont like the desk top computer. He said he NEVER used the laptop when he was doing this kind of thing. So why start back up again? When you quit, why start back up an old habit? I think about how I cant be hard on him as I have done this same thing many years ago, way before computers though, I have not ever used the computer to look at naked guys. Anyway, This is something I did because my husband before this one looked at naked girls in the playboy magazine and I just was being dumb and naive, I knew it was bad but was not talked about that I knew of, but now you hear many talks in the church not to look at porn. So I think we all screw up and I cant be mad where I did kind of the same way before this marriage. But now he knows better, our Leaders in our church tells us over and over not to do it so why start up? But I think Im doing good and then the pain comes again.
Here is the hard part, on the day he told me, is the same day that I go to Weight Watchers and it started some time after our 20th Anniversary and stopped just before our 21st Anniversary and just after I had lost 70lbs because our computer was gone but he started right back up again when the computer came back this last summer which is many months later. WHY?
Not only that, he told me he was lonely on the day I went to Weight Watchers and that was the day he would look at porn. How could he do that to me? After I had worked so hard for so long to lose weight and keep it off and its been almost 3 years now, so why would he not come to me? I even start to blame myself because for many years I have not let him see me naked where I had gained weight but we still had sex. Is that my fault? Did I drive him to it? I even had a feeling like 2 weeks before that if i did not start to let him see me naked he might start going else where. Too late for that feeling he had already gone there.
Our life is not changed from many years of marriage, im not even sure when I stopped letting him see me naked and where he works nights and sleeps days our times are so off that even showers are not together anymore, so it just got away from us and I stopped letting him see me, Im ashamed of how I look, I still have 20 lbs to get off before Im at goal weight and I think my body is ugly, fat, gross and even grotesque, everything sags, EW! And if we have sex its rare, like really rare, we could go 3 to 6 months and nothing, he dont put forth an effort for it and Im the one who does. And many times I get turned down. So Im thinking that is the reason he does not want me and looks at others on the net.
Plus am I going to think every time I go to Weight Watchers will I have the fear of him doing this again even though he promised? I know its only been a week but today was such a hard day going back to Weight Watchers, I did not want to go but forced myself to go anyway and to take care of me and all I could think about was, "what is he doing while Im gone" I even talked to him before I left about it and he reassured me he promised he would not do it again. But I still started to hurt all the way there, I could not think while in class because all I could think of was how hurt I was and the ride home was more thoughts and I cried on the way home. My heart is so broken! How do I get through this and keep our marriage together? I have always trusted my husband without any doubt and I love my
husband and I want our marriage to work. I want to trust him like I
always have but will I really feel that way again? Im hurting right now
but will I feel like I did in the past? Or will this carry over and
break us apart?
I have not talked to anyone about it until now and I feel bad Im putting it here for everyone to read but I need help and someone to talk to who can help me through it. I feel all alone. My husband told our bishop. Im glad for him, he is getting help so thats good. But now I dont feel I can talk to our bishop, I can see he is there 100% for my husband but I said how I felt and all I got for expressing my feelings was cut off and scolded by the bishop so I dont have anyone for me to talk to. He had my husband come in to give him a blessing, I needed one too but never asked after I got scolded and he never offered. So If anyone can help, I really need it.
» left by Patti from Michigan (27 minutes ago.) New Comment!
i found this website by looking online for help/advice? on my marriage dilemma. my husband and i have been married for 3 years this coming November (next week). Unfortunately, I have lost my trust and respect for him due to many factors that have happened in the past. I can't seem to get past them, or let them go. I am going to counseling on my own, yet he refuses to; he feels that he hasn't done anything 'wrong' and has no issues, only i do. some of the anger/trust issues I've been struggling with is the following: We met through mutual friends. We are both in our 40's, as are they. Several times I caught sight of my female friend and my future husband flirting openly with each other, very obviously. to the point of touching, etc. I still don't know if they ever had an affair, but it was obvious that some kind of attraction was there. My husband brushed it off, saying that i was insecure. after several attempts at getting him to stop the behavior out of respect for me, he refused. finally, i got the nerve up to confront her about it, and that ended our friendship, with her being very angry and again, blaming me for my insecurities. Move ahead to our living together.....again, another girlfriend of mine and her husband are friends of ours. One night in the local pub, i looked under the table and found my husbands hand on my friend's thigh. i spoke up, and you guessed it, was told that it was 'all in fun', just a friendly pat on the leg. then i was attacked by both, basically, for 'starting things', and overreacting. of course, my husband denied it was anything but 'friendly pat'. by this time, my anger is at an all time high, and again, after asking him to come clean and talk to me about it which he refused to do, i ended the friendship with my friend. of course, that again made me the 'bad guy'. We both struggled through what is still (on my part) a very angry time through our marriage, that is still happening. During the time it started, i decided to start going out with girlfriends once a week to get away from him, which i recognize isn't the right thing to do, although throughout my adult life i've always made a date night once a week with girlfriends. As a result, my husband decided to start trashing me to anyone in the neighborhood who are our friends, in an effort to gain sympathy, while putting me, his wife, down and criticizing me. My anger continues to swell, although he still refuses counseling, and to acknowledge any of his wrongdoings. Fast forward to the past 6 months....he moved into the spare bedroom, we haven't been intimate or slept together in 6+ months. I finally gave up on going to his room to find his bedroom door locked, and gave up trying. i'm now in full-time nursing school, trying hard to get through while still living with him, but keeping to myself in my office. Recently, i ran into his ex-wife and confided in her, hoping to gain some insight into our problems without going into too much detail. The friendship started out on a good note, but after a recent party that she and her husband invited me to, she has suddenly become very nosy. Understandable. But now the cattyness has come into play. I sought her out to get answers as to why my husband won't touch me, or sleep with me. he's very hush hush whenever i ask questions about his past relationship with his ex=wife, and refuses to talk about it. If i ask to go somewhere and he's been there with his ex, he simply tells me, "i've been there with my ex; and I'm not going back." I finally just gave up asking to do anything anymore with him. Now, here's the strange part: the ex told me to ask for an 'open marriage', since he won't sleep with me!! I would never dream of it, not that way. She has suggested it 3 times now. she also sent me home with a bag full of nostalgic cards from his deceased mom that she had, along with cards & love notes from him/her back in the day. She has almost begun to "stalk" me now with constant emails and questions. When I gave my husband the bag of things, he went straight into 'his room', locked the door, and obviously went through the bag. I told my husband that she had suggested this wierd 'open marriage' thing...his response?? "I don't want to sleep with HER". It made me think this...."But you might consider sleeping with someone else??" The conclusion that I'm coming to these days is that they DID in fact have an open marriage, he's afraid to tell me truths by not speaking to me about his past, and he is unwilling to fight for our marriage or to rebuild my trust, because it's 'not his fault'. And oh yes, before I forget, he called me a "user" last week based on the fact that i'm a full time student with 6 months left to graduation, and had to leave my full time job. I know what kind of a response I'm probably going to get; and that is that I'm a fool. However, I want nothing more than to save my marriage and make it work. If anyone has suggestions, I would be so grateful. Nothing that I've tried is working.
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