I Love You But I Don't Trust You: The Complete Guide to Restoring Trust in Your Relationship

by Mira Kirshenbaum

A betrayal

happens when you don’t take into account another person

who is relying...

that he can’t help it, she’s doing her best, it’s not his

No, trust is like your heart. Without your heart, you’re not going to have a body. Your body can’t function without a heart.

saying, Look at how much pain I’m in.

We need to know that the other person knows the full impact of what he’s done.

It’s not even the end of the beginning. It’s the beginning of the beginning.

there’s a lot of work to do.

DON’T JUST STAND THERE. DO SOMETHING.

I have been standing there.

trust. It will drive the mistrust underground where it never changes, never heals. Politeness and a neutral atmosphere might feel safe, but they are no substitute for trust. All they do is promote distance, so the couple end up like two people in separate life

And so the mistake here is doing nothing. The mistake is being so glad the anger’s died down a little, so glad that the threat of leaving is less ominous, that you want to pretend that everything is okay.

So if you’ve been betrayed and you’re scared and exhausted from all the anger that’s come out from both of you and you suddenly feel that possibility of committing to each other again and there’s a part of you that just wants to let things ride, DON’T. Instead, you need to say to the other person something like, “Look, we’ve been through hell. And I know we’re both feeling burned out. But we still have a real problem. Trust was seriously damaged. Now that we can begin to talk to each other without going nuts, we have to start repairing that damage.”

And how do you do that exactly? Most people don’t have a clue. All we know how to do is act so angry and

CAN WE REPAIR THE PROBLEM THAT GOT US INTO TROUBLE IN THE FIRST PLACE?

That’s a beginning, but can you really trust that I won’t lie again? There was a reason why I lied in the first place. Maybe the reason was in me. Some fear, or some lack of skill. But maybe the reason had something to do with you: maybe you were doing something that made it hard for me to be honest.

It’s not your fault that you were betrayed. Period. A betrayal is like a mugging. It’s not your fault that you were mugged either. So there’s nothing anyone could ever point to and say that justifies your being betrayed.

him. I was very unsupportive when my husband was going through a difficult time himself. Somehow, I had withdrawn from him. And he felt it very keenly. The mistake I made was something like what I wrote about in my book The Weekend Marriage: busy and stressed out, I acted as if I could put my husband and our relationship on a back shelf where it would just sit there like a package of Twinkies and never get stale or go sour.

rails. My part in the problem was that I ignored his needs and sent us off the rails.

emotionally. You will need to be in a place where you can have normal conversations about normal things. A place where you are at least beginning to feel that the other person does see how difficult this has all been for you.

It’s a prevention conversation.

“I’d like to prevent this from ever happening again. This has nothing to do with our blaming each other. No blame, okay? But let’s see if we can figure out if there isn’t something about you and about me that led to this happening. Please tell me if there’s anything I did that somehow led to your doing what you did.

This is a problem-identifying and problem-solving conversation. If you can’t do it without blowing up at each other, then you need to find a professional who can help you. Many couples can do this on their own if they just wait until the worst of the anger has died down.

Blame is a fundamental mistake people make in trying to find forgiveness and restore trust.

The pill is this: Whenever there’s been a betrayal there are problems on both sides and both people need to take responsibility for the part they’ve played.

is to just not hear the blame.

You’ll just hear what the other person says as a fact.

resentment, but to them it’s a fact nonetheless.

That’s the key to problem solving without blame: You refuse to hear blame. You just hear a need. And you don’t judge that need nor do you try to justify yourself for whether or not you’ve tried to meet that need.

You hear the need and talk about trying to

specific, I don’t accept what you need and you don’t accept that I have trouble giving it to you.

Something that should be easy, we feel, turns out to be really hard. Instead of it being like walking into McDonald’s wanting a Big Mac, it’s like walking into an unknown restaurant where the chef is very busy and you don’t know what he can make for you, nor does he know what you really

That way your expectations will be in line with reality. And it works the same way when it comes to problem-solving. You need to accept the following:

future. If you can’t find a way to give each other what you need—to even listen to each other talk about what you need—then you should probably look at whether it even makes sense for the two of you to be together.

All of this prevents listening from happening. And, you see, if you don’t feel that I’m really listening to you, then you won’t feel you can deal with me or even talk to me. So you’re that much more likely to just go off and do whatever the hell you want. And then I’ll feel betrayed.

Or maybe it’s because you can’t listen to me that you don’t understand where I’m coming from and what I need. And so you go off and do whatever

And here’s a big, big tip: Listening means hearing. And you show you’ve heard by reflecting back what you’ve heard. That means doing anything from repeating the same...

paying attention to offering solutions that show that you get what the other person was saying. It’s so clear...

empty. How can I make you feel you matter to me when I’m feeling I’m just putting out and not getting much back? I realize it’s hard. Harder now than ever. But the fact remains: If I don’t make you feel that you matter to me, that just loosens the bonds between us.

And you’re that much more likely to go off and do something that will make me feel betrayed. You may very well not even see it as a betrayal, because if you don’t matter to me, then what difference does it make what you do?

It’s all about the little things.

important: being able to decide together what you’re going to do when you don’t start out wanting the same thing.

Unfortunately, snooping is often a big part of the aftermath of betrayal: you hurt me so much that in order for me to feel safe I need to keep tabs on you.

perfect. Things become safer and better because both people work together to try to achieve these important results.

That’s what forgiveness is: a decision that you won’t let what the other person did stand between the two of you anymore.

But nonetheless, you will do your best to move forward with the relationship.