Couples therapy can support the rebuilding of trust after ruptures, breaches, and betrayals. Relationship therapy is a space for relationships to learn how to communicate and repair when we misstep. At some point, you may say or do things that create tears in the fabric of security within your relationships. This can happen with your children, parents, siblings, and significant others. Couples therapy likes to teach relationships how to repair so that trust can be rebuilt after these injuries.
The Importance of Trust and Vulnerability
Trust is the foundation on which intimacy stands. Trust is the felt knowing, the embodied experience, of someone having our back, time and time again. Trust is an earned process of repeated, and consistent, word and action congruency. Being trustworthy yourself and being capable of trusting someone requires vulnerability. Vulnerability is needed in order for us to be seen, felt, understood, and heard.
We need to be vulnerable to earn someone's trust and to trust in someone else. Please take a look at the actions when sussing out if someone is trustworthy or not. Words sound nice, but actions feel better. In addition to sussing out whether someone is trustworthy, you should ask yourself if you can be in someone's corner as well.
Building Secure Attachments and Relationships
Trusting and becoming trustworthy is part of building secure attachments and relationships. When trust is broken, the security gets compromised. You can earn back trust, but you must be able to face and own the impact without getting defensive, shame spiraling, or blaming. Also, you must be consistently focused on repair with matching words and actions. With the help of a couples therapist, they can guide this process and guide your relationship out of injury and into repair.
The Pain of Betrayals
Because trust requires vulnerability, many of the wounds that occur in relationships hurt and sting on a deeply painful level. You may react to this hurt with rage, sadness, defensiveness, dismissiveness, and shutdown.
When betrayals happen it is usually when someone has said and committed to one thing, but then their actions tell a different story. Trust can be rebuilt, if the people in the relationship want to rebuild.
Examples of Relationship Ruptures
A relationship rupture can be as little as not following through on something you agreed to or as big as an affair or an addiction. Some examples of relationship ruptures:
Saying something mean during an argument
Disclosing confidential information about your loved one to a colleague
Not being present for your significant other for medical or family emergencies
Not being present in general
Unable to validate or hold space for your partner, child, sibling, parent, friend
Saying one thing (I'm going to the gym) and doing another (going to a bar)
Making fun of, belittling, or shaming your partner, child, sibling, spouse, or parent (in public and/or private)
Extra-marital affairs
Unilateral decision making
Crossing emotional and physical boundaries without consent
Using threats to manipulate behavior or get what you want
Defensiveness, contempt, stonewalling, and criticism
Prioritizing substances, work, friends, and non-nuclear family over your loved ones
Examples of What Builds Trust
It is only fitting to also have a list of examples of what actually builds trust:
Making agreements and keeping them
Consistency in follow-through
Emotional and verbal openness and transparency
Consistency in the frequency of contact
Simple acts of kindness, mindfulness, and thoughtfulness in considering the other
Frequent declarations about where you stand in the relationship
Frequent and congruent actions that line up with words and commitments.
Follow through and prioritization of agreements made
Presence, empathy, openness, kindness
Vulnerability
The Path Through Betrayal and Ruptures
Ruptures and betrayals are painful, destructive, and harmful to nurturing a secure relationship. The path through betrayal and ruptures needs to be thorough and focused on repair. The repair process will take as long as it takes. Having a trained couples therapist can increase your chances of repair.
In couples therapy (or relationship therapy) we repair impact, not intent. The intent is usually not to hurt our people, but unfortunately, we still can and do hurt our loved ones. "I didn't mean to" is not going to cut it. Intent is internal, impact is what hurts. We can have innocent intent and will still need to repair the impact of our behaviors on our significant relationships. Learning this fact is part of growing up.
Basic Steps for Rupture and Repair
Here are some basic steps to follow for rupture and repair:
1. Acknowledge and recognize your part, their part, and how the rupture harmed the relationship.
2. Grieve and feel what you feel.
3. Set aside time for you and your loved one to process together.
4. The betrayed must set conditions for safety and the betrayer must take responsibility and ownership.
5. Nurture the relationship by spending time, energy, and effort to re-do and repair what broke.
The above sequence may take a few hours or for some larger offenses, a few years.
Repairing Conversations Sequence
The communication with your partner and follow-through actions need to be consistent, frequent, and authentic. See the sequence below of how these rupture and repair conversations can go. This sequence has helped us work with a lot of relationships as they navigate the choppy waters of rupture.
In general, start with one person and go through the whole cycle with their hurt. Explore their experience of the rupture, then switch, and let another person be heard and felt. Repair based on their unique experience of the rupture, not yours. A repair process is about restoring trust and intimacy after a rupture has harmed our relationships.
For smaller ruptures, a simple rupture and repair cycle can be followed. For larger infarctions, the below sequence needs to be adapted for the betrayed person. They need to receive adequate repair before moving on to the betrayer's experience. Before moving on to the betrayer, spend as much time as you need with the betrayed. The relationship may have to focus on safety building first. The below sequence is a good way to start putting money in the bank to build up trust again.
Working the below process in your day-to-day life will cause your relational security to flourish. However, working it in therapy with a guide at Compass Healing Project might be necessary to create the lasting change you and your relationship need.
Steps for Repairing Conversations
Here are some basic steps to follow for rupture and repair conversations:
1. Validate + Empathize: "You feel ______, when I ______." or "I hurt/scared/frustrated you, tell me more so I can better understand how this feels for you".
The body, mind, and heart of the person who caused the injury need to be open and focused on holding the hurt person's experience as valid.
You might need to explore how, what you said or did, may have brought up prior hurt.
Do not move ahead until you have put yourself in their shoes and understand where they are coming from.
Continue to reflect and validate. When you feel like you have sufficiently done this step and before moving on to the next step, ask "Am I getting how this hurt you?". If they do not feel understood or empathized with, stay on this step.
2. Responsibility/Ownership of My Part: "I did _____ and that hurt you." or "You are right, I did _____, I own that I did do that", "I take responsibility for doing that, that is on me."
"I __ (insert the action that hurt your partner/sibling/friend/child) and I know this is mine to figure out, stop, and heal. This is my responsibility to fix."
You CAN share where you learned the offending behavior/action/treatment. But try not to do this before any ownership is taken. Try not to make it about you, and ask your partners' consent before you share.
3. Sincere apology and Healthy Remorse: "I am sorry I ". Then, a healthy expression of remorse/guilt. For example, "I am so sad and heartbroken that I hurt you, I am so sorry I did that". Or, "I am so sorry I _____, I feel torn/sad/remorse/distress/guilt/grief that I hurt you."
If shame, extreme guilt, or self-deprecation have taken over at this juncture, a part of you has shifted it to be about you. That won't help you repair the rupture. Shift it back to repair. Make a note of the part of you that feels shame, and work on the shame outside of this rupture/repair sequence.
Partners often stop attempting to repair with partners who spiral into shame. The same goes for blame, defensiveness, deflection, verbal abuse, and gaslighting. Keep these behaviors in check.
4. Negotiation for NEXT TIME a similar scenario presents itself. Brainstorm together what needed to be done differently. "If this happens again, can we come up with a plan to do it differently?"
-Helpful if the betrayer starts: "If something like this happens again, I will…. "
-Ask your partner for requests and actions that can put you on the road to repairing trust
-Negotiate what you are willing to do and think deeply about what you are capable of doing. It will only hurt more if you say you'll do something that you are not actually capable of or willing to change.
5. Follow Through the next time. This step is where the repair of trust happens! Follow-through is the only way to rebuild trust.
-No amount of conversation, apologizing, or promise-making will do the repair. You must change your behavior.
-The change has to be experienced, not just talked about. Your loved one will not fully trust you again until they have a re-do experience.
-Create a personal plan of effort to work on future corrections. Make notes, put reminders on your phone, go to therapy, tell, and then show your loved one that you are doing that work.
-Do it differently.
The rupture and repair process is not a formula but needs to be seen as a guiding light through the storm of injury. For security to be built and trust to be restored, this sequence is the beginning of a new chapter of vulnerability, intimacy, and growth. It is a road map for the work that must be done with integrity.
Safe travels on the road of intimacy, may your ruptures be few, but your repairs be plenty!
Rebuild The Trust in Your Relationship With Couples Therapy in Golden, CO and San Diego, CA
Ready to rebuild trust and strengthen your relationship through couples therapy? At Compass Healing Project you and your partner will work with our experienced couples therapist to embark on a journey toward a healthier, more connected partnership. Your relationship deserves the support of expert couples therapy. Follow these three simple steps to get started:
Reach Out and Fill out our New Client Inquiry Form to get started.
Schedule a discovery call with one of our specialized couples therapists
Rebuild the trust in your relationship.
Additional Counseling Services at Compass Healing Project
At Compass Healing Project, we provide a holistic approach to therapy, incorporating a variety of modalities to address a wide range of issues. Alongside helping you and your partner rebuild trust with couples therapy, we offer EMDR, somatic therapy, hypnotherapy, ketamine-assisted therapy, Clinical Sexology, and embodiment practices. These therapies are effective in treating anxiety, depression, PTSD, grief and loss, and sexuality concerns. For more information and to get to know us better, visit our blog. Our Colorado and California clinics are staffed with caring therapists who specialize in trauma resolution, emotional healing, and integrative therapy. Ready to start your healing journey? Fill out our contact form, and we'll assist you in taking the first step towards a healthier, more connected life.
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