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Areas › Your marriage › Rebuilding trust
Rebuilding trust means an open life: whereabouts, contacts, the truth, offered freely rather than pried out.
Be mindful of God, and stand with those who are true (Quran 9:119). Rebuilding trust is a daily standing with the truth.
التوبة
يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ ٱتَّقُواْ ٱللَّهَ وَكُونُواْ مَعَ ٱلصَّٰدِقِينَ
You who believe, be mindful of God: stand with those who are true
Qur’an 9:119read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
In Gottman's atone phase the partner who broke trust makes their life open, answering questions honestly rather than being cross-examined into it. Transparency that is offered rather than extracted is what makes trust possible again.
John M. Gottman (2011). The Science of Trust: Emotional Attunement for Couples. W. W. Norton
Atone, Attune, Attach. The betrayer atones without conditions and the hurt partner sets the pace; the couple then rebuilds attunement; and only then attachment. Skipping ahead to reconnection produces what Gottman calls cheap forgiveness.
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Full, voluntary transparency from the one who broke trust is the foundation on which trust can be rebuilt.
Where this sits: Gottman method, Trust and Commitment; Affairs, Phase 1: Atone (transparency).
Let the hurt partner set the pace of healing. It takes as long as it takes; there is no rushing trust back.
A betrayal is the choice of the one who made it. Unhappiness never forced it, and it is not the hurt partner's fault.
After a betrayal, heal by talking the injury through together, fully, rather than skipping past it in silence.