These things are key for REBUILDING TRUST in a damaged relationship. 💔👉💖

You know, it takes a long time to build trust with someone and about 30 seconds to lose all of it all at once. And rebuilding it back after you've lost it is no easy feat. In the kind of work that I do, I deal with people who have done some serious damage to their relationships. And so I've worked with a lot of people on how to dig out of that hole. And that's what this video is all about. It's going to be all about how to rebuild trust in a damaged or broken relationship. Now, I know that we have a lot of family members who watch these videos. So you may be watching because you have an addicted loved one who needs to rebuild trust with you. But let me just say that if you're the family member of an addicted loved one, they probably distrust you just as much as you distrust them. And the whole healing process really is a group or family effort. Everybody needs to work on earning back the other person's trust. Now, I know that's hard for families to hear because you feel like, look, I'm not the one that's out there doing X, Y or Z and hurting my family. And that's true. If I put your crimes against theirs, yours would no doubt be less than theirs. However, when you have an addicted loved one, it's quite natural for you to get caught up in sort of a desperate place. And when we get in a desperate place, we do desperate things. And if we're really honest with ourselves, we know we break the other person's trust. We do some things that we shouldn't have as well. You know, family members manipulate the addicted person. Family members sneak behind the addicted person's back. You know, families do things that break trust too. So I guess what I'm saying is this video is for everybody involved. This is for the person in early recovery. This is for their family. This all the information I'm going to give you today will actually apply really, really well to any person trying to repair a damaged relationship. It's not even addiction specific. Alright, so I've got actually five key things for you. So I'm going to give it to you in a list of five. But I do want to say this building trust back is more complicated than just telling the truth. Yeah, you got to start telling the truth. We're going to talk about that. But it's about becoming a person that your loved one feels safe to be around. And so it's not just about being completely honest about everything. Like I said, that's a part of it. But it's about being a safe person. Can I trust you? Are you dangerous for me? Are you going to hurt me? Are you going to do things or say things that are hurtful for me? That's included too. So we're going to go through these five things. Thank you to everyone who is joining us live. I see you here, Lori and Rita and Dovetail, if you're joining us on the replay. Glad to have you here as well. And if you have questions or concerns, you can totally post those in the comments and I'll try to come back and answer as many of those as I possibly can. I want to send a special thank you out there to all of our loyal viewers who do so much to support this channel. Thank you so much for those of you who have who are constantly liking our videos and sharing our videos. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you to those of you who have helped support the channel financially through super chats and applause and donations. All of that money goes right back into supporting this channel. Anyways, just want to acknowledge you out there. I see you, I appreciate you and you are helping the mission. Remember, the mission is to spread recovery faster than addiction is spreading. And if we all get in there together, we can make it happen. Hey, Maria. Hey, Tammy. Alright, let's get into our list. The very first thing on the list that you're gonna have to do, and this is a really hard one, in order to earn back trust, is you're gonna have to tolerate the fact that you don't have the trust and that it's not going to come back immediately. Because you see what happens is as soon as the person with the addiction, you know, stops using, they get frustrated because they don't want to. They don't understand why the family member doesn't immediately trust them. Like I've been sober a week. What's wrong with you? I'm telling the truth now. Why don't you trust me and vice versa. Same thing for the addict in the family. It's not going to come back immediately. And you can be doing everything right. You can be telling the complete, 100% solid truth every day, all the time, but your loved one is still not going to trust you. And so you're going to have to tolerate that. And more than you're going to have to tolerate, you're going to have to own the fact that, that you did some things to cause them to not trust you. You can get apologies. Look at that. Siri's talking to us. You're going to have to really not just own the fact. It's not like you're, I'm saying that like maybe they accuse you of something that you didn't do in that moment. I'm not saying you have to own the fact that you did that when you didn't do it. But what I'm saying is you have to own the fact of why they don't trust you and why maybe they're accusing you when you didn't. So first and foremost, you're gonna have to tolerate the process and accept responsibility. Not for all the problems, but for the fact, but for the issue that you've done some things that have broken your loved ones trust. And so it's not going to come back immediately. The better you can do that, the better you're gonna, the faster you're gonna make this process happen. There's nothing worse than when you get crazy mad at the other person and say, look, if you're just not even gonna trust me, then I might as well do X, Y and Z. Like when you do that or when you make the person feel guilty for not trusting you immediately, you're really slowing down the process. I get that it's frustrating. You know you're telling the truth. But you're going to have to give them some time to get back that faith in you. So allow it the time it needs. All right, number two is what I call transparency. You're going to have to be completely excessively transparent about what you're doing, where you are, what you're thinking, what your game plan is and all that kind of stuff, way more than you normally would. If you've been deceitful in the past, this is particularly important. So normally maybe you're coming home from work and you're running 10 minutes behind. Normally it wouldn't even matter. And you wouldn't even need to communicate that because no one's even going to be thinking anything about it if you're 10 minutes late getting home. But if there's been a lot of damage and deceit in the relationship in the past. And in the past, if you were running 10 minutes late, it usually meant X, Y or Z bad thing was happening, then you're gonna need to stop and make, take the time to make that phone call or send that text and say, hey, I'm stuck in traffic, I'm gonna be this minutes late, whatever. And I know that can seem frustrating and excessive, but if you're just gonna have to get in the mindset of over communication for the next little while, it's like, you want to show all your cards, so you want to be sure. It's like. It's like, you know, if you're a magician, you're saying, like, nothing's up the sleeve. Only you don't have anything behind your back either. So you gotta really be transparent. Number three thing that you really gotta do to get trust back is you have to avoid being really emotionally reactive because you want another person to be able to tell you the truth. And if you want someone to be able to tell you the truth, you can't lose your crackers when they do that. Now, that doesn't mean you can't be disappointed. You can't be upset about it. It doesn't mean that you have to be happy about everything that you get told, but it doesn't mean you have to contain. You can't flip your lid in the way that you react to that disappointment, sadness, frustration, letdown, whatever it is. Because when you do that, you're training the other person that they can't trust you. Okay? Or if you're trying to get your way about something, you can't turn into a big. I call it the puffer fish method, like starting a fight and being really ugly. You can't force your way about things. These are all things you have to do to earn back trust. The fourth thing that you've got to do is when your loved one confronts you about something, or maybe they just have like a question or a concern. Maybe they're like, you know, you were running late. Where were you? Or I thought you were gonna, you know, go to this store, but you went to that store. You know, maybe they're questioning you about something. If that happens, going to be quite natural for you to want to get defensive, right? For you to want to take care of yourself. I mean, it's almost like an immediate reflex that we. That we all have. We want to get defensive with things. But if you're trying to earn back trust, you need to do everything in your power to avoid acting, behaving, and hopefully even feeling defensive. Instead of that, you need to be vulnerable. And by vulnerable, I mean it's kind of a. Kind of a mix between the transparency, as in, like, showing all your cards, things mixed with humility. So that's what I mean by saying vulnerable. It's like, oh, yeah, I know I told you I was going to go to this store, but I saw that there was a traffic jam, so I changed my mind last minute. I went over that store. I'm sorry, I, like, I should have called and let you know that or whatever, just say what's happening. You know, just show your cards and do it in a humble way. And you're gonna get a lot, lot further than if you're just defensive and if you're like, dude, what difference does it make what store I went to? Why are you always up my butt or whatever like that? You know, don't, you know, avoid it? I know it's a natural reflex, but just take a minute. If you gotta take a minute, think it through and then come back and respond and I'm going to give you one more. But before I do that, I do want to let you that let you know that I am working on little online mini course specifically about this topic where I go into these things. I'm telling you here, but in a lot more detail with some actual, like, exercises and activities and things you need to do in order to rebuild trust and relationship. I'm calling it rapid relationship repair. And I've made most of the videos and the activities for that. They're still in the editing process. But right now I am looking for anyone that might want to be a beta tester for that program. If you think you might want to be a beta tester for that program, you can email me and let me know that I'm going to put my email here for you and we'll get you in as one of the first initial participants. In order to do that, the beta testers, what I'm going to be asking you guys to do is just give me feedback along the way, tell me what's missing from the course, what's not clear, and you're going to help me build this course, make it the most effective possible. All right, moving on to our last little tip of the day. Is you need to be direct but kind. You know, earning back trust and getting yourself out of the doghouse isn't just about going along with whatever your loved one says or constantly swallowing your own pride or just telling yourself that you deserve it. You know that's part of it. You know that humility is part of it. And that's a good thing. But the other thing that's going to get you in trouble is if you won't speak up and be assertive when you really need to. Because one of the things you're going to do to break your trust again or to harm the relationship is when you start saying yes to things that you really mean no to or you start agreeing to things that you know you're not going to do. So for example, if you're in early recovery and your loved one says, I want you to go to a meeting every single day and call your sponsor and this and that, and you know, you probably need to, and you don't want to start a big fight, so you just say, okay. But you know, deep down it's either not feasible for you to do or you really don't want to do it. It's not the time to just say, yes, I'll do it. Because if you do that, you don't do it, then you've just destroyed your trust. And every time you, you know, do one little thing that, that takes the trust away. It's like you get back into the negatives immediately. The other person just starts spiraling into like, this is never going to change. We're gonna, it's always gonna be like it was and it's gonna take a lot to dick out of. So you've gotta stand up for yourself. You've got to say what you mean. It's not just about being a pushover, like I said. And by doing that, you're going to have to be direct. And that means you're going to have to have some difficult conversations sometimes. But it's easy when we have to say something. I mean, it's difficult when we have to say something that we know the other person may not want to hear. We tend to want to do that with. We go into those conversations with like all of our armor on, with our guns a blazing because we think it's going to be a fight. And so even though I want you to be direct and I want you to address these things, there's a way to do that in an assertive fashion. Remember, assertive means you get your needs met, they get their needs met, everybody wins. Without coming at it really defensively. Like for example, the conversation about going to the meetings. You don't have to say, look, you know, my counselor said I don't need to go to those meetings and I don't get anything out of any way. And I'm not as bad as those people. You know, you don't have to do all that, right? When you do that, you're just starting an argument. So it's about being assertive along with that. Included in that one also means no passive aggressive comments. So maybe you're being completely truthful to your loved one. You're saying like the complete truth, you're telling where you're at, you're being transparent, you're doing all the things I'm telling you to. But you're harboring these little resentments inside and you make these little, I call them like little jabs. So like a little drive by knifing or something. And you make these passive aggressive comments towards the other person, like these sort of I told you so. You always do that, you know, and it comes in these little subtle, y' all know what I'm talking about ways if you're doing that, you're hurting that other person. And you may be telling yourself, you know, you can say it in sarcasm or these can be little almost like hidden jabs at people. You know, you can say, I always say like you can say to someone like, oh, I like your shirt. And when you say it in a certain way and you know you mean a certain thing, you know you're saying something hurtful that's gonna have to go into the not allowed category if you're trying to win back trust because it makes you an unsafe person. And usually it's when you're trying to like look like you're doing all the right things on the outside, but you're still harboring these little bad feelings on the inside. Then they sneak out and these little stabs and jabs here and there and that can undo all the hard work that you're doing. So be really careful because that's almost like the way that these negative behaviors that sort of seep out of the cracks, right? It's like you don't even mean for them to sometimes, but it does. Alright, those are my big five. I'm gonna go through and take some questions and comments. So if you have a question or concern, make sure you get it up there because there is a little bit of a delay. So it takes a few seconds before I actually see it. See here, Jennifer says I'm leaving the Phoenix to go back to Boston for a family emergency. So I saved this to watch for my whole family while I'm there. Been telling them about your videos. Oh, thank you. I hope they like it. Thank you. Thank you. Jennifer. Greetings from New York. Hey, Scout Enquirer, let's see if we have any questions. Trust. When it's gone, it's a stumbling block. I've lost my own dignity, humility, integrity and self respect in trying to rescue. I lost me in the process. Well said. All right, here we go. April says I've been clean since July 2019. I still get questioned at least once a week. Am I high? And it's so frustrating. How long should someone be asked that? Man, that's a really good question, April. And that is for sure, one of the really common things that's so frustrating in recovery is when you're doing the best you can and, you know, any little thing. You know, you sleep in on a Saturday, right? It's just like, you just. It's Saturday, and you're just sleeping in because you're tired or whatever, and they're just watching you like a hawk. I don't have an answer to how long that's going to take. And you just. The answer I have is just going to have to tolerate it as long as it takes. And the less defensive you respond to those questions, the faster it'll go away. And because kind of like if you get all defensive about it, it makes you look more guilty sort of thing, you know, if you say, oh, I guess I could see why it looks like that. But here's what's actually happening. Being. Being calm in the process will help. Now, one thing you can do is this could be a chance for you, April, to practice one of those, like, times when I said being assertive about yourself. If it's. If it's a really big problem and you really need to address it because, you know, it just triggers you to no end or whatever, then you may want to have an assertive conversation with your loved one. You can say, look, I totally know, and I get it, and I deserve that, and I was, you know, doing the wrong thing for a really long time. And I get why you don't trust me, but it's really upsetting to me when, you know, you always think, hi or messed up, and you can maybe even give your loved one a suggestion or a thing to do that might be more helpful for you, more easier for you to take if they want to know. Like, give them an alternative way to deal with that kind of anxiety or ask you the question. You can also do that. Kristen, thank you for this. My husband and I are in the midst of figuring this out. He thinks I should just trust him. After 11 years of active addiction, it's hard to want to be vulnerable with him. Yeah, I totally hear you. And I usually. You guys know this, but I usually see the person in the office that's addicted, and I can tell you, they just, you know, it's like two weeks in, and they're like, I don't know why they don't trust me. They just always think I'm using. It's almost always the case that they want it to come back. And it's like, if it's been 11 years of roller coaster, of bad things. It's gonna take a while to come back. Now, you, as the loved one, you can do your part. When you are feeling distrustful of them, there's a way to express that that doesn't come across as accusatory or hurtful either. Like I said, this works best when both people do their part. So I like to say, like, if you, if you want to ask the question like April was talking about, if you want to ask the question, like are you hired, have been using or something like that, you know, couch it in a little humility yourself. This is how, you know, this is how I might do it. I might say, look, I know I'm still crazy, I'm still working on my codependency. It's a work in progress. But when you came home today, I had this thought right here and I know it's probably crazy, but can you make me feel better about it? It's almost like, convince me that you're not. It's just a nicer, more humble way of saying, are you high? That doesn't feel like an accusation. And you're owning the fact that maybe you're a little oversensitive or you're owning the fact that maybe you're wrong. And so when you come at someone like that, they're just less likely to be defensive with you. Hopefully that helps a little bit. Kara says, so is it fair to send the person in the family who's in recovery? Oh, is it fair to send this video to the person who's in recovery? Or is that passive aggressive? Oh, that's a really good question. I get that a lot, like, can I send this to my loved one? I think it's honestly that my answer to that, Kara, is it's a case by case basis. If you and your loved one frequently share my videos, then I don't think that's any problem at all. If you know how they're going to take it, right? And you know how you need to set it up, right? If you send this video in a certain way, it's going to seem like an accusation. If you send this video but you say it and you maybe like put some text or however you want to send it, email, whatever, and you couch it in a different way. Hey, you know, this is a great video. I think these are some great things for us to both work on, like coming at it from a team approach, then the person might be less likely to be offensive. So I guess what I'm saying is it depends on if you're sending it in a passive aggressive manner. What's your intention? How do you couch it and that sort of thing. But that's a really good question. Thanks for asking that, Michelle. My husband's been sober for five months and when I try to have a simple conversation with him, he makes it into an argument. No matter what, his guard is always up. Is there a way I can approach him to make him feel safer? That is another really good question. And a lot of times it is. You know, maybe they're really guarded, they're defensive. A lot of times it's an indicator that they really feel shameful on the inside and they really feel bad. And it just, when those kind of hard conversations come up, it just brings up so much anxiety. One of the things you can do, Michelle, is maybe consider having a conversation with your husband about how to have conversations. So it's like back up a step, say, look, I notice that this is really hard for you and, and I don't want to trigger you. I don't want to make you defensive. You know, is there a way I could do you know, is there a way we could have conversations that would be less difficult? Is there a time of day that's better to approach you? Is there a way I can bring this up? You know, ask your loved one for their feedback about ways you both could approach difficult conversations that maybe would go a little better? Hi Africa. Let's see. Rita, be kind and come from your heart. Great info. Thanks again, Amber. I love to share this video because it addresses both sides of the trust issue. Hey, thank you. I love what Rita said right there. If you're coming from a good place in your heart, you know, a kind, non judgmental, like truly trying to make things better place is probably going to come across fine, you know, so whatever you say, if you get your heart right first get your heart right and then do it, it's probably going to be better because people can feel that. They can feel your intention. When you go into that next week, Thursday falls on Christmas Eve, which I'm excited about. And so I will not be here live with you. But I do have a big video that I'm gonna that I've pre made for you and it's a good one. It's one you guys have been asking for that's going to be premiered at the regular Thursday time. So what that means is the video will be released at our regular Thursday time and I won't be making the video live with you in the moment like I am right now, but I'm going to be on live answering your questions, your chat comments. So even though it's Christmas Eve, I still got something good for you coming. It's one that you guys have really wanted. So I will see you guys then. Oh, I forgot to tell you this. Make sure to let me know if you want to be a beta tester. I think I put the email in the chat there for you. And up next, I have for you another video on repairing your relationship and building trust. You can take what we learned today to the next level. Bye, everybody.