We want to trust. We need to trust. We’re designed by nature to be trusting creatures. The process of healing trust is perfectly natural. And yet we screw it up over and over again. What is the mysterious source of these disastrous failures to heal broken trust? And what if these failures, once they were properly understood, could be easily prevented? As you know, it’s not the things we don’t know that hurt us the most. It’s the things we think we know that are actually wrong that cause the real damage. And it happens all the time, not just when it comes to healing broken trust.
A hundred and fifty years ago, women giving birth in hospitals died in great numbers. This was an awful situation, and a lot of people thought that some huge, dark force must be responsible for it. As it turned out, there was one hospital in Vienna that was dedicated solely to childbirth. It was staffed only by midwives. And here the death rate was far, far lower. What was the difference between this hospital and all the others? It was, a Dr. Semmelweis noticed, that there were no sick people, no accident victims, no cadavers. And in those days, before people understood that germs existed, doctors didn’t wash their hands between patients.
Semmelweis figured that there must be a connection between women dying and doctors touching sick people or cadavers before assisting in a childbirth, because the deaths weren’t happening in the childbirth-only hospital.
So Semmelweis went on a campaign to get doctors in his hospital to wash their hands before touching a woman in labor. There was incredible resistance at first. But eventually they tried his idea, and the death rate plummeted, first at his hospital and eventually around the world. Childbirth in hospitals became safe and, by the way, our understanding of germs took a huge leap forward. What a terrible problem: so many women dying in childbirth. What a simple, stupid mistake: not washing your hands. What an easy solution: hand washing.
Once upon a time, the birth of a baby was made safe by avoiding one simple mistake. Today the rebirth of trust is something that we can look forward to if we just know what mistakes to avoid. But what is it that we mistakenly think that we’re doing right when it comes to healing broken trust?
TRUST VS. SAFETY
Oh, those crazy snakes that crawl through our head when we’ve been betrayed.
Honestly, I’m getting upset just thinking about what I was like in those weeks after I first learned that my husband had been having that affair. I really was like a crazy lady. It felt as if I was surrounded by enemies on all sides. That’s the weird thing about mistrust. When you’ve been seriously betrayed, the whole world feels shaky and treacherous. Our thinking goes something like this: If he could hurt me the way he did, then anything can go wrong, everything has the potential to blow up in my face. I can’t even trust myself. And that’s when the trouble begins. The healing of broken trust is a natural process. Trust itself is natural. So why do we get so bent out of shape that we actually do things to prevent trust from healing?
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THE BATTLE WITHIN.
I work this way. All my friends work this way. All my patients work this way. Honestly, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t work this way. And you probably work this way, too. There are two parts of us. There’s a trust-hungry part, and there’s a betrayal-vulnerable part. And the trust-hungry part guides us easily and automatically unless the betrayal-vulnerable part is aroused. Because we want to trust, because we were designed by nature to function best in an atmosphere of trust, trust is our default mode.
If we don’t have a reason not to trust, then we will trust. And even if there’s been a betrayal, we still want to trust. Our desire and need to trust, is so strong that we will trust again-surprisingly quickly- unless we’re confronted with a reason not to. And this is where our betrayal-vulnerable part comes in. If anything happens that even slightly can be perceived as an offense, the betrayal-vulnerable part of us will be stimulated and rear its ugly head, wreaking all sorts of havoc. Let’s go back to the broken arm analogy. When we break our arm, we put a cast on it. The arm wants to heal, and it will heal unless we wiggle it around or someone bangs into it, so we protect it. For trust to heal quickly and easily, nothing should stimulate the betrayalvulnerable part of us. We need to protect it. Sounds like a plan!
Unfortunately, people aren’t perfect.
Not you. Not the person who’s hurt you. Even if the person who’s hurt you is so sorry he can’t stand it, his imperfections will lead him to do things that will jostle your betrayalvulnerable part and scare you. He might get mad. He might forget to call you.
And since you’ve been so furious, he’s become quite intimidated, so he might avoid telling you something that he knows will get you upset. And when you find out about it, you might get even more upset. Under normal conditions, missteps like these are no big deal. But remember: We are betrayal-vulnerable. These minor incidents stimulate our mistrust. And we’re not perfect either.
Oh boy, are we imperfect. We respond to a peacemaking overture with anger and disgust. We spurn his attempt to understand how we feel. We push him away when he tries to make a healing gesture. These mistakes slow down the healing process, if they don’t sabotage it completely. They may be very common and quite understandable-and believe me, I do understand-but they’re destructive because they slow down or prevent the healing process.
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IS MISTRUST A FATAL RELATIONSHIP DISEASE?
Suppose, just suppose, that the things we do in our emotional pain are … how shall I put it? We could do better.
Yes, they’re understandable from an emotional standpoint, but from the point of view of restoring trust, they’re not so smart. In fact, they’re mistakes. It’s like scratching away at chicken pox. Understandable, yes. Smart, not so much. Why stay married to someone when you’re that angry with him and it’s that hard to get over it? They were falling into the trap where the longer it takes to restore trust, the more anger there is. And the more anger there is, the harder it is to restore trust and the less reason there seems to be to stay in the relationship. That’s why so many of us have the experience that mistrust is a fatal relationship disease.
But it isn’t. Mistrust can heal, it’s the anger that prevents it from healing.
I know what you’re going to say. Aren’t I entitled to be angry? Well, sure. Of course you are. Believe me, I’m the last person in the world to tell you you’re not entitled to your anger. If someone hurts or disappoints you, of course you’re going to be angry. Sometimes our anger is the best sign that we’re strong and alive and able to take care of ourselves. In fact, as you’ll see, anger can be a healthy part of the trust-restoring process. The problem comes when anger takes on a life of its own.
Anger is like the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz. She has her role to play, and she’s entitled to it. The movie wouldn’t be the same without her. But the movie is not about her. She’s not supposed to triumph or take over the movie. Otherwise, poor Dorothy. Poor us!
REBUILD TRUST AND FEEL SAFE
All of this leaves us with a big question. Where do we go from here if we’ve been betrayed? After all, we do need to feel safe.
So how do we rebuild trust and feel safe at the same time? It sounds almost impossible. And yet people do it every day. Shortly after one of my daughters got her driver’s license, she got into an accident. It was snowing. Because she was careless and inexperienced, she was driving too fast and skidded into an embankment, almost totaling the car. Afterward, all I could think about was how scared I was. No one was hurt, but she could have died. Other people could have died. I didn’t feel safe and I didn’t trust her. I didn’t want her to ever drive again. I certainly didn’t ever want her to drive as long as she was still so young. Maybe we could try again in eight or nine years… But things don’t work that way. She needed to get back on the road, and part of me understood that. But what should I do? How should I handle it? I didn’t realize it at the time but I was in the classic safety-versus-trust dilemma. The only way I could feel perfectly safe was to never let her drive again.
But here’s what gradually dawned on me: The only way I could come to trust her again was if I did let her drive. Paradoxically, I had to feel less safe, at least in the short run, if I wanted to feel more trust. That’s what trust is. It’s not just a feeling. Trust is what you do when you relinquish your need to feel safe. For example, let’s say I’m going to a restaurant I’ve never been to before. If I didn’t feel safe about how clean that restaurant was, I’d be stupid not to inspect the kitchen and check to make sure all the board of health inspection certificates were up to date. Most of us don’t do this, of course. And the reason is we trust the restaurant enough to relinquish our need to feel safe. It isn’t trust unless you relinquish your need for safety.
It works the same way with relationships affected by hurt and betrayal.
SOLID TRUST.
All hope for the rebirth of trust, for the survival of your most, depends on your seeing that you can only regain trust if you let go of some of your need for safety. You may have to do this in tiny steps. You may only be able to let go of your need for safety very slowly. And I will help you figure all this out in detail. You can watch my video on how to rebuild trust here
Originally published at https://www.relationshiptips.us on November 3, 2020.
