A breach of trust is one of the most catastrophic things that happen in a marriage. It could be due to something big (e.g. an affair, and financial infidelity) or something small (e.g. spending a night with your friends, being too self-absorbed to care about your wife). As we all know, mutual trust creates the spirit of teamwork in marriage bit by bit; under this spirit, you and your wife work together as a team in your married life. However, dishonesty or betrayal can easily undermine the unity of the marriage. When your wife distrusts you, you have to take a long time to gain your wife’s trust back.
Understandably, losing trust in your wife is one of the loneliest and most desperate feelings. Anyway, trust is the bedrock of your marriage; you must take action to repair it as soon as possible when it is damaged or before it is completely obliterated. Otherwise, your marriage tends to fall apart.
Here are 7 tips on how to gain your wife’s trust back:
1 Be always consistent with your words:
As you try to rebuild the broken trust, make a point of coordinating what you say with what you do. You must be aware that your behavior has ruined your image in her mind. Now that she decides to stay in the marriage, you should make a promise to give her a better future – let her know that you will work harder to make the relationship more stable in certain aspects where you have ever done wrongly, improperly, or poorly, such as lack of emotional intimacy, lack of communication, and ineffective financial management.
You must have deeply understood that the hazard of failing to keep your word. Sadly, broken trust in a relationship needs to be rebuilt slowly over time. You ought to consistently demonstrate to your wife that she has enough reasons to trust you again, and you have to prepare yourself mentally for her possible negative emotional response; because she feels insecure about you, she may repeatedly say that she has no longer counted on you to keep your word when you are sincerely asking for her forgiveness.
Regrettably, a lot of husbands still discount the power of consistency; and any inconsistent behavior can make their wives feel that they don’t have enough patience and endurance to thoroughly correct the mistakes/faults that they have done; after all, it is easier said than done. So remember: sticking to doing what you say goes a long way towards proving to her that you are indeed serious about mending your ways.
2 Recognize that things will probably not turn out to be the way you expect:
Be aware that broken trust is a difficult hurdle to overcome. Even though it is repaired in the way you want, eventually the relationship status might also not be what you expect. Therefore, almost certainly, when you start to fix the broken trust in your marriage, the result is bound to be imperfect. For example, maybe your wife does not entirely forgive you; or even though she has forgiven you, but from time to time she couldn’t help thinking of the unpleasant past in which you lost your trust in her. If that is the case, you should accept your new role in the new normal and work to find a way that leads both of you to be the very best you two who can be for each other.
In short, since you have decided to try to gain your wife’s trust back, you should go deep into the repairing process with open mind, and no need to focus too much on results; during the process, just make sure to be respectful to your wife and faithfully incline your being towards the highest good for her.
3 Be honest:
If you did another seriously wrong thing at this critical stage of marriage, probably you are afraid that it will further raise the dissatisfaction of your wife or make her mistrust you once she knows all its ins and outs; to prevent the situation from getting worse or getting blown out of proportion, probably you dare not to confess it to her, or you will choose to minimize its damage by altering enough truth or omitting certain key details to reduce the fallout; for example, you may say the words like “There are no further problems”, and “I just did it only one time”. However, you had better not do so. Why? The following is the reason:
When you are deliberately not telling her the whole truth about an important issue, your wife may misunderstand that you just attempt to evade your responsibility in this way. And it is also impossible to wrap fire in paper; sooner or later the serious problem will come to light; by that time, you will surely regret that you should have been honest with your wife early; at that point, you will have to face more relationship risks, and you will have to take more time to heal your marriage, hence gaining your wife’s trust back will inevitably become a tougher task.
4 Own up to your mistakes/faults:
When you have done something that has undermined the trust in your relationship, you should sincerely apologize and fully accept responsibility. Remember, don’t attempt to justify your wrongdoings or fabricate excuses for them. Maybe some controversy things have to be done in context of certain events, but even so, such an explanation also doesn’t help you get your wife’s forgiveness; at this stage, your wife is disgusted with any form of self-justification for your wrongdoings, she will hate you more if you attempt to play down downing them (i.e. “I did it because…”, or “At least I didn’t…”); that only makes her emotionally shut down, and she may feel doubly hurt.
On the other hand, probably your wife will also criticize you for breaking the trust that she has for you, even though you have admitted that you have done another wrong thing. So you must be ready to sincerely accept her honest criticism, no matter how hard it is to take. Her criticism gives you a way to see problems from another perspective. Therefore, don’t put yourself in a defensive position; instead, take time to listen to her, and try to understand her side. You should allow your wife to express her inner feelings without fear of her extreme reaction. It is human nature that your wife reacts emotionally to the upset when she is thinking of your unacceptable behavior. And you need to provide her with outlets for venting her negative emotions.
By the way, your wife also wonders whether you are man enough to admit your mistakes/faults after you did something wrong. When it comes to how to gain your wife’s trust back, this is one of the premises of regaining her trust.
5 Accept that earning back her trust takes time:
Now, you must have come to realize that it is distressing and suffocating to live with a resentful woman under the same roof. And an apology is not always powerful in turning things around significantly, especially when you have shattered trust in your relationship. Restoring trust in marriage is bound to be a lengthy and tortuous process. So if you are committed to gaining your wife’s trust back, you have to be mentally prepared for a long haul.
Keep in mind that if you want your wife to forgive you after you fail her, you have to learn from your past mistakes, you have to bear your painful shame; during the process of healing the broken relationship, you need to be more patient than your wife, and your real apology to her should not just come in the form of words; it should mainly come from your behavior in daily life.
6 Bring romance back:
Because of your broken trust, your marital relationship suffers a setback now. To a certain extent, the process of regaining your wife’s trust is also a process of reigniting the lost spark in your relationship.
In a love relationship, almost every woman needs romance to some degree. And when most wives were growing up, they fantasized about a fairy tale marriage; but after marriage, they start to realize that marriage is hard work, not a fairy tale. However, occasionally, they are still in need of romance. Yet the pity is that most men rarely attend to such an emotional need of their women; therefore they can not earn good points in the romance category. Plus, the romantic needs of a wife may vary from wife to wife. So, to find ways to give her the romance that she wants, it should be necessary for you to try to recognize and value your wife’s uniqueness in this aspect.
Moreover, be aware that actions speak louder than words when you are trying to rekindle the romance. After years of marriage, the same words spoken between you two may tend to lose the original meanings. The most typical example is the well-know “I love you”: at the beginning of your relationship, it is deeply meaningful to say this to your woman; however, over the years, this phrase is repeated over and over, and I bet that you have also realized that this type of romantic words seems to lose their initial intensity of feelings, instead it becomes more and more mechanical and automatic. Especially while you are saying “I love you” to your wife after she finds that you cheated on her, she can hardly believe your words.
Therefore, try to avoid the love language that has become pale; and if possible, you should try to use new words to express your deep love feelings for her; and make sure to take actions accordingly to follow your romantic statements. For example, after you promise to spend more time with her, you should try to abstain from those social activities that do not matter to you, and be more tender and considerate towards her while staying together with her.
For more tips about how to rekindle the romance with your wife, you might go on to read the post below:
How to romance your wife again – Tips for romance with your wife.
7 Embrace the awkwardness:
During the process of repairing your broken trust in the marriage, you are bound to experience a lot of awkward moments. After all, memories from the good or bad past can creep into the mind of both of you, which may create some unexpected and complicated emotions.
Now that you can’t avoid forgetting those awkward moments, you might as well embrace them. And the more you escape the awkwardness, the more difficult the mutual communication becomes. It seems that there is no better way to deal with awkward memories than to embrace them. So just take a deep breath and let nature take its course. And fortunately, as you embrace the awkwardness, you can put it down with more ease instead.
The final word:
Restoring trust is a long process that requires thoughtful actions as well as sufficient patience. Concerning this issue, you may put yourself in your wife’s shoes: if you were hurt by your wife’s dishonesty or betrayal, you would also hardly trust her again unless you could see tangible evidence that she has changed and become better overall.
Anyway, don’t give up your marriage easily, even though it seems impossible to gain your wife’s trust back; in fact, most married couples are troubled by a trust issue of some type at some point; you see, in this world, a lot of men had ever made various dreadful mistakes/faults that broke their women’s hearts, but they took pains to redeem themselves, and they strived to repair trust in their marriages, finally they saved their marriages and lived happily with their wives in the rest of their married life; so, why can’t you be one of them?
If you want to seek more expert advice on how to gain your wife’s trust back, you might go on to watch the video below to follow the comprehensive guidance that is offered by Brad Browning, a marriage coach with 12+ years of experience. With the guidance, you may become more confident to get your marriage back on track:
Maybe, you are also interested in the posts below:
How to fix a marriage without trust – Repair broken trust.
How to save your marriage when your wife wants a divorce.
What to do when your marriage seems hopeless – Save your marriage.
12 common signs of an insecure wife – Signs your wife is insecure.
4 basic tips on how to get through a rough patch in a marriage.
How to save your marriage after separation.
What is an emotional affair? – How to mend a marriage after it.