How do you start to rebuild trust after a bunch of lies? This week’s guest, Patrick, has first hand experience answering this question as he loves his wife who struggles with addiction.
He shares his perspective as a male on how men can sometimes view forgiveness.
“We just love problems to go away. That’s why we have that fix it attitude — fix it and then I don’t have to deal with it ever again.”
“I’m plenty happy to move on and forgive and forget. I don’t want to reminisce about those bad times, I don’t want to think about those bad times. I just want to move on to the future of the good times, of what we have going now. I try to move on.”
In order to move on you need to have trust in the relationship. How do you know someone is trustworthy again?
“The trust is pretty easy when you see commitment. If you owned a small business and you hired an employee, you would have a certain amount of trust in them. If they stop showing up, if they show up late, if they don’t do their job, you say, ‘Well, I’ve lost trust in this person.’”
“But as long as that person is doing all of the essentials that you’ve asked them to do they’re deserving of your trust. My wife has made a commitment to herself and to me that she’s going to everything that it will take to make sure that she stays sober and healthy. I just back that up.”
Patrick encourages us not to focus on the what ifs; instead, choose trust over suspicion.
Rebuilding trust“I can’t say that I wouldn’t start freaking out if she relapsed again. I’d be upset and I’d feel like my trust was violated, but until then, and hopefully that never happens, I have to place my trust in her.”
