Trust After Betrayal

April 15, 2022

In an intimate relationship, you expect your significant other to respect you, have your best interests at heart and to be honest with you. You trust in the love that you feel for each other. After betrayal, trust disappears. 

When you discover that he has been using pornography secretly, it makes you question everything that you thought you knew about him, your relationship, and even yourself. It never crossed your mind that he would lie to you or hide something from you. 

You no longer feel safe in the relationship and you certainly don’t feel like you can trust him. When he turned to porn, it felt like he wasn’t committed to you or your relationship. He wasn’t thinking about how you would feel about his secret obsession or how much it would hurt you.

Giving trust after betrayal is difficult

As the betrayed partner, you have experienced significant negative emotions, confusion, and self-doubt. Trust is essential for your relationship to be healthy, fulfilling and safe. Trust after betrayal is gone. 

As you try to decide whether or not you can trust him again, you look for evidence to help support that decision. You replay over and over in your mind what happened. You ask endless questions hoping for answers that will help you understand. Physically checking up on him in various ways becomes a constant activity. Unfortunately, these things move you away from healing the betrayal wounds and taking care of yourself. The sad thing is there will never be a guarantee that he won’t betray you again. There’s never a guarantee.

Self-trust is the most important thing now

Focusing on yourself is the number one priority. Make sure your needs are being met and that you are safe. If the relationship stays intact, know that it will never be the same. Even if he rebuilds trust, you know that he is capable of keeping secrets from you and hurting you. Whether on your own or in the relationship, you have to be strong and know that you will be okay. Trust after betrayal starts with trusting yourself. 

How to begin trusting yourself:

  • Set boundaries that keep you safe
  • Give yourself time to heal
  • Work through your feelings
  • Focus on self-care
  • Get support from others
  • Seek information from trustworthy resources
  • When you are ready, forgive so you can move forward

What about him?

You might be wondering what about him. It seems unfair that he was the one who chose to betray you but you have to do all of this work to heal and rebuild self-trust. I get it. If he wants to regain your trust and possibly save your relationship, he will have to do work too. If he doesn’t, then you have key information that will help you decide the future of the relationship. 

You need to know the truth so if you stay in the relationship, you can start from a solid foundation. A full disclosure, often done with a Certified Sex Addiction Therapist, may be necesarry. The most important thing is that you know what was being kept from you, get all of your questions answered, and don’t feel like there are still things that you don’t know. 

He has to take responsibility for his choices and his actions. Rebuilding trust after betrayal requires that you see actions that are consistent with his words. You need him to know how much this hurt you and he needs to respect your boundaries.  He has to do the work and he has to do it in a way that doesn’t hurt you further. If he can’t or he won’t, the relationship may be over.

Closing thoughts on trust after betrayal

    Trust after betrayal is an important but difficult topic. You lose trust in yourself for not seeing what was happening or trusting your intuition. You lose trust in your significant other and your relationship. The most important step that you can take is to rebuild trust in yourself. You need it regardless of what happens with the relationship. 

    As for the relationship, rebuilding trust after betrayal is much harder than giving him your trust before. Now you know he can hurt you. If he is willing to work with you to get aligned on what you both need and expect in the relationship and take consistent action to show you that he is worthy of your trust again, then you may be able to give it at some point in the future. The relationship will always be different going forward but you may be able to make it stronger in some ways too.

    If you’d like to talk with me about navigating trust after betrayal, schedule time here.