5 Ways to Rebuild Trust in a marriage

Mathew and Edith were high school sweeties. They married young due to unsolicited pregnancy. As the occasion deserved, they were left with no other alternative than to tie the nuptial knot sequel to their Charismatic belief. Does he even love her? Yes, he did, but it costs much even as they dropped out of high school to face family matters. It was quite unfortunate; they longed to further their education, but the resources were absolutely scarce. Despite the circumstances bedeviling them, Edith struggled so hard to train Mathew at the University. Shortly after his graduation, he was employed in an Oil firm where he worked long hours, whereas Edith stayed at home taking care of the kids. As things began to turn around for their good, they started leading separate lives. Frank will visit joints and clubs after work, cruising around with his buddies and enjoying the best of moments. Early evening after he drank himself to stupor and arrived home, Edith accessed his mobile phone and came across a text message from a lady who was trying to hook up with him. That was how an inferno was ignited in their home.

Initially, he disagreed with her, but later he turned out to be resentful, apologetic, miserable and troubled that he might lose her. Mathew understood her values, but Edith became anxious and incessantly suspicious of his relationships and movements. Whenever he arrived home, she would engage him in a serious dispute and unending arguments. Obviously, Edith’s trust in Mathew was gone, and it appeared there would be no way out. This is exactly what I may refer to as a marriage drowning in a sea of skepticism and clandestineness. It brought a serious communication breakdown between the couple.

Trust is the foundation of happy marital relationships. It is the vital route through which love and intimacy are transported. In the absence of trust, there would be no safety, security, reverence, love and rapport, but rather anger, insecurity, anxiety, fear. However, it makes the aggrieved person to assume the role of a detective, the FBI, and/or the CIA. Suspicion is what makes spouses peep through cell phones, check emails, and question endlessly about “Why did you return later and who were you discussing on the phone?” This is the reason Life turns out to be full of dispute, large and small, about the exact matters, instead of accepting issues or discussions at face value. For over a decade of intervening in marital problems and practicing therapy, it is easier handling other marital challenges than the loss of trust, in any dimension.

Trust can depart as a result of deceits, anger, aggression, drug abuse, and, most significantly, defilement of the marital bed. As soon as it disappears, the Humpty Dumpty effect is inevitable: it becomes difficult to reconcile again. Customarily, the deeds that formed the mistrust are not easily changed, since they appear complicated and elaborate. These slight critters skip and jump via people’s body system like nonentities dashing in unexpected places, as well as furnishing them with the best of reasons to gratify the desires of the flesh. When it comes to sex, nothing is as powerful as that, the body must definitely respond. A number of rich and influential people are literally lavishing millions of dollars on sex, alcohols, and rock and roll-irrespective of the fact that they are married and have kids at home. The consequences and the guilt accrued to these misconducts are sufficiently astounding to destroy а herd of horses, but they don’t seem to trouble the offenders. The reasons married people cheat in a relationship are many-sided, ranging from seclusion, poor self-image, traditional entitlement, pride and/or sexual issues within the confines of their relationships. The environment nowadays is surrounded by able males and females who are aware that а roll in the hay will quintuple what they could obtain, like: jewelry, cars, houses and wears. It shows a high level of moral decadence in our world and does not speak well about our society. However, the trust has been bastardized.

How do we get back trust when it is lost?

1. Take responsibility for your action and speak the truth. When you deny a complaint, it might lead to more suspicion, so allow the truth to come along and be willing to forgive yourself and change. Nevertheless, detailed truth might as well aggravate the intensity of the hurt and even compound the pain. The good news is that once the truth is revealed, the wounds will heal in a process of time. It is advisable for Couples not to spend tons of time on details; they should be more concerned about what must be done to rectify the wrongdoing.

2. Avoid being over-righteous, casual or defensive. When you are angry, you might not listen attentively or assimilate what the aggrieved one has to say. You must be sincere enough to collaborate with the spouse and work out the bone of contention. Otherwise, you might not make the ends meet. Two wrongs cannot make a right. Don’t allow emotions and feelings to control your actions.

3. Don’t justify the cause of your action. Be open, show your weakness, the need to be helped, and decry the cause of what lured you into the mess in the first place to prevent any further violation. If the mess is a case of sexual misconduct, you may decide to fast and pray, and do every necessary thing to keep away from the opposite sex-avoid all the immoral chats, text messaging and social sites palavers, and if possible you may attend SA (sexual addiction) meetings. You might decide to consult a counselor, especially when you are having loneliness in marriage; it can help you connect again because ‘a problem half talked is half solved’. Discuss with the spouse about the feelings of your alienation so that both of you can get together again.

4. Avoid being highly secretive or self-indulged. Give your spouse access to your mobile phone, appointment book and email at any time of the day. This is occasionally difficult for those who have guided themselves in a clandestine underground of secrecy. They have been used to this form of privacy, and are always indignant to bend. But the truth is, if you actually cherish relationship more that privacy, you will be able to let go of anything and give peace a chance at home.

5. Rekindle your marriage covenant. You may decide to take your spouse to the Altar and renew the initial vows both of you made during your wedding. Write down what to say on a sheet of paper, take note of what got you into the mess and consider the way forward, invite friends and families to witness the event, and be sincere not to return to initial vomit again. 

This is the most important part of reconciliation and the process of marital restoration.

For Mathew and Edith, marital bliss has been truncated. It appeared as if it would take an eternity for both of them to rebuild a broken home. It was literally uneasy for him to talk thing through with Edith and recover his lost glory sequel to too much water that obviously went underground the relationship and obstructed the chances of reconciliation. It was a great lesson for Mathew as he rediscovered the multifaceted nature of Edith and also learned more of his responsibilities as a father. For Edith, it was a deep wound that required a measure of time to heal; it was uneasy for her to trust anyone again. The word of admonition for people thinking of breakage or heading for divorce after being jilted or hurt by the actions of destroying trust is that, “Problems don’t cause unhappiness but the wrong attitude towards them”.

Developing trust in a union is supposed to be a lifestyle instead of a prompt decision. It’s all about doing everything humanly possible to ensure prosperous progression and peace at home. An open relationship is а valuable process of achieving marital harmony. When a union is sated with untruth, fraud, pilfer and all manner of wicked acts against each other, the marriage will pay the ultimate price, thereby losing the most precious side of the relationship. Therefore, if a spouse needs help, he/she should strive and get it. If she desires a change, she should go ahead and create it. The idea of creating trust must be seen as а big deal and collective responsibility.  The process of developing Trust involves many daunting and delicate phenomena; and if it is not properly articulated, a union can truncate into regrets and ashes. If you view Trust as a certificate one needs to acquire after graduating from the learning process of developing responsibility, then you are hopefully going to enjoy greater intimacy and love. Please go ahead and do it, it is a dawn of a new beginning of your marriage.

To read further, you may like to buy "Who Is My Spouse": a Christian Marriage book that will teach you everything you need to know about Marriage.