When TRUST Has Been Broken in Your Marriage

2. Realize that the process of rebuilding trust takes a lot of time and patience.

Trust can be broken in an instant, but rebuilding it can take years. When trust has been broken, our hearts are broken. Our perspective of our spouse and marriage change, and we often become fearful of the future. This is a natural reaction, but we can’t let our fear hold us back from moving towards healing. And, healing is a daily–sometimes hourly–choice. The spouse who broke the trust must choose to be completely transparent and honest about everything with his/her spouse and actively be consistent with his/her words and actions.  And, the spouse whose trust is broken must choose to allow his/her spouse to rebuild their trust little by little by refraining from negative responses and assumptions.  This can be super hard, but it can and will change a broken relationship over time when both spouses fight for the marriage.

The couple we spoke with stated that it took about three and a half years to rebuild trust in their relationship. They said there were times they wanted to just give up, but they just took it day-by-day. Eventually, they started to see glimpses of progress, and that gave them hope for the next day and the next day until their relationship was fully restored.