How To Trust Again?
By: Jun Wu
Tags: Family, Relationships, Trust, Self, Friendship

Long term relationships, whether they are friendships, love relationships, or family relationships are often fraught with ambiguities. Often, we are projecting our realities and feeling hurt when we don’t receive the desired responses. We tell ourselves narratives about one another that clouds our judgment and amplify our differences.

When breaks happen, it’s difficult to find the peace of mind to come together again. Forgiveness is the key to understanding past actions and reconciling them. But, the space between forgiveness and trusting again can feel like that insurmountable gap that lingers and creates that eternity of silence.

I often call this gap, the “chasm”, in my relationships that suffer breaks.

Before you trust again, you need to understand that there’s no requirement for you to trust again.

When you are evaluating whether to trust someone again after forgiving them, you should not be thinking about them, rather you should be thinking about “you”.

Thinking about them at this stage cues to tendencies to people please. If you think about what their needs are at this stage, then you are missing the point.

The point is to evaluate when you have healed enough to move on. It is okay to take time. Moving on doesn’t imply that you will want to commit to overcoming the “chasm”.

Sometimes, moving on implies moving on with different people.

Overcome the guilt of forgiving quickly and moving on.

I meditate. I do yoga. But, there are times, when even the best mechanisms of letting go are simply not enough to heal that gap in between forgiveness and trusting again.

You have to overcome the guilt of not making a speedy decision, not deciding to give it another chance, and not wanting to continue when so much time/effort has been invested.

Stop feeling guilty for feeling that hurt even when you have forgiven the person. Stop feeling guilty for feeling triggered. Acknowledge the trigger and determine a better response.

Even when you feel genuine compassion for who they are, what they have gone through, and how they have changed, you still have a choice on whether you want to re-engage with the person.

Little steps every day are more trustworthy than the big decision to trust again.

I don’t rely on those big decisions anymore. They are not trustworthy in relationships unless they are backed by people showing up every day. There are times when people are simply not able to show up emotionally in the same way that you’d like them to.

Then, time heals. Time must be taken in those circumstances.

When trust has been breached in a major way, you have to allow for that period of adjustment, where small steps are taken every day to shed light on whether this relationship is worth pursuing again.

This goes for every kind of relationship, even family relationships.

I’ve noticed that when I jump into that big decision, forgiving people and then immediately trusting them again, there is the inevitable incongruence in my thinking and actions.

This incongruence shows up as “forced” actions.

You are not ready to engage in every day close interactions with them, yet you are thrust into that scenario because you think you have forgiven them and it’s okay.

What you find is that you are “forcing” yourself to be okay when they fall into the same old patterns that made you disconnect from the first place.

Re-establishing trusting patterns imply mending the old.

There’s no way that re-engaging can be productive unless it’s a brand new relationship or you are establishing healthier relationship patterns.

For instance, with estranged parents who may have their struggles and frequently fall into old patterns of relating to the world, when you re-engage with them, you may need to establish rules, boundaries, and teach them new ways of communicating with you.

With an ex-lover or an ex-friend, you may want to pursue an entirely new relationship with them than the one that you had before.

Perhaps they are meant to be a certain kind of person in your life. They are not meant to fill the “heavy shoes” of being a partner, a lover, or even a parent.

Sometimes, you have to reparent yourself and be your partner to see that they are not here to complete you. When they don’t meet your expectations, you can pick yourself up and fill that emotional void.

With every relationship, it’s better to find out where they fit in your life and steer that relationship toward this ultimate fit, than to force it to be something else that you imagined it to be.

You should be scared and they should meet you halfway.

Trusting relationships involve two people. If it’s one person doing the work, then it’s never going to work out. If you are in a family, then everyone has to contribute. There are no freebies.

It’s tempting to think that every relationship can overcome that gap between forgiving and trusting again.

In truth, very few relationships can overcome that gap to become something entirely new and worth cherishing. This is why people don’t date their ex-lovers again. This is why estranged parents often stay estranged for many years and decades.

On the other side, you can come out of the cycles of disfunction and decide to engage differently. By engaging differently and trying to overcome the gap, you learn relationship skills, conflict resolution and you learn to trust your instincts.

By overcoming what seems impossible at times, seeing people as multifaceted beings who grow into better versions of themselves, and taking the “you” out of the equation, you can extend a compassionate hand even in bad situations.

How do long term spouses forgive their better half’s infidelities during midlife crisis?

What overcoming that gap looks like?

Overcoming the gap between forgiveness and trusting relationship takes months and years of work. It’s not rainbows and roses. It’s arguments, conflicts, and trying to bridge the ever-changing needs of one another. It’s compromising and understanding the other person’s point of view.

It’s letting new situations point out the worst parts of you and learning to change your ways.

When you step through that gap, you will see a new relationship slowly emerge between you and your person. You will feel like old patterns are being demolished with each engagement. You will feel like you are coming to new understandings. You will feel like they surprise you in how they are engaging with you. You will feel like there are new possibilities for the relationship now. You will like how you are with them now.

You will feel joyful in your interactions with them. You will relinquish past assumptions about them and commit to choosing to trust them again.

Every day, you will feel stronger and more solid in your relationship. Every day, you are on a discovery of who they are now and what your relationship can become.

How do you get there?

Many small steps are taken to overcome this gap. One of the biggest is to choose to not let yourself fall into old patterns with them now. The only person you can control in a relationship is you.

Think strategically about how you want to engage with them now. For instance, if you were weak with a bully before and was taken advantage of, then you need to establish strong boundaries with them now.

If you feel like there were many misunderstandings in the past because you didn’t communicate well, then take the time to communicate, verify, and come to an objective conclusion about them.

The point is to take the time to see how you can handle this situation, react to them, and adjust your expectations.

For relationships where one person simply cannot change, then radical acceptance is called for. I always think about the type of relationship that will allow me to stay in contact with the person without having to fully immerse myself in their struggles.

This is difficult to do with family but it can be done. With family members that have mental health issues, this is what you will need to do to support them. No matter how many times they breach your trust, because they are your family, you try.

You are compassionate in understanding their struggles and making allowances for them. And, you don’t have to be a pushover.

You can draw firm boundaries, demonstrate the ideal behavior you’d like to see, and see if your person can meet you halfway.