4 Proven Steps to Rebuild Lost Trust In A Relationship

You know, no matter how hard we try, there are difficult things that happen between other people and us. And trust can be lost. Read carefully as I share with you 4 proven steps to rebuild lost trust in a relationship. 

Sooner or later it’s going to happen. You’re going to lose trust with somebody. And why is that going to happen? Well, we’re all human. This is either going to happen with a friend, somebody at work, a neighbor, a child, your spouse, a family member.

And sooner or later, it’s going to happen. And what do we do when this happens? Or when the trust is lost? Is it in the end? Is there no way to ever build it back? Or what…? What is it that we do?

I’ve met a lot of people in my life, and I have met people who have said to me, “That person can never regain trust with me ever again, Anurag.”

I’ve heard that brutal statement from actually quite a handful of people. That’s sad because if we don’t learn how to rebuild trust, there are no chances.

I believe people can change. I believe behavior can change. With training and practice, connections, and being with people, we can actually improve our lives.

I don’t think we’re all set and unstoned, and that’s it, and that’s all you get. Because when I was growing up as a kid, I lost my dad’s trust plenty of times. I’ve lost my mom’s trust a lot too. Because I would make mistakes.

You know I’d tell them I was going to do something, and then I didn’t do it or gave me a responsibility, and I failed miserably.

I bet you’ve done the same thing growing up. We all forget, and we all mess up, and we all do things wrong many a time. So maybe what we need to do is get better at how to rebuild this lost trust. So let’s talk about this today –

I got 4 steps for you that I think will make a difference for you if you’re in the mindset of believing that people can change. And one more thing before we start. If we think people can change, I feel it also facilitates that we love people.

So, by giving a person another chance and another chance and another chance, it means that we care and that we love the person. I think it’s a great mindset. Okay, so let’s take a look at this.

Rebuild Lost Trust In A Relationship

Number 1 – Communication

Whenever trust is lost, what we don’t want to lose is communication. Communication needs to pick up a little bit more.

I think the lack of communication creates a loss of trust. So, to rebuild trust requires us to step up the amount and the frequency of communication.

Instead of letting communication go away or cutting the person off and not having a discussion, I want you to rebuild this trust and initiate conversation.

Don’t wait for the other person to start. Now, remember this is communication, not an interrogation. Its communication. 

We go in-depth of communication in our blog on “How to maintain a healthy relationship under lockdown”

Number 2 – Connection

Communication will bring in the level of connection if we can desire and want a further connection to hold together the bond of trust.

I also believe we must understand what we act as when we want to maintain or re-establish that level of connection with the other person.

Connection means that we’re willing to listen, we’re willing to talk and eager to sort things out. And emotionally, even though we may be hurt, we still include this person in our lives. 

Number 3 – Talk about what went wrong

Where were the glitches, where did it go wrong. Its time to talk about what are the new agreements going to be. Because part of rebuilding trust is coming up with new agreements.

A mistake that people make is they do verbal agreements. A verbal agreement can be forgotten about, it can be twisted. It can be rearranged in somebody’s head about what was said.

My suggestion to you is to put all agreements in writing. They have a copy, you have a copy or its posted somewhere about “what they’re going to do” and “what you’re going to do to help build this trust.”

I’ve made this mistake many times before where it was a verbal agreement. 2 weeks down the line, 1 of the 2 people either me or them, just forgot about what the verbal agreement was. Either they got it mixed up or me, and then we have another level of trust that’s being broken.

So, when you go to make amends and to reconcile whats happened, these new agreements that are coming up will help to rebuild trust.

And with an agreement, comes expectations. But an expectation without an agreement is going to be a problem. So, remember that.

Before you can ever have expectations with someone, there must be a point you come together where you both agree on what needs to be different. And put it in writing. 

The last one – Keep a positive story about yourself and the other person

Because we all can dig up enough evidence to talk wrong about somebody or talk down about somebody.

Part of rebuilding trust is to think in a productive way about the other person.

Now, do we forget about what happened? We can let go of the pain of what happened, little bits at a time, and it’s necessary too. And its that part of our life where we can feel like we move past what happened. But we also need to remember what behaviors are being worked on. 

I spoke to a couple once who could not let go of their negative thinking about their spouse. And their spouse was doing all sorts of changes in their behaviour for the betterment of their relationship. Still, that spouse couldn’t even see and appreciate these changes.

Even I couldn’t notice it, because they just kept telling the same negative stories over and over again and the spouse didn’t get a chance of making a change either.

So, it takes both. A positive story about yourself and a positive story about the other person.

Now, does that mean that this positive story is going to make us blind to the possibility that they can make more mistakes? No. Positive stories help us be more in tune.

A negative story going on in our head about people causes us to not be in tune. We do not need to tell negative stories to catch negative things. 

Negative stories downgrade us. Negative stories hurt us. They drop our energy, it decreases our emotions, it lowers our ability to be in tune.

So, if you keep a negative story inside of you about another person, you won’t catch what’s going on. Good or bad.

My suggestion is that a positive story about yourself and the other person can help you and it is going to help them as well.

Conclusion

I know that these four suggestions I just gave you are going to make a significant impact on how you rebuild trust with another person. And if you don’t think it is possible to rebuild trust, a question I have for you – 

1. Why don’t you trust yourself?
2. Why are you not ready to move forward and rebuild trust?

Every person deserves another chance. And I know it hurts. But that’s part of life, right? Loving and forgiving each other. And we keep doing it over and over again until we all get to figure this out.

So, take these steps in rebuilding trust. And get into that communication and that connection with them. Because when things start to improve, it will feel amazing, and your relationship will thrive.

Remember the 4 Proven Steps to Rebuild Lost Trust In A Relationship –

1. Communication
2. Connection
3. Talk about what went wrong
4. Keep a positive story about yourself and the other person

Tell us about your experiences in your relationship. Share with us how did you regain trust back in your relationship. We would love to hear your thoughts. Please comment below and if you like this blog on “4 Proven Steps to Rebuild Lost Trust In A Relationship”, share it with your friends and family.

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