When I asked about your biggest marital struggle, several of you mentioned trust issues. The surrounding circumstances varied, but the upshot was the same: you didn’t trust that your spouse loved you or would continue to be there for you.
My solution to trust issues is somewhat spiritual and deep and tough for me to explain in words. It’s possible that I will explain it so poorly that no one will get it and everyone will comment about how it doesn’t make sense and would never work in real life. But I’ll toss it out there anyway, just in case I manage to describe it effectively.
The solution lies in knowing that trust is an act of faith. It’s a choice. I, for instance, don’t know for a certainty that my husband will come home tonight. It’s possible that he might meet a beautiful woman on the street today and the two of them will decide to run off to the Swiss Alps together where they will take part in extreme snowboarding for the rest of their lives.
It’s possible. But I’m not going to worry about it because 1) it’s not probable 2) if my husband did move to the Alps with some snowboarding floozy, there wouldn’t be anything I could do about it.
The truth is that you can’t trust anyone in your life 100 percent of the time because you can’t control other people. Everyone in your life – including you – is a deeply flawed human being. If these folks were not flawed, they would be divine, enlightened or on the verge of being canonized as saints. Because they are flawed and because they do not share your thoughts and opinions, chances are they will indeed let you down one or more times.
This doesn’t mean they don’t love you. And this doesn’t mean that they are bad people.
Now it’s quite possible that your spouse has given you good reasons to stop trusting him or her. Assuming you’ve addressed that issue and assuming your spouse has apologized and promised to make amends, then you might as well stop worrying about the “what ifs.” The more you try to predict the future – What if he lets me down? What if he cheats? What if he walks out on my marriage? – the less trusting you will become.
You can’t control the future, and worrying about it probably won’t help you prepare for it, either. You also can’t control your spouse.
But you can control you. You can take steps to do everything possible to stand on your own two feet. You can become so confident that you will know—without a doubt—that you will okay whether your spouse is in your life or out of it. You can be the best spouse you can possibly be, too. You can be someone who is warm, compassionate, forgiving, and loving. You can ask for what you need. You can talk about your fears. You can grow. You can be a leader. You can be a big person with a big heart.
And you can live in the moment. You’ll deal with whatever happens in the next moment once it gets here.
Those are choices you can make. Those are all things you can control. Whenever you find yourself thinking, “What if he…” stop that thought and tell yourself, “I am not going to waste my mental energy on that right now. Instead I am going to focus on what I can do instead.” Then shift your thinking to what you can control: your actions and your thoughts.
Readers: What do you think? What have you done to build trust? What has worked for you? Do you struggle with trust issues in your relationship? What are the stumbling blocks for you?
Note: You also might want to read these related posts about trust issues, how to get past an affair (take #1) and how to get past an affair (take #2).
UPDATES
* I would love if more of you commented on How PHEA Changed Your Lives.
* I’m giving a book signing this Saturday. You can find details and RSVP here. During the signing I will be raffling off a free Romance Swag Basket donated by Eden Fantasys.
* You can listen to my radio interview with Bruce Kelly on Secrets of a Romance Writer’s Husband. Here I talk about romance, communication, marriage and more.
* At The Writer’s Place, I talk about what caused me to fall in love with writing. So do several other writers.
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
Wow! I like this one. My only single problem is it will not work with my personality. I am a certified worrier. I can’t get certain thoughts out of my head sometimes. I guess I am a little OCD.
I love how you say that you can’t control another person but you can take steps to be self sufficient. I may still worry about things but I know that I am a lot more comfortable knowing I can take care of myself no matter what happens.
I have survived one divorce because of being cheated on. I may hurt but I know I will survive.
I really love all of your posts!
1 – on another christian women’s site, a question was thrown out about how they felt when the husband was on top, and the most common answer was ‘vulnerable but safe.’
2 – i love the old archie and mehitabel stories, and I remembered one entitled “the lesson of the moth.” in questioning a moth on the reason they sought immolation on candles and lights, the moth replies,
we know that if we get
too close it (fire) will kill us
but what does that matter
it is better to be happy
for a moment
and be burned up with beauty
than to live a long time
and be bored all the while
so we wad all our life up
into one little roll
and then we shoot the roll
that is what life is for
it is better to be a part of beauty
for one instant and then cease to
exist than to exist forever
and never be a part of beauty
Trust in marriage is knowing that the one you love is worth the total sacrifice, and willing to be vulnerable to “roll your life up into one little roll and shoot the roll.”
* link for the story: http://www.donmarquis.com/readingroom/archybooks/moth.html
I think the hardest part about trust is when someone’s given you a good reason NOT to. Choosing to trust after that is tricky.
You are so right. The only one you can trust 100% of the time is yourself.
I can’t explain why I trust my husband. Its just something I know based on 10yrs of experience of living with him. I have faith he will never mess with me. I always told him I had enough garbage from the first marriage and if I ever caught him fooling around I would be “gone like the wind”. I don’t have time to put up with that sort of thing. Not any more. If I was younger it would be different but not now
You are right, trust is a choice. Everything we do is a choice. I used to live with a lot of what ifs and fear about my wife cheating on me or leaving me. Learning that living in the fear and worry is holding me back from being the person God made me was a big shift forward. Fear and worrying is an unsuccessful attempt to control what cannot be controlled. Focusing on what I can control helped me. No one can stop me from loving my wife and no one can stop me from become the kind of person I want my wife to be. Children learn a lot by example and I believe this is true for adults. People become more like those who we associate with. I also have learned that the fear and worry about my wife cheating or leaving was projecting on to her my insecurities as a result of childhood abuse and my first marriage ending because my ex-wife cheated. Since I love my wife I made the choice to trust her more a little each day and sometimes it was more each hour. Where we are right now is the sum total of our choices.
Thanks for the words of wisdom. Even though I knew what you wrote to be true, I needed to be reminded. Sometimes when you’re in the thick of it, it’s hard to step back and remind yourself.
My hubby has given me reasons to not trust him and those discrepancies hurt me badly. I have had a hard time getting past it and trusting him again because I am tired of being hurt emotionally. It seems each time I take that leap and trust him, I find out something he either lied about or just didn’t tell me. They are not trivial things, either so I do become upset.
I know by not trusting him, I am only further damaging our relationship. Each day is a chance to step forward but at times, it’s very hard to not live in the past and worry what he’s up to now. What he’s being dishonest about. But in the end, it’s only ruining me- w/ worry and anger.
Only time and consistency of new behavior can convince me to trust him. But I don’t know how long it will take.
Still working on it.
Excellent post again Alisa. So very true. I personally have never had a big issue with trust but was in a couple of dating situations where it was a HUGE issue. I don’t know if it was more of a trust or jealousy issue but I assume they are one in the same. One lady I dated had HUGE jealousy issues. It was just one of the reasons I broke it off.
Personally maybe one reason I don’t worry about it much myself is exactly what you wrote. Maybe worded a little different though & involves most infidelity.
1) If a person IS going to cheat on you then all the worry & mistrust in the world isn’t going to change that. They either will or they wont. If anything constant accusing, checking their phones, email, mail etc may actually drive them to it.
A fellow musician friend of mine had a GF with a HUGE jealousy issue. Every time his band played a show & it was out of town he came home to a barrage of accusations. She would call the hotel for a record of phone calls from the room & would call every number to see who answered. She even went as far as to “check his underwear” for signs of another women. I kid you not.
Well he finally reached a point of “well if she is going to keep accusing me of it I might as well do it”. HOWEVER he didn’t do it because of his morals & eventually broke it off with her. The sole reason for the breakup was the jealousy & lack of trust. So in a case of they have never even given a reason not to trust but the other doesn’t it can be REALLY destructive.
In my life my beloved has never really had a problem with trust. She has always known that I am not going to cheat & I have never given her reason to be concerned. She has also seen through my actions that I am here for “Better or for Worse”. If I haven’t left after all we have been through with this illness I think she can be assured that I am in it for the long haul. This post made me ask her why she is so secure & she said “That worrying about it wont change the outcome” Also pretty much the same thing. “If you haven’t left after all this you are sticking around”.
GREAT Post Alisa
Ron
RON, EVERY THING FROM YOUR REPLY I AM LIVEING RIGHT NOW BUT ONLY I AM THE ONE CHECKING THE EMAIL. PHONE S THE 20qS, THE OTHER NIGHT HE WENT TO A MEETING AT WORK HE CALLED ME SAID HE WAS DONE A LIL AFTER 7 AND I STOOD AT MY WINDOW TILL 945 ALL THE THINGS GOING THRU MY HEAD AND IT MAKES ME SICK ,IT S SO HARD TO BE LIKE THIS I ALWAYS PUSH AWAY MY LOVE ONES THE ONES THAT ARE THE CLOSES TO MY HEART. AND I HAVE TRYD SO HARD TO NOT BE LIKE THIS I JUST DONT NO WHER TO START ..WICKEDBLUEIMMORTAL..???????????
Alisa,
You have distilled trust to choice and faith. Beautiful. I agree that it is a spiritual issue. I think that trust is the active—verb—form of faith. But why did you think it would not make sense to many? Maybe because of the idea that it is spiritual? Your readers responded (at least publicly) with praise and agreement.
Maybe you need to trust in your ability to explain and your readers’ ability to understand!
Faith is about possibilities, what a person can do; trust is about what a person will do and is based on experience in the context of present conditions. Past experience influences trust, but circumstances change and a once faithful spouse has an affair or betrays trust in some other manner. Trust once given is not permanent; it is not unconditional like agape.
Rebuilding trust after betrayal is the challenge because there is a time to withhold a time to give tidbits and eventually a time for complete trust—which may not be 100% but may be 95%. Knowing when to give is the hard part.
I’m just finally catching up. Got back from vacation yesterday. I’m not reading the other comments before posting my own, since I tend to forget my train of thought if I read the other comments first.
You’re blog totally hits the nail on the head. I used to have trust issues with my husband for no reason other than I had bad relationships in the past. Once I went with the thought: if he’s going to cheat or hurt me some other way, there is nothing I can do about it beforehand. What that boiled down to for me was: stop acting &/or treating him as if he’s done something or going to do something. It was making me be a bad person. And then that negativity in my head caused me to say stuff that my husband didn’t deserve.
There is NOTHING anyone can do to stop another from cheating or straying or leaving. But if you’re secure in yourself their actions can’t hurt you the same way as they can when you’re not secure with yourself. (Alisa, I think you explain this better.)
I thought what you said was right on target, but it’s so hard to take that leap of faith and jump. I don’t believe I trust anyone 100%, I’ve been let down too many times, and I just haven’t found the courage to take that leap yet. But I am so hoping that I do someday, because I don’t think that there could be a better feeling than just trusting someone with all of your being. My husband and I have been going thru a rough patch and I just hope that we see our way thru it and come out on the other side, wiser and stronger for having gone thru it. I can only do the best that I can do today. I’m a first time visitor to the site, but enjoyed what I read and plan to come back.
I am having some issues with trusting my mate, whom I’ve been with for 10 years. He has never cheated, but I get severe anxiety every time either of us go out of town alone or even when he works late. He doesn’t go out on his own, unless away for a conference. I sometimes make excuses not to go out on my own at times. It all comes back to my lack of trust. I have always been this way with men. It goes back to living with a single mom who had boyfriends who broke my heart when they left her. I know I have issues, I know what they stem from, I just don’t know how to stop being a psycho crazy woman who is probably driving her husband away! I have checked his phone, e-mails, and it makes me feel terrible. He does stay in contact with an ex and I try to blame my insecurities on that; but I know they run much deeper. Some advice Please!!
I have been married for a month and my wife is still having trust issues over an affair that happened three years ago. How do I explain to her after I have repeatly said sorry and reasured her that it will never happen again. I asked her to let it go and she doesn’t, I love my wife but she is driving me crazy cause she doesn’t trust me. Someone anyone help me. How do deal with a wife that doesn’t trust from one problem three years ago?
I liked the article. Some great points. Trust is one of those things that when it gets broken it’s very hard to put back together.
In order to rebuild trust, the first step is that both partners need to be willing to accept the situation and be able to forgive.
Trust takes time to heal and to re-build. When we love someone we learn to trust them. If they broke our trust then it does take longer to re-build but it does happen. If your partner has trust issues towards you and you did nothing to break their trust, a good question to ask them is “do you think that you may have trust issues and that this may not even be about me?!