How to Win Back His Trust

Matthew Hussie here with Love Life. We have a caller in today. Rizka, are you there?

Oh, hi, Matthew. It's so nice to hear your voice.

It's so good to hear your voice. How are you?

I'm good.

What was your question, Rizka?

Okay, my question was about how one should handle oneself. How do you deal with a situation where you hurt someone or causes them to lose trust in you or there's been some sort of Rift in the relationship, which you might be somewhat responsible for?

It's a great question. And it happens all the time. You know, it happens between men and women in both directions. So I think it's a great question. How do you overcome trust issues from that point on? Well, there's a process. The, one of the big mistakes that people make is they want it all to happen overnight. But there's a process in this. One part of the process is obvious. It's forgiveness. But sometimes we want people's forgiveness before we've earned it. So I'm not necessarily going to put forgiveness at the beginning, but there are some things we can do to help speed that process up. The first one is communicating to that person that this is something that won't happen again. And in order to be able to communicate that, we need to know why it won't happen again. So part of that is understanding why it happened in the first place. This is something people often don't do. For example, if someone were to be unfaithful, rather than just say, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it will never happen again, what people can do is actually explore why it happened in the first place. Well, it happened because in that particular moment, I was being a very weak person, or I was being very selfish, and that selfishness was coming from X, Y, Z, or I was insecure and I was looking for attention. Whatever it is, understanding the root cause is really important. Because once you understand the root cause and you're self-aware enough to understand that, you can explain to that person, let me, I'm not just going to tell you it won't happen again. Let me tell you why this will never happen again. A, I respect you too much and you're my number one priority and I love you to pieces and would never, ever hurt you in this way again. But B, I have resolved these issues within myself. What's, What made me do it the first time round and those insecurities or those feelings, those root causes are no longer there because I've dealt with them or I've found a better way to manage them. That way, do you see Rizza how you're coming from a place of credibility then in saying you won't do it again rather than just blindly asserting it?

Yeah, I agree. And actually, it's interesting that you say that because I just recently reconciled with someone that I had hurt and I was trying to figure out what was different in this case than with the relationships I had not reconciled. I think it was because me and this person went through this exact process that you're describing. And some of the other people in my life, we never really reached that place of the root causes.

Right, absolutely. Because it's not enough just to say, sorry, you need to get clarity. And that's what people respect. And actually, you know what's funny is you can help alleviate some of the hurt that someone feels if you can help them understand what was going on in you that led to that point in the first place. In other words, if I just think, well, someone cheated on me and now I have all of this hurt as a result, they can't necessarily make all of the hurt go away. But if I can truly understand that that was coming from a deeper place of insecurity or inadequacy or selfishness or whatever it is in that person, I actually can help divorce myself from that situation and make it less personal. So Clarity is really important. Now, as I said, we can't expect I want to be perfect with you all at once. You know, you've got to rebuild the house. And you don't get to do, you don't get to click your fingers and have the house be ready made again. You've got to rebuild it brick by brick. That takes effort. It takes time. To some extent, it takes a level of, in this case, proactive honesty, is what I like to call it. Because it's rather than what we, I think, often do in relationships, which is a reactive honesty. If someone asks us a question, we give them an answer. Proactive honesty is for that person who we feel we've wronged by cheating on them. You know, we went out last night and we give them more detail about last night than we normally would. We say, yeah, I had fun. I was with Casey most of the night and this happened and that happened. And it was, you know, a really enjoyable experience. And then I hung out with this person and, oh, you would have loved it. I was talking all about you. You, you, you give them a bit more detail than you maybe would have before because you're going out of your way to make them feel secure and comfortable. That might not be something you have to do forever, but certainly in the beginning, it, it helps to put them at ease. And the last thing I'll say is this. If you're going to continue with somebody in a relationship and the trust was broken, you have to make a pact with that person. And the pact is this. I know what I have to do to keep you. I know there's, I have, I have something to prove to you now. And I know that I have to rebuild. I get it. But I also need you to do the hardest thing in the world and give me your trust again. Because you know that if I ever broke that trust again, I would be the fool, not you. But in order to start again, I need you to trust me again. I need that much. And I promise you, I'll go out of my way to make this work. But I need that from you again for us to be able to carry on. That pact is essential. And not having that pact is the reason why so many couples carry on in spite of a newfound lack of trust. and find that they never really get back to a place of trusting each other again. You've got to be able to hit reset and start again, knowing the hard work that's ahead of you, but also knowing that you have to be starting from that place. Does that make sense?

Oh, yes. I really love hearing you say that because it really fits in with what I've observed in my life and in others, both with what people have done right and what they've done wrong. Yeah.

Well, thank you, Rizka. I appreciate you calling in and a very thoughtful question that I think is going to help a lot of people out there. So thank you for calling in. Thank you guys for listening. If you have a question for Love Life, call in 844-204-6288. That's 844-204-Matt. And by the way, if you're not on my Facebook right now, go there and follow. You'll get new articles, new videos, all sorts of interesting information each week outside of the radio show and updates on the radio show itself. That is facebook.com/matthewhusti. Rizka, thank you for calling in. Have a wonderful day, all right? Thank you. You have a wonderful day, too. All right, bye-bye.