Restoring Trust

Marriage is a relationship built on mutual promises and stabilized by those promises. But what if we don’t keep our promises? Then, of course, the relationship becomes shaky. Husband and wife feel like two house painters standing on a plank, supported by wobbly ladders. They experience constant tension and unsteadiness.

Betrayed trust resembles a bad wound. It hurts, it is deep, and it takes some time to heal. Even with complete healing, some sensitivity may remain. For that reason, it’s better not to betray a trust at all. For the more intimate the relationship, the more potential for broken trust to cause deep, lasting hurt.

Broken trust leads to some very unpleasant consequences:

• We may lose our openness. Unfaithfulness hurts us so we withdraw and close. Over the years we develop layer upon layer of defensiveness, like an oyster producing a pearl. The result? Two people, hard as marbles toward one another.
• We may plot retaliation. Wounded by unfaithfulness, we plot revenge. Revenge can take many forms. We stop cooperating, communicating, or caring, just to get back at our husband or wife. In some marriages both husband and wife have been disappointed so often that the marriage has become a war. Such wars have no winners.
• We may look for a substitute. Susan, married ten years, had been deeply hurt by her husband’s sexual unfaithfulness. She couldn’t trust him, but she wanted someone she could trust. Susan became vulnerable to another man’s empty promises. As you might imagine, she was hurt even more deeply.
• We may develop insecurity. Trust is the foundation of every healthy marriage. When that foundation crumbles, so does our confidence. Without trust, with insecurity, intimacy becomes impossible.
• We may experience depression. Why do so many people sit in darkened pubs drinking the hours away, listen to sad songs about broken love? Many are the depressed victims of unfaithfulness.

Remember spondere, the Latin word that gave us spouse? One other word comes from that same root: despondent. Despondent means without promise or hope. We all know friends who married with great hopes for a happy, stable, secure future. Nevertheless, their hopes turned to despondency when their spouses betrayed trust.

Perhaps those consequences of broken trust describe your marriage. If so, can you restore trust and with it, renewed intimacy? You can, but it takes work and patience. Usually deeper betrayals of trust and consistent let downs require longer recovery time. How can we restore trust? Consider these qualities of productive restoration:

All Restoration Begins With Honesty

We must honestly accept our responsibility for breaking our promises and betraying our partner’s trust.

Serena and Jason had a good enough marriage, or so it seemed to everyone who knew them. It was a shock, therefore, when they came to talk to us about a serious breach of trust. Serena was having an affair.

As we talked with them, Serena kept rationalizing that, although her involvement with the other man was wrong, her husband was actually the reason. He didn’t take time to make her feel special. The other man did.

Gently, but firmly, we explained that she could not use her husband’s deficiency as an excuse for her unfaithfulness. After about two hours of discussion she finally reached the honesty that is always the first step to restoration.

All Restoration Requires Forgiveness

Do not confuse forgiveness with trust. You can forgive someone even if you don’t trust him or her. But forgiving shows that you want to see trust and faithfulness restored.

All Restoration Requires a Consistent Demonstration of Faithfulness

The one who betrayed trust must accept, even welcome, more careful scrutiny for a time. Doing so displays a serious desire to restore the relationship. In essence the guilty party is saying, “I want your trust so much that I am willing to be watched.”

All Restoration Must Be Free from the Desire to Punish

It’s one thing to insist on accountability, but another to use that to punish the person. Remember the goal: rebuilding the relationship. Punishing our partner doesn’t help us reach that goal. It might make us feel good to get back at the one who hurt us so badly, but it doesn’t rebuild the marriage.

All Restoration Should Lead To Better Understanding

. . . of your marriage, your spouse, and yourself. In other words, we learn from it. Things will never be the same after a major betrayal of trust, but they can, in significant ways, become better.

All Restoration Takes Time

Don’t rush it, and don’t let impatience rob you of a good outcome. Many couples give up way too soon. Watch for small improvements, gradual thawing, and the appearance of new shoots in your garden. It's been winter for a long time, but spring is coming.

Mutual Mercy

One quality of restoration draws all of the others together and keeps them in the proper balance. Let’s call it mutual mercy. Mercy isn’t a popular word these days, but it is truly essential for continued health and healing in relationships.

Mercy means that we do not treat one another as we deserve, but better than we deserve. All humans need it, and need to extend it. For proof of that, we need only think about how often we hear people, including ourselves, say “I’m only human.” As if anyone could think, even for a minute, that we were anything else! Because humans make mistakes and live imperfect lives, we need to be merciful to each other, especially so when we’re rebuilding a broken relationship. Mercy does not remove responsibility. Mercy simply treats another the way we would want to be treated.

The Power of the Potter

In the Bible, Jeremiah the prophet went to a potter learn an object lesson about restoration. As the potter fashioned the clay something went wrong, and the half-formed clay collapsed on the wheel. Did he throw away the ruined, shapeless lump? Not at all. There was still great potential for that ruined clay, and the potter knew how to bring it about. He shaped another vessel, different, but still beautiful. (See Jeremiah 18)

God is like that potter. He can take the ruins of your marriage and make something beautiful. Place your lives and your marriage in His hands. Cooperate with Him by believing and following His Word. As you work with God a miracle will happen in your marriage.

Think, Act, Pray:

The doorbell rang. Opening the door I saw our friend, Madeline, eyes red from crying. “I’ve been to an attorney,” she said. “I’m divorcing my husband. He’s having an affair. Everyone in our community knows about it. I just can’t take it any more!”

1. Does Madeline have a right to divorce her husband?

2. Is there any other course she could take?

3. If Madeline and her husband decide to rebuild their marriage, what steps will they each need to take?

Could your marriage be more enjoyable? Read our next article, Delight, to discover some ways to max out the joy.