Rebuilding trust in a marriage once YOU have broken it …

Trust is an essential component to a lasting marriage. Once violated, many marriages will fail.

But that doesn’t have to be the case.

It is possible to rebuild the bond of trust in a marriage where one has broken it, but doing so will take a serious and sustained effort on your part.

It’s important to fully grasp that when you break trust:

• • Understand the depth of harm you have inflicted upon the relationship. Breaking the bond of trust isn’t a little mistake, a simple error, or of moderate consequence; breaking the bond of trust fractures a relationship.
  • Understand that while God calls us to forgive, that doesn’t mean you have to be trusted again. Whether or not you will be trusted again will come only by you proving you can be trusted. That requires time and testing.
  • Understand that your spouse may actually be quick to forgive you, but learning to trust you again is usually a slow process.
  • Understand a consequence of breaking trust could be a permanent change in the relationship. For example, your spouse may learn to trust you again, but not as fully as previously; or your spouse may insist on new boundaries be set to protect rebuilt bonds of trust.
  • And critically important, understand that sin that generates breaking trust with your spouse is a sin issue between you and God. You’ll have to fully deal with the issue with God in order to be able to have any success in restoring trust with your spouse.

HOW CAN I FIX THIS?
When you are guilty of breaking the bond of trust in your marriage, there are some necessary steps you must take as part of a diligent effort to rebuild trust with your spouse.

1. Confess. No excuses, no partial confessions. You must take the entire responsibility of your action of breaking trust, AND accept the total blame for it. People argue here that it’s not an issue of blame, but it actually is. When your partner has been committed to be trustworthy, and you have purposely broken trust with them, there’s a single person to blame for your violation of that trust — you. Own every part of your guilt. During this process, listen to the response of your spouse, and answer fully all of their questions.

2. Restate your commitment to them. With a break in trust comes a questioning of that person’s commitment to the relationship. If you’re going to reconcile breaking trust with your partner, you must convincingly restate to them your ongoing commitment to them.

3. Repent. There’s an old saying that the best apology is real change. Real change is a requirement to rebuilding trust with your spouse. You must fully repent of whatever the sin was that resulted in broken trust, meaning changing everything about you that led you to break trust with your spouse. That will take God working in you to transform your life.

4. Accept reasonable demands and boundaries. Once you’ve broken trust with your spouse, you don’t offer a simple apology and then your partner restarts the process of trusting you again. They may initially have some reasonable demands or new boundaries they will require of you in the reconciling process. Embrace any of these demands or boundaries that are reasonable.

5. Be deliberate about proving yourself to be trustworthy once again. Do NOT expect your spouse to simply take your word for it that you are just as trustworthy now as you were before you broke trust with him or her. Instead, be consistent in demonstrating your commitment to your spouse. Be consistent in demonstrating that you are reliable and dependable. Make sure you DON’T say you will do something unless you know you can. This is the critical part of your rebuilding trust — a long season of consistently and deliberately demonstrating trustworthiness.

6. Be patient with the other person as they learn to trust you again. Your breaking trust with your spouse hurt them and harmed your marriage. As a result, your spouse will likely want to protect themselves from being hurt again by you, which means a mental, emotional, and even spiritual struggle to allow themselves to trust you rather than build walls to protect themself. Give them all the time they need to be convinced you have repented and are worthy of their trust going forward.

A FEW RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE OFFENDED SPOUSE
If you discover that your spouse has broken trust with you:

• • Don’t react emotionally to a little information. Instead, learn the details, then prayerfully and thoughtfully respond.
  • Don’t retaliate. When someone hurts us, we reactively want to hurt them back for the pain they have caused. Don’t. Reacting in anger will make the harm to the marriage worse and harder to reconcile from.
  • Make a decision to forgive, then act on it. Many times I’ve seen spouses claim they have forgiven their partner, but then confront their partner over and over again about their guilt and the pain they have caused. Make a genuine decision to forgive them, and then actually do it.
  • Recognize the restored trustworthiness of your spouse. When you observe that your spouse has sincerely repented and has deliberately demonstrated a revived trustworthiness, acknowledge to them the change you have seen and your increasing trust in them.

Breaking trust with your spouse hurts them and causes serious harm to the marriage relationship, but with God’s help you can rebuild trust again. Sometimes seeking guidance from your pastor or a skilled Christian clinical counselor can be a great help in working through all it will take to rebuild trust, so don’t hesitate to seek help when needed.

Scotty