#185: Reconnecting After Separation: Practical Steps to Rebuild Trust

Have you ever wondered if you can truly trust your partner again? Especially after betrayal or separation? I mean, after all, the pain of those past betrayals and the fear of opening up again can be paralyzing. But what if there's a way to rebuild trust between you step by step? Welcome to Love Shack Live, the podcast for listeners who find themselves at a relationship crossroads. If you're facing daily conflicts and feeling a growing emotional gap and aspire to rebuild a bond that feels genuine and lasting, you're in the right place. I'm your host, Stacey Bartley, and I'm joined by my co host and lover, Tom and our daughter Brooke. Together we bring a unique blend of expertise, experience, and heartfelt understanding to help you navigate your relationship challenges. Today, we're tackling a critical question I'm sure you've thought of. How can you rebuild trust when it feels so broken? How can you and your partner reach for one another, heal together, and create a relationship that thrives? Stay with us today as we explore practical exercises and insights that have transformed the lives of countless couples. We'll share the tools you need to bridge the emotional gaps and foster a deeper and more resilient connection.

Hey, thank you for coming. Welcome to the Love Shack.

So let's dive in, and let's begin by understanding the importance of trust. First of all, I guess we should touch on what is trust? It always seems like this elusive thing that we know is important, but how do we wrap our heads around it? Where does it come from? And what is it as a human being that gives us this sense that I can trust you? I mean, in the beginning of our relationships, we feel like we can trust them with anything, everything, even my very life. As we step in and build a life, somewhere along the way that trust starts to wane. We call it trust, but what is it really? And when we begin to break this down, I'm going to start by saying we have to tell the truth about being human. And one of the greatest truths that we sometimes have a really difficult time admitting is that as human beings, we're extremely messy. We make mistakes. Sometimes not maliciously. In fact, most times not intentionally malicious at all. It's just I simply have a lot to manage when it comes to managing the internal world of myself or not. And if it doesn't seem important to me, it's really difficult to think that it's important for someone else. And if it doesn't hurt me or isn't a problem for me, I also can believe it shouldn't hurt others. And so it's from this place that again, intentionally we're not going to do it to hurt anybody. It's just not going to be important to me. So I'm going to have a tendency to say things that hurt your feelings or forget things at the store that you've asked me to pick up, dare I say, even forget your birthday or anniversary, because I'm so caught up in what I have going on with myself. And when these things happen, we can start to make some terrible things about that person that forgot that that said something to hurt my feelings that I took exceptionally personal. And there and then is where we start to feel the trust or the reliance start to wane. Like if you would say these things to me or if you would forget to do this one simple thing for me, how is it I could possibly trust you with my life, with my feelings, with my thoughts, and so on and on it goes, until all of a sudden we wonder if there's any trust at all. And so as we start on the premise that we're messy, we figure things out as we go, and we usually figure them out by making messes. We start to hopefully realize that we're all going to struggle with the idea of getting it right 100% of the time. It's inevitable that we're going to disappoint our partners or not say or do something that's going to hurt their feelings at some point in time in our relationships. And yet the concept that we have of trust is that I must do this perfectly because if it happens once and trust gets breached, then we're screwed. So maybe that starts to help explain, if we hold it in this way within ourselves and in our relationships, why I might get a little defensive. If you're calling me out for making a mess, I don't want to admit that it's a mess, because then the trust between us starts to wane. I don't want to go down that road. I swear inside of myself, I know it wasn't intentional. So please, please hear me out. Understand? And yet we really don't have any affect on how the person that I've hurt or disappointed takes it. And so if we hold the common narrative of trust being something I have to do perfectly, that I never hurt your feelings and that I never disappoint you, you start to see we're going to have a really big problem, that most of us are going to say, number one, trust is the most important thing in a relationship. And number two, can I really trust you?

I just Want our listeners to know that in that way that you just described trust, think about how fragile that is. Like, it's. It's like you're putting the pinnacle of your relationship inside of a thin glass ball that could be shattered at any time with. With any misstep. No wonder our relationships feel so fragile. And we're constantly worried that we're going to mess up or our partner's going to mess up and that we'll have no way to put it back together, because no one could put a smashed glass ball back together.

Well, and then on top of that, what I just heard you say is, I don't think any of us gets the hall pass. We are all untrustworthy at some points of our life. Let's just be honest. So the whole. From what you shared, Brooke, and from this side, the whole thing is doomed.

And especially because this episode is about how to rebuild trust after separation. You want to talk about the biggest breach of trust of all, saying that you want to take some time away from your partner, which maybe happened after a big breach of trust, like an affair or something that you considered egregious. The whole thing is crazy difficult and messy and fragile. And. And so the way that we hold trust like you just described is wrong.

And so what do we do in our naivety and not understanding trust? We bang on. I don't trust you. I don't trust you. Do you hear me? I don't trust you. I don't trust you. And I say, okay, I get it. You don't trust me. And so what do we do? Where do we go from here? Well, I don't know if I can. Why? Because I don't trust you. Didn't you hear me? So we get nowhere with that because we don't know where to go. And so then we need to simplify this down, and we have to understand what trust is. Trust is really my willingness to risk with you. That's where trust comes from. And trust is something I give. It's not something that I get from somebody else. And that's kind of like my clients, when I love to see the faces looking back at me when I say this, because it finally clicks and they go. That makes so much more sense. It's not this thing I have to bang out of you or manage and control to get from you so that I feel better. It's this thing that I give. And if I don't feel like I trust you, what I'm really saying is I don't want to risk with You, I don't feel safe risking with you anymore. Okay, great. We can work with that. Because just like trust is built slowly over time, it's built when I risk with you in small measure, and it goes really well. And if we were to rewind our relationship experiences back to the beginning, we'll start to see that that's how we built the trust in the first place. I met you, and there was something about you that I wanted to explore more. So I was willing to risk a little bit with you. And then we went on a. Maybe a second date, and it went really, really well. And all of a sudden, I really notice I'm into you, so I'm willing to risk a little more. And then I risk sharing more and more and more of myself with you. And then I risk also being intimate and sexual on all levels, spiritually, emotionally, physically, mentally. I start risking more and more of the sharing of myself with you. And then I risk traveling with you. I risk sharing money with you. I risk all of these things that I start to give and risk with you. And as long as it's going well, which it typically does, because we are very thoughtful when we want these things to go well, it goes really well. And I go, what could possibly go wrong? Let's do this thing. Let's build a life together. Then that's kind of where the rubber meets the road. It's inevitable that in our relationships, we're going to have things that don't work for us. Those disappointments I talked about as we open the show, those places where I get so spun up about my own internal conflict of work and kids and bills and, you know, managing my own hot show that I stop paying attention to you sometimes and what you need and what you want and what's going on in your world. I have to let go of that so that I can manage my own world and keep my pants on or my bra. And so it's not intentional and it's not malicious. But as these things start to break down, we don't know how to recover for them. And we certainly don't understand that. It's my willingness to risk with you. And so when breaches of trust happen, I have to go back to building trust, just like we did in the beginning, in small, measurable ways that I feel safe enough. And if it goes well, then I'm willing to risk a little more with you. And if that goes well, I'm willing to risk a little more and a little more and a little more. And all of a sudden, I'll find myself in a place where know I can count on you again. And that actually those breaches of trust that we rebuild from make us stronger because we understand how they happened, where they come from. And I understand they weren't malicious and ill intended. It helps me understand more about where I struggle and where you struggle and how to navigate and talk more about the things that don't work in our relationship. Recognizing and realizing that's a normal, natural part of every single relationship we will ever be in, even the one with our pets. There are things I love about my pet and there are things that straight up drive me crazy about my pet. And so it is with all of our relationships, even with our lovers, our kids, our neighbors, our parents, our siblings. Come on. If we're honest, we don't love everything about everyone. Not even myself. All the time. I can get sick and tired of my own conversation in my own head. Y' all feel me? You ever been there? Of course you have, because that's a natural, normal part of every relationship. So the role in maintaining healthy relationships with trust is just that. Thinking about how is it I need to feel safe enough to risk with you so that we can rebuild it. And I'm going to need certain things to help me feel safe, and my partner is probably going to need different things, like count on it. There might be some similarities there, but very often we know what we need. We just don't know how to talk about it. We don't know how to lay that card on the table. And sometimes we feel shellfish if we do some common reasons for trust struggles. If you're experiencing some of these, then you are having a problem with risk and safety, emotional safety, the willingness to risk again. Okay. Some of these are, of course, infidelity or dishonesty from the past, from both of you, because we're all a little dishonest sometimes. So rather than take that so personal when your partner's in that space, maybe remember times and places where maybe you've been dishonest too, either by omission or saying you'll do something when you really didn't have the intention to do it. Or maybe exaggerating the truth a bit in an effort to defend yourself. Or we've all done it, we'll all do it again. Probably what's important is that we can catch ourselves and go back to the honest places within us, because that's what helps us. Risk and risk and risk and risk again. If I know I can count on you to clean it up, not, not do it, but clean it up. When you do do it, that's where I'm willing to risk with you again. And that makes me giggle because we think about not doing it at all as the answer. No, it's not that. We're going to probably find places where we're tempted to do it or do do it. Then we just want to come back around and clean it up again. Dishonesty happens from omissions. Not saying what I need to say is an omission that creates a lot of problems. And when I do finally say what it is I needed to say, my partner is going to probably go, why didn't you just tell me? And the. And the truth is, I was afraid.

Well, I was going to say when we were coming up with the outline for this episode, one of the things that I know people struggle with when they're trying to rebuild their trust after they've taken space or had a separation is how do I know my partner isn't going to keep doing that? Meaning how do I know my partner isn't going to keep withholding how they're feeling? Because that's what got us to needing space or separation in the first place. So how can I trust them to change that? That's a big behavior change. So how can I count on them to come to the table and share what they're feeling or where they're needs aren't getting met so that we don't have to go through this whole painful space and separation all over again?

You have to ask them what they need in order to feel safe to share. Yeah. Not talking about the fact that you're afraid they're going to not share. We have to talk about what is it you need really help me understand that so that I can do my part in helping you feel safe? And then there's going to be a part on their side. They're going to have to roll up their sleeves and step into that and face some of their own fears of sharing as well. So there's only so much we can do as a support system to somebody who gets a lot of fear and anxiety around sharing how they think and feel. I can do my best if you teach me how to help you feel safe, but I still can't speak the words for you. That's something you're going to have to do on your own so I can try and set it up as best I can, but I'm still going to have to rely on you to do that. And that's as as good as it can get.

I just want to point out what you said in There is a very important distinction that I want all of our listeners to hear. Mom 2 said, Focus on what they need to feel emotionally safe in order to share. Not that you're scared they're not going to share. That is so powerful. That one sentence we say a lot in these shows, but that right there, that is a little nugget that that simple switch is so important. It can also be so difficult because it's in our nature to worry and to want to prevent the painful things that have happened in the past. But making that little switch is focusing on the behavior change or at least setting the stage so the behavior change can occur. And that is what is going to prevent it from happening again in the future. But that is so important and such a huge aspect of being able to even have the possibility of rebuilding trust is figuring out where you both didn't feel safe and how we can make that safety happen so that we don't have to do the untrustworthy behaviors anymore.

Exactly. That's exactly right. And I'm going to even give you some words to say it. Hey, I know in an effort for you to share and say what you really want to say in the past, I haven't really made it as safe as I maybe could have. And. And so I just want you to know one of my commitments to you is that I want you to teach me how you feel emotionally safe to share. Would you be willing to do that? And then literally take it in and listen and practice and role play it? Because those are the things that we need to be talking about more and more and more. And, and you need somebody who's going to be able to reciprocate and do that for you as well. Otherwise, what needs to be said won't be said. If it's not emotionally safe. Nobody's sharing. We'll talk about the surface level stuff, but I'll never really tell you how I really feel. And that's true for all of us, even those of us who are maybe over talkers or over sharers. There's going to be aspects about me and what doesn't work and what I truly desire. I'm not going to lay on the table because I don't feel emotionally safe to do so. And relationships that thrive in trust have that thing in common where we are continuously working, working and striving to feel safe enough to go deeper and lay those aspects of ourselves on the table over and over and over. Again. And that's what bonds us. That's what gives us this. I know you really know me, and I can share me with you. And over time, there are deeper aspects you can uncover within yourself you didn't even know were there. And there's deeper places and parts and pieces of your beautiful partner that you can get to know and get introduced to as well. And that's the sweet spot when it comes to relationships.

I have another question. What about if your partner did something egregious like we've been talking about in this episode? They had an affair. And you are just so mad and so angry and so hurt that that happened. And then you're listening to this episode and you're like, you're telling me I have to go to my partner and ask them what makes them feel emotionally safe in order. You know, you get what I'm saying? Like, no, they should be the one doing all the work for me because I was the victim. That's a very common way to think. You are able to, like, I don't know, just say it in a way that makes people not defensive, because that is where it's coming from. It's defensiveness and that feeling that I deserve to be made amend, you know, the men should be made for me, not the other way around. But I just want you to talk about that because I think it's really important.

Yeah, it's hard because we take these things so personal. So what we're really talking about is the personalizations that we have a difficult time wrapping our heads around. And we take these things personal because we think they're done to us and not done because somebody else was struggling themselves. And so I start making up narratives, especially with affairs that narratives like, why wasn't I enough? Why was I so worthless that you were willing to cast me aside and dump me off at the curb as you just carry on into this little, you know, various experience that you're embarking on. And I want you to know that really has nothing to do with it. But that's the personalization that's trumping the show, or they're taking the show. And as long as I'm living in that place, I'm going to become more and more angry and I'm going to become more and more resentful. And the narrative about me and my worthlessness becomes crippling to me as a human being. That's where I begin to live. And that's where a lot of my own personal doubt and breakdown comes into play. And you Start to see in these places with all the love in my heart. We create so much pain for ourselves that we have to weed through. If we could see and understand that this has nothing to do with you per se, and a lot to do with my partners in the ability to do a few things. Number one, share with you wasn't what was not working in the relationship in a way that we understood we had a problem and needed to address it. Sure, maybe there's some things and ways that you show up in the relationship that, you know, affect them because that's part of every relationship, like we've always already touched on. Maybe there's a way that you do X, Y and Z that just sends me spinning, and I don't have the ability to talk about it or share about it or address it. And for a long time, I just pretended like it was going to be okay and that I was going to be good with it. And then the day came where I didn't want to lose you. So I decided I had this opportunity to have a little affair. It was really fun, and I decided to take advantage of it. And it was a terrible idea, but I minimized it in my mind and justified it. And it was because I say to myself, damn it, I'm so frustrated in this relationship. You know, they never do this because they're personalizing, too. They do this because they're against me. They do this because they don't care. They do this because I'm not part of this relationship anyway. So what the hell, that's what motivates them and their personalization as well, to go have the affair. It's really not that you're worthless or not smart enough or beautiful enough or don't make enough money and all the other places that we go. It's because I am struggling with emotional pain inside of me that I don't know how to share with you. And so rather than share it, which would be the easier thing to do, I decided to go and cope with it, hoping you wouldn't find out. And then you do, and then the shit hits the fan. And I want you to see now we have a bigger problem than we had when we started. But still, the root of the issue is that we don't understand each other and we're taking our emotional pain out on each other. And yes, people who have had affairs might say, well, you weren't giving this to me, so of course I had an affair. But that's just them justifying their own decision that they know wasn't okay. That they don't necessarily feel good about in the cockles of their own minds and hearts, but it's a way to defend it and make it, you know, do this cause and effect thing. Well, it's because you wouldn't give me sex. And. And by the way, that was a terrible example because affairs are generally not about sex at all. It's just a very common excuse that.

Yeah, I was just gonna say it is a very common thing that is thrown out by the person who had the affair.

Yes. Yes, exactly. Well, you're not. You're not doing it anyway, you know. Well, why aren't we talking about it and resolving it then? That would be the healthy thing to do. So the healthy thing would be, this isn't working for me. This is important to me. I. I'm not happy here. And if we don't do something, I'm going to need to step away from this. I'm going to tell you right now, I'm going to have an affair. I would rather people say I'm going to have an aff. To threaten, but because I'm letting you know where I'm at, we can't just kind of have it both ways. This can't just be a place where I feel like it works for you and doesn't work for me and that there's no space and room for me to say anything in the relationship. Those relationships won't last. I hope that makes sense. Because we can't build trust. We can't share. We. We can't address the consistent and constant adjustments that are going to be required as we navigate life that is going to be never ending. Never ending. And so if we don't have a basic functioning skill set and working acumen to navigate these things, it's going to be some story of there was a breach of trust. I can't trust you anymore. I'm out of here. Everything from an affair to broken commitments and agreements, even simple things like, you know, forgetting things at the grocery store or not helping out with chores or not contributing in with finances and paying the bills, all of those little teeny broken things that are promises that I broke and then I justified it by a great story, are the things that break our relationships down over time. We don't talk about them. We just get pissy. We personalize it. We stop talking. There is no recovery from that as long as we stay on that trajectory breaks down because I don't have any emotional safety. Circling all the way back to Brooke's original question, Beautiful soul. If you're struggling with an affair, please know it is not. Not because you're worthless or you weren't good enough to be loved, or that you've done some unsurmountable, terrible thing. It's been a slow buildup of a lot of small things that nobody was talking about. Maybe you were trying, but they weren't. Or maybe they've tried and you weren't ready. And then the opportunity popped up and they took it and justified it in their own mind. So how do we unwind an affair? It has to start with understanding. Understanding what drove it, what wasn't working for you, what is it you need to feel safe, and me too. It's not just for the person who had the affair, but for the person who was standing by and feels a tremendous amount of rage and upset, rightfully so, about this surprised action you never thought would happen in your life. But please do your best to not personalize it. It really doesn't have anything to do with you. Does it affect you? Absolutely. But it's really not because of you. It's because of a whole lot of things that haven't been talked about for a whole lot longer than that. And that's why we need to get better at saying, well, this is what I need to feel safe to come to the table so that I can start understanding why I took the opportunity and that you can start to see and understand what it is that you need in order to have the reassurance as we build and go forward and see what's possible. So the.

The classic. And we hear this often, again, not no disrespect to anyone, but, you know, we hear, gosh, it came out of nowhere in all your time. Once we get to really be able to get some safety and there's some sharing, didn't really come out of nowhere.

That's why we need the understanding when it feels like it comes out of nowhere. There's a lot going on for your partner that either A, wasn't shared or B, misunderstood.

Yeah, like, you are so disconnected. Again, I'm not trying to make you feel bad, but that just shows how disconnected you and your partner were. If you feel that it came out of nowhere because they were struggling so much. And let's be honest, I'm sure you were too, but there was no, like, connection between the two of you where those messages could be shared. Probably because, like me, maybe you get really offended and defensive when your partner brings up an unmet need. Maybe it doesn't fall on you Know, open ears, friendly tent territory. For a long time I was an unapproachable partner and I had no idea, I thought I was the best partner in the world until my partner told me. Jack said, hey Brooke, I can't tell you what's going on for me because you get your feelings hurt so much. So I don't want to hurt your feelings, but also I don't want to not be able to tell you if I'm hurting. A lot of us do that for our partners without realizing and we don't understand how much that affects the relationship.

And I was and, and have been patternistic in just making everything work for you. Like you are going to believe you were in the best relationship of your friggin life. Life. I'm going to make sure of it. And all is going to go well for about, I don't know, three to seven years. And then there's going to come a day I can't take it anymore because my own needs weren't being met. But I never told you about it. And so I'm going to slap you real hard out of the blue, just like that and go, I can't do this anymore. And you're going to go, what are you talking about? What in the heck are you talking about? We have the greatest relationship on the planet. Even all of our friends and family say so. And I say I know for you. And I am miserable and unhappy. And you know what? Unfortunately I've actually done this. I pushed it to such a point that my emotional gas tank was empty and I didn't even want to try again. Not because my partner wasn't great, but because I had stretched myself on my own accord and by my own volition so far. Thinking that that was supposed to be the magic bullet. If I could just make you happy enough, if I could just sac. Sacrifice myself enough to make a great relationship and make sure you always feel like you walk on water in my life, then somehow I'm going to be able to amass some happiness out of that only to find that's a personal breakdown of self rejection within myself and I'm not going to make it very far. And then I'm going to have to let go in order to find myself again because I am completely lost as a Stacy in the wilderness. And so until I can find that, I can't go anywhere with you and I'll end the relationship. And it's devastating. It's devastating to a person like that. There was no signs. I didn't say so I knew, so. But I was keeping it all to myself.

So I'm gonna put this in the affair example. Okay? Stacy, she didn't have an affair, but let's just say she did. So she was trying to make her partner as happy as she possibly could, and her partner is like, oh, my God, this relationship is literally sweeping off my feet. I've never been happier. If then she went and had an affair, my God, that would be the most confusing thing that ever happened for the person. So, yes, it would seem completely out of the blue and the most painful thing you've ever experienced, because Stacy never shared or was never comfortable enough to share that she was dying inside. So for her, the affair was giving her the lifeblood to continue living. For you, it was the biggest betrayal that ever occurred in your life, and you couldn't comprehend why the fuck she would go and sleep with someone else if you were the happiest you've ever been in your life. That just illustrates the point we're making, that the emotional safety to share things is actually more important than trust in your relationship. That is what allows for trust to happen.

Trust it well also to it to be repaired when it has been broken.

So the. The discovery that needs to happen. The person that Stacy had an affair on, I guess you could say, would never reach this knowing. Unless they were like, okay, let's attempt to rebuild trust so we can have these conversations. And all the, you know, this happens a lot where affair happen and then they just cut it off and they end and they maybe never talk again or they never try to figure out. Both people would go away from this situation believing something totally false about it. They'd never even give themselves an opportunity to figure out what was really happening. And I just want everyone listening to see and know that that is why we are so passionate about this topic and do this work and have this kind of counter argument that most people have about what infidelity and affairs mean in relationships. This story so beautifully captures it because it's like, hello, both of you are having totally different experiences, but most of the time we never get back together. And also, this could happen even if you still choose to break up. You could still choose to break up, but you could still have this conversation so you could get that knowing inside of you, where you go, I get why you had an affair. We get a lot of pushback on this. So I just want to say one more thing. Because you say, I understand why you had an affair does not mean I agree that you had an affair or I'm so glad you had an affair. Or like all of my negative emotions have left my body that you had an affair. None of that is what we're saying. We're just saying the reasons behind it make sense, which then can lead you down the path to begin healing. It doesn't mean that it erases the experience or that affairs are great or that, oh, God, you know, you're lucky that it happened to you. That is not what we're saying.

I just want to make that clear. Yeah. And. And I just. I feel compelled to say. And even with what you described, the high reactivity and I. And maybe. Maybe our situation is like Brooke, she's the partner that every time something gets brought up, she blows a gasket it. Right. Because she takes it so personal. Or she's spending in her anxiety and so it gets unsafe to share anything with you. And I have an affair just to cope, just to be able to share and open up all of the things that I've been trying to share to my partner that they're not in a place to receive. Yeah, but that creates emotional affairs. And I'll justify it thinking, well, just share myself emotionally here and then I'll go home and be with my partner and family and I'm going to try and do both, make both work. Yeah. Yeah. Because it feels so good to just be able to share. And. And that's what happens when we start to personalize things. We create a tremendous amount of pain for ourselves. And my personalizations in my example was me not feeling like I could open up and expose myself to my partner for fear that they would judge me or that if I stopped being able to please them that the whole relationship would fall apart. And you start to see some of the fears, although we start understand are an illusion to a large degree, they're still very real. And I still very much believe that fantasy until I have a different experience as a human being. And so it is in the reactivity. So personalization really creates a lot of emotional pain for us as a human being. And we make it about us when it's so not about us and it's so much about what's going on with our partner sometimes, especially when there are things that are happening that we don't understand. You don't understand because it doesn't have anything to do with you. And yet we'll spin a story as though it does to my own demise and breakdown. So I want you to see also how we increase the emotional pain of these very difficult places. And things. And I've had an experience where somebody did have an affair on me and I knew it wasn't about me. It was still hard and disappointing, but it didn't end unravel me as a person. I didn't dismantle my own self esteem and confidence as a person. I knew it didn't have anything to do with me. And that's important for us to see and understand. And that's going to be the most foundational place for us to navigate through these, you know, really hard places of betrayal. And sometimes the betrayal isn't necessarily sexual with an affair or emotional like an affair. It could be financial breaches where all of a sudden I find that you, that you have property or investments or racked up $175,000 in credit card debt I knew nothing about and you use my Social Security number to do it. Those are big breaches of betrayal as well that we want to understand. Like what were you thinking? What was happening for you? How did you justify this? I would want to know all of those things and why so that I could find if it was possible for me to risk with you again. That's what I'm looking for. Why help me understand what was happening. What were you thinking? What motivated you? How did you justify it? Did you think of me? Those are all really great questions to ask to find a place where maybe I can understand to such a degree that I can find a place inside of me where I want to risk with you again to rebuild it. And because we don't think of trust in terms of risk, we fumble around and flounder around and blame and point fingers and dismantle ourselves in these places of personalization. And inevitably it doesn't take us anywhere. And so people say you can't recover from things like that. If so, and so does that, you need to leave them. Well, that just tells me you don't understand human relationships because what you're saying is not true. I will agree with you. That's typically the way it goes. Because we don't understand what human behavior is and how it affects relationships and how to navigate through.

Well, it's almost as if once we, and I say this often on our clarity calls, you know, once we figure out who's right and who's wrong and we get the person that's wrong, have enough repentance, you know, they'll get their together and come on back and everything will be fine again.

Yeah, no, it doesn't work like that. I, I know. I'm sure we all know, I'm sure, dear listener, you've either done it or you know somebody who has. Where I'm going to make you jump through a thousand hoops. Hoops. Maybe you're doing this to your partner right now or maybe they're doing it to you. You do all of these things and then maybe I'll see if I'll trust you. You're worthy enough. You've paid enough of a penance and a price. And I just want you to know that's never going to take you where you need to go. That is not rebuilding a relationship at all. That is somebody using this position as a power and control piece of manipulation makes us feel like we're in control of no further breaches. If I'm telling you the hoops to jump through and, and there will always be. As long as that is the fear that is running in the back of the person's mind and they're trying to manage it by you doing certain things, there will always be another thing because the fear in them will come up again somewhere else. I was afraid of this and concerned about this, but now I'm afraid and concerned about this. And so now you need to jump through this hoop over here. It will, it will be a never ending fearful placeholder. Both of you. For both of you. Even the person who's saying, do this, do this, do this, do this, they're desperately trying to manage their own fear of this in a, in a place of a sense of foundation and safety so that they can continue to play and risk with you. But they're going to find it's a, a bottomless pit. And so then it's this thing I have to adjust and be worried about. Then it's this thing I have to be adjusting and worrying about. And the person on the other end of that is jumping through hoop after hoop after hoop after hoop and goes, what is it going to take? I'm getting really tired here and I'll be damned if I'm going to do this for the rest of my life. So there's no winners there. Nobody wins in that scenario.

So how do you get out of that?

Yes, Well, I think that's where we need to probably turn the episode and start giving you some really simple steps to begin to repair the quasi trust. And I need you to understand that step one is I must find a place to risk and safety within myself first. Because here's the deal. If trust is something I give, I have to have it to give. I can't give What I don't already have.

So rather than demand it of somebody else, it has to come from us, within ourselves.

And that's usually the hard part. You're going to find that that's where individuals and couples really, really struggle. It's almost as though there's so much fear and inertia that if I really let go, either in trying to enroll my partner back into the relationship or really just acknowledging and setting in settling into myself, I'm going to lose control of something. It's going to be really, really scary. And yet letting go of trying to control the actions and emotions of your partner to rebuild trust and focus on trusting your own thoughts and feelings and emotions is where you have to begin. Big gulp. I know. And then we have to step out of stopping of the blaming and the defending of my personalizations and me taking this out on you. It has to stop. We can't build trust and find safety in places where we can risk with each other. Again, if I'm still set in that pattern, we.

We say this often, but we cannot punish the pain out of anybody. They're already doing a great job of that themselves. I can assure you. We all do. No one kicks their own fanny any greater than us, ourselves. So that approach, and it's very valid and a lot of us think no, we just make sure we get this person to understand and have them jump through enough hoops and stuff, then they'll get it figured out.

That's well, and we're hurting, so we want them to hurt too, you know.

Sure. Exactly.

Let's just talk about that for a minute, please. I feel like that needs to be addressed. That is an illusion that we come to in our conclusions and in a desperate attempt to feel better. So we'll justify doing things to someone else with the thought being maybe if they hurt like me, I'll feel better. They'll finally understand where I'm coming from. And there's this little itty bitty teeny tiny detail that we don't think about in that mindset, and that's this. You're going to have to live with the truth and the reality that you did these hurtful things to somebody you say you love in an effort to create pain and suffering for them and yourself. If we're being honest at the heart and the heart of the matter is not going to be okay with that, it's going to be something you're going to carry and know you did, but you're going to justify it in a layer of defensiveness. That gets bigger and louder when the reality is you're never going to feel good about who you are and what you're doing in this relationship if you're going to start doing things that are disingenuous or go against the person that you truly want to be. For example, if I want to be a kind, loving, supportive person when I get hurt, how quickly I can swing to the other side and think, well, if I make you pay, then I'm going to feel better. And it's so out of character for me. And I do it. And I find not only did it not make me feel better, it made me feel worse about myself. This is how clients say, I'm turning into a monster of myself because I'm chasing this never ending path of if I make you pay, I'll feel better. Now I feel worse, I'm going to make you pay some more. So I'll do something a little more egregious as it escalates and I feel even worse. So then I do more of it, thinking that must, there must be, you know, like a prize at the end of the rainbow here. No, there is no prize. It's just you dismantling yourself and justifying your poor behavior because you're in pain. And that's what it means when I say I take my emotional pain out on others. It is a deep, bottomless pit that has no bottom. And all that's really happening is you're dismantling, disrespecting, dishonoring, living life outside of the person you genuinely want to be. And what you don't realize is in order for me to feel better when I'm hurting is for me to start feeling better within myself. That's the secret sauce. That's the simple answer. That's why I say we can't give what we don't have. So I have to do that part for myself first. And then we can start talking about how we're going to put it together with another. Okay, so let's talk about that. Once I find some emotional safe place to rest and I have a foundation inside of myself and I have the capacity to rest, risk again as a person, as an individual, then we can start talking about putting it together with another. And what does that look like? Well, that looks like us having the conversations that we've kind of touched on in this episode. This is what I need to feel safe. This is what didn't work for me in our relationship as it was. Can we explore this going forward? And what about you? What what would you need? What makes you feel safe? Right. Understanding where the breakdown took place. Not from a place of blaming, but just like I've asked already, help me understand what was going on for you at this place and space in our relationship. Wow. Okay, here's what was going on for me. That's the understanding and that's what I would encourage you to pursue as you explore deeper places of building this place of safety inside of your relationship. Because remember, if it's not emotionally safe, we are so not sharing. And you're still going to have to come back to that foundation of myself again and again and again. They're going to share. You're going to go back and you're going to resource from within. Because that's my foundation, that's my anchor, that's my place. I call it sit your butt down and listen. And it's a practice. And I'm going to encourage you to take time every single day to reflect on your own thoughts, feelings and emotions, even write them down or bullet point them. Because this is where I need to resource. If I can't resource from there, I'm going to take them out on somebody else because I've become reactive instead of being able to translate them into a language that I can understand to share them enough with you. And if you can't do that part for yourself, there's no way we're going to be able to create safety. And there's no way we're going to be able to create safety understanding. So therefore, the trust and the ability to risk will go unfulfilled. That's work that only we can do as individuals. So we honor and allow those thoughts and feelings to be what they are. This is something else we struggle with. I might be able to identify my feelings and my thoughts, but I don't want to give them any light of day. I want to keep them like, squashed. I don't know if I can trust them. I don't know if I can honor them. And maybe I'm wrong and I get all twisted up in that.

That.

So you know what happens then is that just makes you highly manipulatable. Somebody else is going to come along and say, well, I'll tell you what to think and feel and you're going to go, really? Okay, that sounds great. Tell me who I need to be and I'll do it without realizing. Nobody can help you understand who you are and who you need to be. That's until only you have access to. Even if they were to take A wild guess. There's going to be lots of things are going to get wrong. Oh, as human beings, things. How we love to figure out who everyone else is but ourselves. It's just such a common pastime. As good as you can hit it on the nail. You're never going to get it right because there's so many parts, pieces and details of a person that if they don't share it with you, you don't know anyway. And I need to be the one to go find them and honor them and allow them and share them. And this creates a validation and a heightened sense of awareness and resiliency within oneself. This is going to aid in creating a feeling of calm, a centered mind. It's going to reduce reactionary behaviors and allow us to start and begin to notice where I end and somebody else begins and what's my responsibility and what is not. You're also going to have the capacity to risk again. That's important. Next, it's important for us to be open and honest. Let's be honest lies and validate yourself, as we've already highlighted here, and cause you to be cautious when risking with another person. I mean, after all, you know you're lying, so there's no way you're not going to believe somebody else isn't doing it too. I can't get all in. I can't trust you because I don't trust myself again. I can't give what I don't have. So you can't justify you lying because of something that your partner's doing and then expect them to trust you back. It doesn't work like that. If you're lying, clean that shit up and let's get on with it so that you can get integrous with yourself. And then you're going to be able to start creating more of a willingness to risk with others. And you're going to ask your partner to do this practice too. Sit your butt down. Allow your thoughts and feelings to exist. Honor them. Let's talk about them. And let's come from that place where everybody knows where the foundation is and I know where I end and you begin. I'm not going to take it personal. If you're struggling, that's on you. But I'm more than open and willing to support you in some of these places to create emotional safety if you'll teach them to me. And I promise to do the same for you. And then we put it all together and the hardest thing you're going to bump into is listening the Listening part is going to be a struggle because it's hard for us as human beings to not hear something and start taking off in our own narratives and places and spaces and make it about ourselves. So that's going to be a practice. Active listening means I'm intently listening with an endeavor to understand someone else, not get them to understand me. It's not my turn yet. So much so that I could repeat back what they shared to me in a place that they go, yeah, I got it. You. You got it? You absolutely got it. Now, there's a lot of people who go, really? That little thing, reflective listening, where I repeat back what you just said? You know, don't be a dick. Here's the thing. The reason why that's so important is because unless you say or repeat it back to me as a person, I don't know that you really heard me. And if I am tumbling in the question as to whether you heard me or not, I'm not getting a clunk. You know what? I'm not going to be willing to risk with you, so don't repeat it back to me. And I just won't get in. I just won't get all in with you.

Well, and I would also say you're not repeating it back in a way to mock him or her. All the stuff that we get all righteous and. No, no, no. It's a sign that you genuinely give a. You care what I care. What a concept.

And that you really took in what was being shared. And do you know, if we would just do that simple little thing, it would cure 98% of our conflict.

I've shared this before. I find this fascinating. Waiters and waitresses, that how I love it. Not too often. They'll come and they'll have a large table or not even large, and then they'll. After everyone gives their order, then they'll go around each person and they will repeat back what him or her ordered. By far and away, they receive more tips than anybody else. Not even close. I mean, in that case, it really pays off financially.

So if you experience it, it is life changing for somebody to really put in the effort to say, I heard what you said. You said this. Is there anything I missed that you want to add to? I mean, that just makes you feel so seen and so loved and so supported and so safe. No. And that. That feeling where you kind of go, no, you got it. I don't have anything to add. That's incredible. What an incredible validating moment. And we need more of those so much so that we should actively set aside time each week dedicated to those listening sessions where we get to go back and forth and say, this doesn't work for me. Really? It doesn't work for you? I hear you say, because of this and this and this. Is there anything I'm missing? Did I get it right? No, you did you get it. And I go, man, that's really hard for me to hear. But it. I hear you. All right. What do you think we should do about it now? That's always the piece of the conversation that A, we never get to or B, we never have. We just talk about the problems. What do you want to do? How could I support you? What do you think could make a difference?

What would it take? Yeah, what would it take for it to work for you?

We could kick around. Yeah. Would this work? Would this work? Let's try it. Okay. Thank you so much. That was awesome. You know how few couples have that conversation and we need to learn how to have conversations like that more. Want to talk about conversations that really build trust. That really builds trust there. And that's how we need to put it together. And as I practice this, it's going to build trust and I'm going to be willing to risk with you more and more and more.

And it's going to be more of the default of how you go through these difficult situations rather than just just there's going to be. Someone's going to make a mistake. Trust is going to be breached. This is how you can step back in more quickly and more effectively and efficiently. And it's not this major situation that could take, you know, days or weeks or months to move through. I always say if there's anything Stacy and I maybe do a little differently than all you other people and thank you for listening is we're just really good at cleaning up our messes really fast. Why I want to get back to the good stuff as fast as possible. That's the only reason. So, man, we're mess making machines right along with everybody else, but let's just get good at cleaning them up quickly.

The last super tip I'm going to give you as we wrap up this episode is develop simply daily rituals of reassurance. Because reassurance is so powerful, they could look like things of, gosh, would you just give me a hug? That just lets me know you're here. Some of us need some kind of a physical sensation in order to. To feel reassured. Some of us need verbal reassurance. Hey, I just want you to know you matter to me. Today, this relationship matters. I'm focusing on what we talked about yesterday. I'm going to take it with me. Thank you so much. So we need physical touch, we need words. And then we can also make a point of just creating pleasurable moments because I know those are things that are important to our partners. If we're talking about them. I might want you to know that I'm really thinking about you today. So I send you a text or, you know, I make your favorite thing for dinner. I have your favorite treat. You know, I stopped by the store and intentionally bring it to you. Something that I know you value and that's important to me. As we're trying to rebuild these things, all of those wonderful things give us some reassurance while we're, you know, muttering around towards creating more ability or capacity inside of ourselves to risk a little more and a little more. It also keeps the conversations flowing. It motivates me to use that, that listening skill when sometimes it's really hard because it takes a tremendous amount of energy to listen. So I can run out of the capacity emotionally to listen really fast if we're not kind of refueling with some of these places of reassurance. And then just focus on the good things in relationships, we focus on such bad things. I. The metaphor that I use is we all have weeds in our relationship. We all have things that don't work and things that are growing out of control that are a problem. But often we used to get so hyper focused on the weed that we don't understand. There's so many other beautiful things growing in our relationship. And instead of just addressing the weed, we pull everything out, even all the beautiful things, thinking that it's all trash. And you don't need to do that. Oh, remember the good things to find some places of gratitude inside of yourself, to remember all the things you do love about your partner. Because I promise you, regardless of the challenges that you're going through, they still exist. Just like if you've made a huge blunder and a mistake, they still exist in you. And it's important that we remember that sometimes. Personally remember that. Look, I. I might have a lot of weeds growing in me, but I know there's a lot of good in there too. Let's be careful and mindful of not plucking out all the beauty as we try and work with pulling out some of the weeds. That's important for you to remember. And again, keeping a journal or a voice memo, if that's a way for you to record these things that are important and significant to you in those moments as you're going along the way, help you remember there are a lot of beautiful, good things in here. Right? Remind yourself in time intentionally about those things. Because we know when the emotion flashes and that difficulty of emotional pain, we tend to think it's all just terrible when that's really not the case at all. So you can go back to those writings in your journal or those little voice recordings or videos to remind you, yeah, yeah, man, I really kind of fell off the edge for a minute. There are a lot of good things in me and you and us. I'm going to encourage you to remember that. And then the last thing I'm going to say is patience. Remember, this is a practice. It's not something we do in one conversation or one round. It's going to take many rounds to rebuild trust. That willingness to risk with you a little bit now and then a little bit more tomorrow and then next week and next month, and so on and so on and so on. It will go as my hope for you. So make sure that you remember patience and consistency is the answer. And that celebrating those small victories, as I've described, is extremely important. And then don't forget the continuous learning and adaptation of new skills and understanding is going to be critical. It's going to be a place where if we keep doing the same old thing, we're going to keep arriving at the same old place. I can't emphasize the need for important skills, the ability to communicate effectively, to listen effectively, to be able to emotionally regulate effectively, to know how to build parts and places and spaces in yourself and in your relationship that create and generate emotional safety are paramount to you having success with this. I keep saying this, but my last, final, final, final thoughts. My encouragement is address your issues now to prevent further breakdown if things are deteriorating or you're unsure about how to rebuild trust. Restoring trust and intimacy is. Is possible with the right steps, even though there's been a lot of difficulty and pain that have taken place. And professional guidance, somebody who can not only teach you skills, but mentor you through the process as you practice. Mess it up, practice some more, mess it up again, because that's how we become masterful at anything. And that investing in professional help actually will enhance the quality of your life and relationship. Relationship satisfaction and skills learned will be the game changer that you're missing 100% of the time. And if you don't know what they are, then it's high time to learn them. I would say so. So to gain information and more resources on ways that we can help and support you in your relationship, I encourage you to visit stacybartly.com I also invite you as our listeners. Please share your experiences and your feedback and your questions that come up for you around this episode. We know we've they're usually power packed so please, if you have some things you would like to share, we'd love to hear your celebrations and or your questions around things that you would like more information around. Bottom line, we do this because we care about you. That's. So let's do a little fun, shall we? My fun today, our little follow the fun moment is identify one thing would provide you with a sense of emotionally feeling safe. And because I know you're a human being listening to this, here are three good things to consider as you look for that one thing. Number one, you want to feel heard. You don't feel like you felt heard and understood in a really long time. Well, that could be something you could ask for. Or number two, I noticed that I'm just kind of reeling in my anxiety or in my obsessive thoughts or I don't feel safe enough to open up and share. Maybe I could ask for some reassurance that would help me with that. Would you just give me a hug? Would you just reassure me today that you love me, that this matters. We're going to be okay. This song comes to mind where I think, lie to me, just lie to me so I can do another day. Sometimes we just need some reassurance, a big hug and then I love you, I'll see you later makes a huge difference. And number three, I know that you need some things for yourself. I'm going to encourage you to validate yourself today. Maybe in some small way value your thoughts, your feelings, what you need, what's not working, give it a voice. Those are three good things that you could consider right now that might help you feel just a little more safe. Our song today that I've selected is from Mary Blige. When I was going through my own phases of trying to find myself and rebuild a foundation, many of the things that we've talked about in this episode she has a song called My Life and the words are if you looked into my life and see what I see. And she has this whole conversation about boy would it be a shit show. But then she changes it to say, I wish that I could connect to me. It's going to take time. Don't rush it. You're going to find peace of mind and you're going to see the sunshine. It's going to free your mind and things are going to turn out just fine. And I would replay that thing over and over and over and over again. And so I share it with you as a tool that has helped me in these places where I'm finding that initial foundation. Sometimes to risk again with somebody else can really cause us to do a lot of what I call emotional weightlifting. It's going to make us sweat, it's going to make us dive deep within ourselves, find a place of rootedness and trust there. And I'm really risking there with myself. I'm going to trust and know that I know what I'm thinking and that I'm. What I'm feeling is okay, that it's okay to be me. Then I can risk with somebody else. That's the best foundation for me to do that from. Otherwise, I'm always trying to run from somebody like I did, or control somebody, maybe like Brooke did. Don't tell me that doesn't work. Just do what I say and we're gonna be fine. Anyway, enjoy. You can check out this song on Spotify by checking out the Love Shack Live playlist or you can also go to our website. Without further ado, it's been a pleasure to be here with you today and and share this episode with you and these really important things that I hope make a difference in your life. I send you off with a ton of love and a big hug and a squeeze. Looking forward to when we meet again. Bye bye for now.

All right, it's time to leave the Love Shack, but before we part ways, we want you to know our door is always open and we'll leave the porch light on. We ready to welcome you back whenever you need a dose of relationship wisdom. For more resources and tools, visit us atlove shack live.com to dive deeper into the topics we've explored and find additional support for your relationship journey. Stay connected by subscribing to our podcast. Thank you for being part of our Love Shack Live community.

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