Trust is at the crux of any relationship. It matters most in romantic relationships because that is often the dearest and most intimate of all bonds. Developing trust is an uphill task but ruining that trust is very easy. When trust is shattered, rebuilding it will an even steeper challenge. While many things matter in a relationship, what matters the most after cheating is trust. Love, emotions, satisfaction in a relationship, commitments and collective responsibilities of family and life along with everything else will become secondary. Trust will be the most crucial element that must be rebuilt if the relationship has to be salvaged.
In this article, How To Rebuild Trust After Cheating, you would get a comprehensive and holistic guide to redeem your relationship.
1. Assess The Current Situation
Before an attempt is made to rebuild trust, it is necessary to assess the present situation. Who has cheated on whom, with whom, for how many times and under what circumstances, would have to be factored in. Also, whether the person who has cheated disclosed it or has been concealing it as best as he or she could, should also be factored in. The beginning of the rebuilding process is very important and one must fully understand the situation. What happens in most cases is, despite investing enough emotions to rebuild trust, the resentment remains. The one who has cheated may continue to feel guilty or may be remorseful. The one who has been cheated may always have rancor for the other person and may never be able to fully forgive. It is necessary to allow time for such extreme feelings to subside but one must be aware of them, quite lucidly, at the very onset. Without acknowledging the various facets of a situation, the journey of rebuilding trust would be more difficult and it may not even succeed.
2. Agree Upon a New Start
Both partners should agree to come clean at the very start. That will determine if the trust rebuilding process would even begin. If there’s anything that is held back, whether in the past or in the present context, then that will certainly return to haunt the relationship and may jeopardize the lives of the two people, again. Trust cannot be build and rebuild in a day and one cannot afford to have room for that trust to be shattered again. Even if there is something that may be unpleasant to hear, unbearable to an extent, not the right thing to say or disclose at a tense time; all should be laid bare. Trust can never be rebuilt if one or both people in a relationship hold something back. At the beginning of a new relationship, certain things are always concealed and that doesn’t hurt because the trust has not been broken. When one partner has cheated or both have cheated, then coming clean entirely is not an option but imperative.
3. Rebuild Trust
Trust is generally not an emotional investment solely. It can be with financial matters, personality, psychology and emotional. What will matter in this context is not every aspect of trust but the emotion. It is needless to state that there has to be certainty that the person who has cheated will not cheat again. But that is not going to rebuild the trust that is needed. What will rebuild it is complete emotional investment and satiation of the other person. This is where both partners have to work together, which is also the hardest part. One partner cannot keep trying to rebuild the trust or to reignite the emotions and the other person cannot keep ignoring them or not participating in the same. There should be willingness, from either side, to salvage the relationship. If any of the two partners feel that they cannot willingly invest their selves to rebuild trust, then it is unwise to work on it.
4. Let Time Heal
To rebuild trust after cheating, the partner who has cheated will have to make the cheated upon partner feel secured. This can be done in many ways. The cheated upon partner must first be made to understand that he or she is still valuable in her or his life. Unless one feels valued, there would always be bitterness and that will always come in the way of rebuilding trust. Now, a person can always make his or her partner feel valuable in more ways than one. From organizing special events to doing special things that have not been planned, there is a lot that can be done. But not overdoing is the key. One must start to do things that one can keep doing for a long time, because, trust cannot be rebuilt in six weeks or eight months. It may take more than a year or few years to have the same level of trust that existed before the cheating incident. Overdoing it will be a reflection of the cheater’s guilt and obviously, grand gestures or extravagance cannot be a regular feature in any relationship. Thus, to make the cheated upon partner feel valued, one must invest emotionally and not just financially or with time.
5. Actively Participate
The partner who had been cheated upon may not want to invest anything to rebuild trust but then the outcome would not be desirable. There has to be some level of participation from him or her. But, there will be a phase, which could be some days, weeks or a few months, when he or she would be the inactive partner and would contribute nothing to the relationship. It is fair and also completely reasonable to expect this and for the cheated upon partner to react that way. The partner who cheated should not give up during this phase. He or she is the one who has done wrong and there has to be a phase when he or she will have to actively work to make the relationship work. It is this effort from the partner that eventually has a positive or negative impact. If a partner who has been cheated senses that everything that his or her partner is doing is not out of care, love or genuine emotions but just as a form of penance or a way to make things better and normal, then things are likely to go downhill. Also, the partner who cheated should realize that he or she is not emotionally invested nor committed in the relationship and there is every possibility that he or she may cheat again. If the relationship is still strong and the bond is alive, then all efforts would seem to be natural and will have a positive impact. Anything conceived without emotions will seem artificial and that would not have any effect on the trust rebuilding process.
6. Be Honest
Finally, it is necessary to be completely true to one another and to reveal everything without filtering them at all. Over time, with the right emotions and serious commitment, trust can be rebuilt after cheating. But it takes love, care and genuine desire to salvage the relationship to achieve this. If there is the slightest possibility that either or both the partners are done with the relationship, then salvaging it or rebuilding trust will be almost an impossible task.