Repairing trust after a breach

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would you like to know the single most
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important factor according to the
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research in having a happy relationship
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i happened to find this out a little bit
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by accident i um i had joined up uh with
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audible the um for an audiobook mini a
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few years ago now
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many years ago now and i i had slightly
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randomly selected one of john gottman's
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book and
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and it was about the science of the
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science of relationship and the science
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of trust now if i'd happened to see this
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book in person i can guarantee that i
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would not have finished it because in it
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what he was doing is he was explaining a
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lot of the mathematical very complex
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mathematical theories behind the
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research and how he got into this
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and but i had had this book and i was
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driving in a car was listening to it it
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was the only thing i had available and i
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was driving from auckland to ruapehu
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which is about a five-hour drive and so
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that way i managed to get half of the
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book done on the way down and i got
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almost the rest of it finished on the
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way back and about
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75 of the way through the book as i'm on
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this you know deserted stretch of the
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desert road
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there's this little snippet where
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gottman basically said so what we found
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after all of our research in terms of
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happiness
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the biggest predictor of happiness in a
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heterosexual relationship is a woman's
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trust of her man
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and it predicts not only her happiness
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it also predicts his happiness
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so the single most important predictor
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of happiness in a heterosexual
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relationship is a woman's trust of her
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partner
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and that predicts not only her happiness
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it also predicts his happiness as well
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so the single most important predictor
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of happiness
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is a woman's trust of her man and that
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predicts her happiness as well as his
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happiness
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and
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this has now been summarized in a meme
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happy wife happy life
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and
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so if trust is so important what is it
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that we actually mean by trust
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and trust quite simply means that you
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will make my interest as important as
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your interests so you see when
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stantecan's talking about the secure
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functioning the definition there is
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really all about trust
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and so
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the issue that we have in a relationship
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if you want it to maintain longevity and
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to work long term is that we need to
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protect and maintain trust because trust
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in a sense is the pillar on which safe
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and secure relationships are built
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so the most important thing that i would
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say if i could give you you know one
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really really important piece of advice
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what i would say to you is whatever you
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do don't [ __ ] up trust
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if you're in a situation and you're
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wondering is this going to create a
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scenario where i'm going to have to sit
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with this person that i love and um and
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explain
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that i made my interest or someone
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else's interest more important than
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their safety avoid those situations like
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the plague and make better choices
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having said that even with the best
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efforts sometimes what's going to happen
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is that you may do something that in
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some way
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let your partner down retrace their
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trust um whether it's small or big and
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so when that happens the key thing is
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you want to repair fast and and um you
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know as fast as possible and as deeply
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as possible because there is a window
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period
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during the time when there is a trust
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breach whether
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that wound is going to be experienced
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where if you can access the baby brain
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pretty quickly then what you can do is
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um you can ameliorate a lot of the the
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damage and the the challenge that
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happens in that space
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so what do we do if there's been a
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serious trust breach if there's been
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violence in the relationship if there's
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been an affair something like that has
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happened so there's been a catastrophic
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breach
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in the relationship
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now obviously there's no way that i can
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cover all of all of the things that need
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to be covered in this very short segment
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but what i will will say is there are
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three primary areas that you need to
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target which are related to the three
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brains that we're looking at
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and the first and the most important one
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is to take care of the baby brain and
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the way that you do that is with gaze
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touch with consent um so if there's been
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an affair your partner may not want you
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to touch but you're going to be as close
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to them as as they're comfortable
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letting you be but you're going to be
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use gaze you're going to use tone you're
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going to use a lot of gentleness and
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you're going to reassure them that they
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are your person that you're there that
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they're not alone in that space because
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what happens is when a trust breach
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happens in a sense they've kind of lost
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that safe person that image that they
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had in their head of their of that safe
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person so you want to reassure them
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again that you're there that you care
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about them and that you're present for
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them
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the second part of the brain that you're
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trying to
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manage is uh and respond to is the child
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brain so this is the emotional brain and
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so when uh trust is breached um it's
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really common that we're gonna see anger
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and often when we see anger anger's a
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bit hard to um to connect to because
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it's often a little bit like a shield
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and so but what we need to do is we just
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need to acknowledge that anger is there
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but know that whenever
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anger is there underneath there's going
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to be either sadness or fear or both and
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if there's been a trust breach both of
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them will be there i feel sad because i
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trusted you and i've lost that sense of
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being able to trust you and i feel
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afraid because now i don't know where
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we're going i don't know what kind of
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relationship we were because i thought
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our relationship was this way and now
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it's something different so there's
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going to be lots of feelings lots of
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emotions and stuff that are coming up
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now your partner can't stop themselves
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having emotion and the worst possible
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thing that you can do and i speak from
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experience here is to try and logic your
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your
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way uh your partner out of their
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emotions to try and you know just think
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about this rationally or to do to
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justify or to defend or do any of that
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stuff what you want to be doing is when
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you're listening to a motion to
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acknowledge that you have heard them and
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make space for them to be there and
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validate that they make sense that
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uh that they feel like that and we're
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going to teach you uh an exercise today
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that you can do that's really going to
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help with this with this
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this process of validating and
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empathizing with your partner's feelings
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so one of the significant challenges
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when our partner is having really big
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powerful emotions is it's really easy
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for that to trigger shame in us
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particularly if it's as a result of
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behavior that we've done and so when we
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get into shame we often sort of want to
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withdraw and move away from our partner
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but actually if we can come into their
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world and to sit with their feelings and
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to acknowledge their pain and not try
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and fix it or change it or favor it if
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they did what we actually realize is
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that we are really important to our
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partner
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and that the pain and the wound that
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they're experiencing is because there's
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a gap between how they want to be loved
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and the way that they've experienced us
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and that actually is a very powerful
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antidote to shame because shame gives us
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the message that we're a totally
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worthless human being and that we've
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hurt those people and that we're bad and
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that pretty much no one's ever going to
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love us
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so even though it's hard when we feel
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ashamed the invitation is just take a
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deep breath
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leave your world cross the bridge come
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into your partner's world and sit with
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their feelings even though it's
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uncomfortable it's good for them and it
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is the one thing that you can do for
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them to show them love and to show them
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care and to acknowledge their worth and
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the validity of their experience
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the final strategy is
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about validating your partner's world by
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telling them the truth and and giving
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them the the whole truth so particularly
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where there's been a trust breach uh
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around um you know infidelity or
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emotional affairs or stuff like that
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one of the things that tends to happen
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is that in order to to do something like
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having an affair what you basically need
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to do is you need to do a whole bunch of
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lying
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often we need to lie to ourselves are
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they just friends oh it's just thing no
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it's not significant i've got to work
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late um
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and so we're lying to ourselves and
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we're lying to our partner and when our
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partner discovers then
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what's happening then suddenly there's
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this big contrast between what they
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thought was happening in the
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relationship and what is actually
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happening and basically what it does is
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it undercuts their sense of reality and
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so it's like well well i thought we had
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a great relationship i thought
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everything was fine i thought you were
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just tired or you were you were
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depressed i thought that i wasn't wasn't
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attractive and that's why you didn't
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want to have sex with me and so and now
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i understand that you you've been
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sleeping with five other women you know
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all at the same time and you wouldn't
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sleep with me
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how do i make sense of that how do i how
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do i put all of that stuff together in
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my head
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so that that process
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is what we call kind of gaslighting
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because it's kind of a distorted reality
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and so one of the things that's really
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important is that there is if there has
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been a trust breach around particularly
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around
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fidelity
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one of the things that's really
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important is that that we tell our
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partner the truth
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and sometimes that can be really painful
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and really difficult and what we don't
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want to do is to be dribbling this truth
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out a little bit a little bit a little
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bit a little bit a little bit because
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every time we do that it's like our
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partner gets punched in the face with
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with really bad news then they find out
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something else and then they get punched
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in the face again and then they find out
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something else and they get punched in
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the face again you know the original
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betrayal was bad to continually do that
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as a kind of torture and so we want to
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stay away from doing that um to our
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partner and so this can really be a case
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where you know getting some professional
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professional help um can really help you
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know help you to to set that up and to
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do that properly um in a way that even
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though it's painful that um it sort of
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sort things out
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for your partner so that they can
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start to to feel confident that they can
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read you that they can learn about your
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world and that you will trust them to
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share vulnerable and personal
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information
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with them and the other thing that we're
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also doing is that we're accepting that
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our partner may feel really paranoid may
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feel really anxious may feel really
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insecure because that's basically um
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behavior that has been triggered by what
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it is that we've done
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the same thing can happen where there's
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been violence in the relationship where
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we minimize i just did that because you
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made me you did this kind of thing and
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so that process is really a distortion
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in a way that we're not taking
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responsibility for our behavior and so
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that really amplifies unsafety for our
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partner and so it's really important in
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the space that we learn how to tell a
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partner you know the the truth about
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what's happening to take responsibility
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and and so that's a very important thing
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now as i said that that reality shaping
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thing is actually isn't the place we
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start we start off with the baby brain
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strategies and the child brain
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strategies first just to acknowledge the
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distress and the trauma that will tend
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to happen in the first place and the
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sorting out reality is the work that
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tends to happen after that
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so in the exercise that we're doing
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today what we're going to do is we're
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going to teach you a really useful tool
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for if there has been a significant
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touch trust breach it's a tool that you
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can use to take responsibility for your
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behavior to acknowledge your partner's
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stress and to make um and to make
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repairs
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and so
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my my hope and that longing for you as
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you're going through this course is that
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this is not the situation that you're in
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this is not the um the scenario that's
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brought you into that place but my
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encouragement to you is that if you're
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willing to show up to do the work and to
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really care for and make
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an amends with your partner by loving
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them by caring for them and doing that
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it is possible to repair the
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relationship
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but what it is that you're going to want
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to focus on is restoring and building a
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sense of trust and safety in the
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relationship and to create a foundation
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from which you can then start filling
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the relationship bank account with all
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of the juicy stuff that we've talked
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about in this course
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you