It’s okay to stay together after an affair. To accept things as they are, reconstruct your relationship, rebuild trust after infidelity and move forward. It’s okay… but it’s not easy or necessarily intuitive amid such intense emotions.
How can you possibly recover from the confusion, resentment, and shame of betrayal? You freely gave your trust before the bottom fell out of your connection. What does trust look and feel like now?
Post affair progress is more than just hoping for the best and holding on. You need more than a belief in what you should do or who you should be to rebuild trust after infidelity. You need an action plan. More pointedly, you and your partner need a firm understanding of how trust after cheating is earned. Then, learning how to rebuild trust after betrayal in marriage will seem less abstract and feel more concretely possible.
Please know that you are not alone in this. You can follow a clear path to rebuild trust and reconnect after infidelity. Read on to make the most of this crucial, restorative period in post-affair healing.
What Does It Really Mean to Rebuild Trust After Betrayal In Marriage?
At this stage in affair recovery, it’s key that you acknowledge the difference between post-betrayal trust and pre-betrayal trust. The reality is that most people believe their partners are trustworthy. Most betrayed partners believed their partner respected the boundaries of their commitment before discovering the affair. They expected loyalty without question and gave trust freely before the betrayal. It was an abstract mode of operation, a sort of blind faith.
Barring any apparent violation or deception, pre-betrayal trust simply exists because both partners believe it to exist. There is an innocence and naïveté that comes with believing that your partner has your best interest at heart. After betrayal, the idea of trust shifts and shatters. It no longer feels whole or safe or automatic. Does it hurt to feel such loss? Absolutely! That pain is perfectly normal, there is no shame in it. Yet, to survive betrayal, rebuilding trust must become more mindfully intentional, active, and determined.
Post-betrayal trust is a collaborative decision by both partners. It’s important that the hurt partner keeps the door open for restored trust as the betraying partner behaves their way back to a connection both partners can believe in.
5 Signs You’re Rebuilding Trust Successfully
Once you accept trust is different after an affair and communicate a willingness to begin a new collaborative relationship, change is on the horizon. In fact, there are some key indicators that reveal you are learning how to rebuild trust after betrayal in marriage. Some of which we’ve outlined below:
1. The unfaithful partner is consistently honest and transparent (without being asked).
Are your interaction and communication about the affair open and forthcoming? If you are the unfaithful partner, it is vital that you don’t wait for anything else to come to light. Don’t, too, allow information to be dragged from you. This just prolongs the crisis and perception that you have something to hide. However uncomfortable, choose transparency over “trickle truth” to earn your partner’s trust and improve their capacity to heal.
Transparency interrupts avoidance and anxiety. Promotes proactive, purposeful conversation that lays open your inner experience, hidden emotion, and secret intentions. Revealing your transgressions, experience, and even your daily thoughts reveals your commitment to recovery and reconnection.
2. The hurt partner feels emotionally safer over time.
Is there space for pain to be acknowledged, accepted, expressed, and processed? If you are the hurt partner, your pain must have a voice. To rebuild trust after cheating, your partner can help you by initiating conversations and making themselves available as needed. When discussing the affair is possible without deflection, defensiveness, or impatience, you know you’re getting somewhere. From there, establishing trust again will feel much more attainable.
3. Repair conversations become easier and less triggering.
Are you able to focus and share instead of vent and spiral? Seeing yourselves as committed to a new connection, rather than rehashing your crisis is a move toward trust. Why? Conversations centered on the meaning of the affair instead of the gory details, puts understanding your relationship first.
Thus, healing communication shifts the focus from seeing either of you as irrevocably broken to recognizing your recovery as a shared effort. The unfaithful spouse earns trust by recognizing that they are the only person that can help their partner heal. The hurt partner resists moving on too quickly and processes their pain fully. Both partners permit the partnership to be defined by more than the affair.
4. Boundaries are respected and updated together.
Are you able to work through your decisions, values, and choices as a team? Trustworthiness in a relationship comes down to action. If you and your partner reach a point where you define mutually respected guardrails and protections for your relationship, it bodes well for couples trying to rebuild trust in marriage.
A hurt partner is much more likely to give their trust when they witness the unfaithful partner’s commitment to negotiating and honoring the limits that keep them both connected and emotionally safe. For instance, it is empowering and encouraging for a recovering couple to respectfully discuss what extramarital friendships look like while exercising mutual accountability and ongoing transparency. Solid boundaries are a game changer when considering your new future.
5. Trust is backed by actions, not just apologies.
Is genuine remorse at play? If you are the hurt partner, you deserve deeply heartfelt apologies for the betrayal. If you are an unfaithful partner, you should apologize often. No doubt about it. Still, those apologies are just the beginning of remorse, and must extend well beyond feeling sorry or regretful.
Remorse is action-oriented just like trustworthiness is action-oriented. If the hurt partner is to be inspired to give their trust again, the betraying partner must take responsibility, make any possible amends, and seek forgiveness.
The apologies are the words, refusing to make excuses or blame are actions. Remaining available and compassionate while calmly honoring their pain signals that helping your partner heal is your primary goal. Moreover, communicating your own insights, reflections, and understanding consistently amplifies your remorse and trustworthiness more than “I’m sorry” ever could.
What Rebuilt Trust After Cheating Is Not
Okay, so let’s say you feel clearer about what it looks like to rebuild trust after infidelity. Are there pitfalls to watch out for? It can be discouraging to make gains only to feel them slip away in the heat of an argument or the discomfort of recovery. After all, an affair is traumatic to a relationship. When you’re trying to heal, sometimes it can be helpful to know what not to do. Consider the following as a guide.
* Rebuilding trust after an affair is not pretending nothing happened.
Conflict avoidance and secrecy likely played a large part in the ultimate betrayal of your connection. Do everything you can to turn towards each other, instead of away. Embrace healing, deep-level discussions, not silence or withdrawal.
* Rebuilding trust after an affair is not total erasure of pain or triggers.
As you dispense with avoidance, also resist minimizing the betrayal or ignoring it all together. This is emotionally dishonest and an easy way to sabotage any harmony you might broker in the short term. The trauma of betrayal is real. The subsequent triggers, for either of you, should not be dismissed. Instead, face the fallout together with the care and support of a trauma-informed relationship expert.
* Rebuilding trust after an affair is not dependent on anyone’s perfection.
Learning how to rebuild trust in a marriage is learning how to be resilient and compassionate. Waiting for your partner to be perfect or make things feel perfectly normal is misspent energy. Perfection is unattainable. Measurable progress, mutual insight, accountability, and respected boundaries are more precious to couples who want a trusting, lasting connection.
* Rebuilding trust after an affair is not one-sided.
Trust is a two-way street. The affair partner is not impeding trust if the betrayed partner withholds true remorse. The unfaithful partner is not blocking trust if the hurt partner vows never to be vulnerable again. Both of you are charged with being honest and available to each other. Then, it truly is okay to stay together and work through the process of recovery and rebuild trust after infidelity.
3 Ways to Know You’re Ready to Trust Again After Betrayal
Now it’s time for a bit of self-assessment. How do you know if you are ready to commit to rebuilding trust?
These three factors can give you a clear indication that you are all in and prepared to move ahead:
1. If you are the unfaithful partner, you can speak directly to your hurt partner’s inner dialogue.
This means that you hide nothing and share your inner world consistently, regardless of your own discomfort. You can empathize with your partner’s attempts to process what you’ve known and hidden about your relationships with them and the affair partner. Answering difficult questions, offering context, and revealing information productively and in your partner’s best interest is an affair recovery priority.
2. Both partners show signs they’re not just “going through the motions”.
Essentially, the hurt partner leaves the phase collecting data about the affair behind and finds ways to process the trauma. They start to re-engage and get curious about why the affair happened. The betraying partner, too, abandons ideas of avoiding the affair or seeking forgiveness or relationship “fixes” without healing. Consistent, open and respectful communication becomes a desirable norm.
3. You’re both okay that you don’t feel 100% certainty or a complete lack of fear
Certainty is not reality. You will likely live with some measure of fear that infidelity could happen again. Believe it or not, that’s okay. That’s a result of facing reality and surviving an affair. You’re ready to trust again when you’ve accepted the situation and determined that your partner and your connection are worth the work.
Are You Ready to Rebuild Trust After Infidelity? Start Now with Expert Support & Our Infidelity Recovery Program
Your relationship can get through this. Learning how to rebuild trust in marriage needn’t be lonely, shameful work. The type of trust you’re building is different now. It takes work and guidance.That’s totally okay. Embrace the differences in your relationship as you embrace recovery. Discomfort and new emotional terrain are part of the journey.
Why not get some guidance along the way? Explore a proven infidelity recovery program at Relationship Experts. We call it “It’s Okay to Stay.” You’ll get the roadmap to affair recovery you need and a whole team of compassionate therapists who understand you and where you want your relationship to go.
At Relationship Experts, we are a compassionate and experienced team of relationship therapists. Thoroughly trained in affair recovery and trust building, we can help you heal. Whether you need guidance, communication tools, or more in-depth support we are committed to helping you lay your relationship foundation and erect your new future together.
You can start to rebuild trust after infidelity right away, please follow these simple steps:
- Schedule a FREE 45-minute consultation.
- Discuss our Infidelity Recovery Program with an affair recovery specialist.
- Start the recovery and rebuilding process now!
Further Care and Support From Relationship Experts
Located in Miami, FL, Relationship Experts was founded in the US, however we do offer online platforms for national care and counseling. We are also available in Canada or the United Kingdom with a host of online resources. We invite you to read more blogs for additional information. Don’t forget to tune in to our podcasts on Spotify or watch Relationship Uncomplicated on YouTube as well!
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