How do I gain his trust back??
Find a Conversation
How do I gain his trust back??
| Thu, 08-02-2007 - 10:32pm |
Because of previous negative experiences, I have a very hard time trusting men. My boyfriend has never cheated on me, but I have struggled with trusting him during our entire relationship. He works graveyard and sits on the internet all night at his job so I know that if he wanted to connect with a female other than me, he has an opportunity. Well, I stupidly decided to test him and I got online under a fake alias to chat with him. He chatted with me but was faithful to our relationship...and then he figured out that it was me he was chatting with. (I'm sure you think I'm paranoid/crazy for what I did. I had never done anything like this before...but I was totally overcome with anxiety about it since my boyfriend has pulled away so much since I've gotten pregnant.) Well, naturally he was very upset with me when he found out that I was testing him. He says that I have broken all trust and that he trusts people he hardly knows better than me. I know I messed up, but I really want to gain trust back. Do you have any advice about how to gain his trust back?

To be honest, if you can't trust men in general - then you have no business being in a relationship.
To recover from here? First up, you need to actively work on your own trust issues. And tell him what you're doing to change your trust issues. Individual counselling may be a good start.
Second, you need to address why he's pulling away. Unless of course, he's pulling away because you don't trust him...in which case it goes back to fixing your own demons.
Aisha is absolutely right but I do want to add a few other comments.
Your first step is to accept 100% responsibility for your actions as you own them. No blame shifting and no deflecting at all. Blaming this on your past experiences holds no merit at all since you made the choice to play a significant manipulation game. No man ever needs to tolerate that at any time.
Then you need to take action, not just words, to resolve your issues. As Aisha suggested and I totally agree with - get some individual counselling to address your issues. Only then will he see that you are taking specific action to resolve the issues.
There is no reason for him to trust you at all until you do this. Right now, he is doing the right thing for his own well being.
Forgive me, my post was too brief. I should have explained that my boyfriend and I have talked about the incident twice and both times I took all of the blame, and did not say things such as "It's because of x that I did y." I simply say things a long the lines of "I take full responsibility for my actions" et cetera. I understand why that post appeared to be me shifting blame, but that is not what is going here. I take complete blame for what I did.
It sounds like your advice is that if I have a) taken full blame and b) begun to work on my issues that are unrelated to my boyfriend then there is nothing more that I can do gain back his trust. Instead, just sit back and see what happens. Am I understanding correctly?
But it takes more than words to show that you are taking full responsibility for your actions. While you may have said that you take full responsibility to his face, the fact remains that (to us) you blamed your pregnancy hormones and your past relationships.
Therefore, while you are saying the right things to him, you're still not fully in the mindset of taking full responsibility. And if he's not silly, he will be aware of how you feel inside. You still have to work harder on not blaming outside influences.
For the record, I've had two babies. And I know that hormones can make a woman more sensitive. But we are still in full control of what we say and do.