I’ve had to do this with my husband so I can tell you what worked for us. A caveat: both people have to admit and agree there is a problem for the two of them and take responsibility for their part in it. If this doesn’t happen the rest won’t work. So that’s where you start.
You communicate what your issue is, describing the behavior that caused it. You explain why it is a problem for you. You state what you need to change in order to continue the relationship. And you say what you will do if the two of you are unable to accomplish a mutually agreed upon goal.
Take a deep breath and be prepared to be patient because this will take a number of years of following the agreed upon guidelines as the trust is slowly re-established.
Deviation from the contract may be interpreted as a misunderstanding, a mistake or a deliberate effort to sabotage so each time it happens it will have to be discussed and clarified. You set your own guidelines as to what the deal breakers are and stick to them.
This sounds like serious business and it is if it means a relationship you’d like to keep for life. I don’t even bother with this kind of rigidity in my working, casual and friendship relationships. There are easier and more comfortable ways to negotiate those. One of them is to count on people to occasionally let you down and you just have to decide how much of it you want to tolerate.
I just did, in the quote you JUST QUOTED right above this response.
Also, I imagine “no one questions it” (or more accurately, not many people are wasting time agitating over it) because they’re aware that people who behave badly are not going to reform on their say so alone, especially given that they are a stranger to them. Teaching a pig to sing, again. I could get all over-wrought about it, but what exactly would I accomplish, other than stressing myself out? I don’t watch ‘reality’ TV either; not because I think that my refusal to support trash will actually have a significant impact and cause it to suddenly become unprofitable and disappear from the world, but because I don’t want to spend my leisure time, or ANY of my time, getting pissed off over obnoxious people who will never change.
I’m not responsible for the behavior of other people. I’m certainly not responsible for the behavior of every other person in the first world.
None of it was personal. I was criticizing a specific set of behaviors, not your person, or any person.
No. Being untrustworthy is fundamentally incompatible with having a healthy relationship.
I suggest getting to know the guy before you date him. I’m not going to suddenly change my tune on this because you keep throwing out new random examples.
You don’t need to spy on someone to decide whether or not you want to trust them. You DO need to spend a reasonable amount of time getting to know them. And yes, if your response to having a casual getting to know you conversation with me was to google me, and then tell me it was justified because you need to independently verify everything I say, the sum total of my response would be “Good-bye. Don’t ever speak to me again.” Because that level of paranoia is a sign of SERIOUS ISSUES that I don’t want to get remotely involved with.
If I accidentally stumble upon something very suspicious, in which it looks as if I’m being deceived somehow, by anyone…
Hell yeh, I’ll investigate a little. Could be circumstantial, and making accusations might thwart the ability in unearthing a smoking gun, if they are indeed guilty of betrayal and know I’m on to something. Giving them the upper hand. If they’re not guilty, it’ll leave a taste of distrust on my part.
Ultimately, it’ll have to be resolved, and if it’s serious, a conversation or confrontation is in order.
I speak in general here. There are times in love and life you need to keep your cards close to your vest. Anyone can earn my trust, this doesn’t somehow make them not a human.
If it’s petty shit, like gross tales of adventure you know can’t possibly be true, that’s not the same thing. It’d have to be something/someone I’m invested in in some way.
Can you clarify how “getting to know” someone will help you decide whether or not to trust them? Is the method to trust people with small things first where you can handle it if they lie, and then move on to bigger things?
I agree with everything else you’ve said. And I apologize for mistaking your comments as a personal attack.
At at each stage you confirm the truthfulness by going behind their back and snooping on them? No, that’s not healthy at all.
You get to know someone gradually. Getting to know someone implies a growing level of trust. Trust is assumed. If then that person violates your trust, that trust is broken.
Look, part of the assumption of a relationship is that you are risking yourself. You very well might be betrayed. And if the same person betrays you enough times, then it’s possible that trust will never be regained.
There is no next step—I will not trust but I will confirm by snooping. Nope.
Pretty much this. I mean, I’m not sure why this needs to be spelled out, because presumably you’ve been in public and gotten to know people before…
So, say you sit down next to someone on the bus. You may not even look up from your book, but you extend them a minimal, basic level of trust: that they are capable of acting like a civilized human being in the presence of other people, and won’t, say, attempt to shove his hand down your pants in front of a crowd of on-lookers.
If he violates that trust, and DOES shove his hand down your pants, then he’s pretty much ruined any shot he may have had at your friendship, correct?
But, he is civilized, and perhaps chats with you a little about your book. Turns out he seems likeable, and he invites you to chat over coffee. At this point, you choose whether to extend him a little bit more trust: if you accept, you are trusting that he will be pleasant company to be around during a more personal, one-on-one conversation, although still out in public.
If he violates THAT trust, and you sit there for coffee just long enough to hear him spout off all sort of racist/elitist/bigoted crap, you will leave and not ever consider going out for coffee with him again, correct?
Same thing with the exchange of phone numbers. If he has thus far not violated what minimal trust you’ve placed in him, you give him a shot at something just a little bit bigger. You trust he won’t start calling you 50 times a day at all hours asking why you’re not spending every ever-loving minute with him. If you choose to make plans to meet again in the future, you trust he’ll actually show up and be pleasant again. Etc. If he violates THAT trust, he never gets a chance to spend more time with you, find out where you live, or anything that requires a deeper level of trust.
So: incrementally. Each one is a risk, but you mitigate the risk by making each step only a tiny step above the previous one. If he continues to demonstrate trustworthiness, each subsequent risk is somewhat less of a risk that it would be otherwise. You don’t meet on a bus, immediately hand over your address and house keys, and then find yourself in trouble because that’s when he decides to shove his hand down your pants. And if you’re reasonable about extending trust in a normal, incremental, intelligent fashion, you won’t need to snoop to discover if he’s untrustworthy, because he either was untrustworthy about little things of small importance (like showing up when he promised to), so you already know he is, or he didn’t, and you can reasonably trust that he’s not untrustworthy in general.
It’s not foolproof, but nothing is. Not even snooping. There is risk inherent in interacting with other people. That’s why you choose how much, or how little, trust to extend any given person. I wouldn’t trust a stranger or a random co-worker with my home address. But my mom knows where I live.