Breaking trust in relationships

Trust is the most important concept that we have as human beings to feel we are in a safe space. When trust is broken, it creates uncertainty, which leads very often to a range of emotions going from anger to disappointment, shame, guilt, and various others.

How do we come out of the darkness that such a situation throws us into? What can be done to help us give ourselves permission to trust again without fear of going through emotional, mental and physical pain? Let us explore in this article those questions.

What is trust and how is it formed?

Trust is a concept that we build from witnessing others and gauging them against our values and beliefs system. As we grow into becoming adults, we develop a set of statements about ourselves which will form the basis of what we believe to be our fundamental identity. These statements tend to develop either through learnt behaviours from our parents or other significant persons in our lives or from our lived experiences.

Let’s illustrate this with an example. You may think of yourself as honest, curious, ethical, loyal, caring… This may translate into a set of values around integrity (which covers you being ethical), transparency (which would cover you being curious and honest) and commitment (which would cover your traits of loyalty and care). It could then turn into a beliefs system along the lines of: “I don’t let people down because I am loyal”, “I support people in need because I care”, “I hate lies because I am honest”.

Every interaction we have with someone will be gauged through the lens of our values and beliefs system. When meeting a new partner, we will get along if this partner’s own values and beliefs system are not in direct contradiction to ours. It may be different, but as long as it doesn’t contradict ours, it works. It would feel intuitive to think that if you are honest, you wouldn’t entertain a partner who would lie constantly, or if you value loyalty, you would struggle to be with someone who is constantly looking for a good deal regardless of loyalty considerations. Establishing that this new partner 'fits' with your values and beliefs system will, over time, create a feeling of safety and, therefore, trust.

What does it mean to break trust?

From understanding what trust is, we can appreciate that breaking trust is when someone with whom we had established a feeling of safety with, because they were attuned and in tune with our values and beliefs system, no longer is in sync with those.

Dealing with betrayal is dealing with a sense of trust having been broken. The word betrayal itself indicates an act of deliberate disloyalty. This is painful because we feel as if the person has purposely done something which has impacted our fundamental core identity. By affecting this part of ourselves, it takes away the sense of safety we had established and, in turn, makes us feel as if this person cannot be trusted again.

How to deal with a sense of broken trust

Perhaps the first thing to do is not to focus on the symptoms of the problem, in other words, the actions or words which have led to the feeling of betrayal. It seems counter-intuitive, but focusing on those leads to questioning “why these things happened”, and it naturally leads us on a blaming path.

Instead, we have to take a step back and remind ourselves that our core values and beliefs system are fairly immutable, and it would take a lot for it to be significantly changed. If you have been able to trust this person because your core values and beliefs system established a sense of safety with this person, chances are the reasons behind the betrayal lay in personal, interpersonal or external factors which can be explored and processed.

It is important to remember that our needs and wants may change over time, but who we are fundamentally doesn’t. For example, at some point, you may want stability in your relationship, as opposed to enjoying what being single has to offer. This doesn’t change the fact that you remain a loyal or caring person, and you still believe that you shouldn’t let down someone in need.

Exploring those various factors may be difficult because it will force us to face some difficult truths, such as:

• Our wants and needs have changed over time, and we can no longer find our needs met with this partner (or this partner with us). In other words, we are no longer right for each other.
• We have fallen into a routine and take things for granted in the relationship. Losing a sense of validation and novelty between partners creates a gap which needs to be filled.
• We may have changed our circle of friends, and the social discourse of that circle influences us to act in a manner that perhaps does not represent who we are deep down. In other words, we fulfil social expectations and act in accordance with those expectations.

Exploring these factors will lead to the root cause of the symptoms and, ultimately, the understanding of why trust was broken. Doing this work is key to moving forward without impacting our sense of self, alleviating the guilt, shame and blame that betrayals carry with them.

Retaining our ability to trust is retaining our ability to understand that, as individuals, we have an inbuilt set of traits which may or may not be in sync with those of another person, and that actions or words which impact those traits don’t come from a failure of being who we are.

Counselling provides a safe space to explore these sensitive issues because the first principle in therapy is to create a therapeutic alliance where people feel held and safe to be vulnerable. The therapeutic space offers a space without judgment. The therapeutic space offers support and resources to work through finding the root cause and process the emotional load that the pain of a betrayal brings.