Cornerstones of a Lasting Relationship
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Like the first two cornerstones - love and respect - trust involves giving and receiving. And-like all the other cornerstones, it also requires the capacity to re-establish it when it is broken - a strong element of resiliency. Receiving trust is being free to be who you are in a relationship without feeling threatened by being in the relationship. Giving trust requires the ability to let others in emotionally. Trust involves exhibiting trustworthy behavior as well as making yourself vulnerable to your partner - which translates into how deeply you will participate in the relationship.
At some level we must all decide how deeply we are going to trust our mate. You have seen this. If somebody gets hurt in a relationship, they push away. They decrease their vulnerability. If the trust is too shallow, the bond is week, and the relationship will fail. You have probably also felt the vulnerability of trusting someone, which in turn gives them the ability to hurt you. You stay in the relationship because you trust them. It is this cornerstone that most often gets broken as the relationship falters.
Trust comes in many forms. It is not only that you must rely on your partner to not transfer their affection to someone else (have an affair). Trust also involves such simple things as doing what you say you're going to do, telling the (sometimes painful) truth, showing up on time, and being supportive of your mate (which includes listening to them). It also means being emotionally trustworthy by not blowing up with anger, running away from conflict, and keeping your relationship as a high priority.
Are you trustworthy? Are you true to your word? Are you "all in" in your relationship? “Uncle” Sigmund (Freud) talked about something called "original pain". He referred primarily to childhood issues, but I think we can experience original pain (by his definition) at any point in our lives. Most of us - over the age of 20 years old have been deeply hurt by something (a loss) or someone. Physical, emotional, or sexual abuse, the death of a parent or someone close, a controlling parent, a parent’s divorce, the painful breakup of a meaningful relationship, and addiction in families are just some of the issues that contribute to original pain. The premise is that after we are hurt we make an emotional rule (usually subconsciously). We say to ourselves, "I will never let anybody get close enough to hurt me like that again." Essentially we tell ourselves that we can never trust again. We can then go about building an emotional wall and make varying attempts to keep people out. If it feels like somebody is getting too close, we will push them away. If somebody gets too far away we will pull them back because we don't want them to hurt us by leaving. It's the go-away-come-closer approach. In the early days the wall is our friend. It keeps us safe from emotional harm and gives us a sense of well being. As we get older it becomes like a prison as we may have great difficulty coming out from behind it to relate to others. It is a big element for many clients in psychotherapy.
In some ways (and if not taken to an extreme) the wall is actually healthy. Freud called it an ego defense. We all need some boundaries in our life. We all need to know our emotional safety zone. But do you also see that it can be very problematic in establishing deep intimacy in a relationship? If I don't trust you, how will I let you in? If I don't let you in, how do you and I actually have a meaningful relationship? Superficial relationships are everywhere but they don't last because a strong bond is missing.
The paradox of the whole thing is that the lack of trust can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. I don't want to get hurt but I do want to have a meaningful relationship. So I start one with you and things are going along fine. Eventually, I fear you getting too close to me so I push you away - ostensibly because I don't want you to get so close that you hurt me. But, I push you so far away that you leave. I can then conclude to myself once again that I should trust nobody because I "always" get hurt ... and the cycle continues.
Another level of trust is in real-time. You may be in a relationship with someone who has hurt you. They may have cheated or lied or done something else just disagreeable enough that it affects your ability to trust them. What are you going to do? Are you going to let them back in? If so how? Or are you just going to leave or just have a mediocre relationship because you need to keep them at a distance?
Maybe this will help. First and foremost your partner needs to be able to acknowledge that they have hurt you. If they deny it, it is a difference of opinion (see NSN – Reducing Arguments), and most likely will not be resolved. Once they have acknowledged the incident, they need to be willing to earn your trust again. This is one of the hardest parts, because in order to gain your trust again you must forgive them.
The following is an extreme example. I cannot tell you how many couples I have seen that have been involved in extramarital or extra-relational affairs. But the dialogue is usually the same. The person who cheated admits they did it, but after a few days or weeks they just want the whole thing to go away. They want to stay in the relationship but they don't want to deal with the remainder of the trust issues. The person who has been cheated on has great difficulty letting it go (understandably). What I ask the person who was cheated on to do is to describe specifically what “the cheater” can do to re-establish trust. This can be anything from allowing them access to cell phone and e-mail accounts to checking in on a day-to-day basis. The specific activities will be up to the person who was cheated on. Eventually, they begin to realize that time and a good behavior are really the only things that will re-establish the bond. It's a 50-50 deal. Half of the couples I work with stay together by following this process, and half of them cannot tolerate the stress and break up. The ones that stay together have a solid understanding of the Four Cornerstones of a Lasting Relationship and use them to overcome these very difficult circumstances.
But, given this example, can you imagine what it would take to reestablish trust in this situation? We all have a tendency to look at the person who cheated and blame them for the problems in the relationship. However, more often than not, there are real trust issues for both parties. “The cheater” will give "reasons" why they stepped outside of the relationship. While none of them are good enough for such a serious value infraction, they do need to be paid attention to if the relationship is going to be reconciled. They will bring up issues such as anger, lack of attention or communication, substance abuse, lack of sex, and the loss of their best friend as the reasons for their affair. Again while these excuses are not justifiable reasons for an affair (in my value system anyway) they do need to be addressed! A cornerstone has two visible sides - both of which are equally important in the strength of a relationship. So, in situations like this, both sides need to be addressed. To re-establish trust, both parties need to acknowledge what they have done to contribute to each other's lack of trust. They then need to begin to specify what can be done in order to build it back.
Forgiveness...
There is one major tool for the re-establishment of trust and the enhancement of relationship resiliency. It is forgiveness.
If someone does something deceitful in a relationship is truly sorry for it, they need to make amends, make an apology, and ask for forgiveness. It is up to the person who was hurt to forgive, however. If I hurt you, I can acknowledge it, say I am sorry, promise that I will never do it again, and genuinely ask you to forgive me. But really, that is all I can do. I can say that I'll make every effort not to do it again, and if you want me to, I can tell you why I did it. But the bottom line is it is still up to you to forgive me. If you carry a grudge we are not going to move forward significantly. If you carry a grudge for long enough, or continue to bring it up and beat me over the head with what I've done, I will have enough and I may leave. It's not that I don't deserve consequences for what I have done. But at some point forgiveness has got to be there. There are several reasons why people fail to forgive and one of the primary ones is that carrying a grudge is a powerful tool. I can continue to hold over your head what you have done. It gives me a sense of power because I can bring it up and redirect any conflict. But it also inhibits my trust in you as you are always pulling a power-play. Your ability to forgive has a direct link to whether there is any chance for trust in this relationship to resume or not and many times is the strongest indicator of whether the relationship will end.
So, the third cornerstone in your relationship is trust. Some of the ingredients for trust are the ability to give and receive it, as well as to forgive. Without trust and the ability to forgive, a long-lasting relationship is much more difficult to maintain.
Eugene D. “Chip” Weiner
The Neighborhood Shrink
www.neighborhoodshrink.com
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