Has A Supporter Ever Regained Your Trust Once You'd Decided It Was Gone?

[Al_Lurker]

I'm a supporter and I think I know the answer to this one even though it isn't an absolute but I'd like to hear your perspectives...

When someone you love has triggered you in such a manner that you feel like you've been "hurt more than I've ever imagined" have you ever regained/rebuilt that trust with them? If it's possible is it as 'full' as it was before?

I'm thinking that those with polarized thinking will tell me it can't be done and that those who haven't found success in therapy will agree. Is the point in where you are in therapy a factor? Am I totally off base?

 

[keifer]

As a guy who's destroyed a relationship, I want to say it can be rebuilt. I think you have to be in a certain point in recovery, therapy.

At the time, I was so angry and just ended up hurting the girl I loved more than I imagined. At the time, I wanted to hurt her so much to push her away from me as far as I could. Well, I did. I think about her and I haven't heard from her since. I don't know if she was the girl for me or not.

She told me not to talk to her again until I'm healed. I'll never be healed. I might get better but I'll never be the man I once was. She was becoming my best friend and I've destroyed it beyond repair. I don't know if I'd go back.

I'd like to believe, hope, it's possible. I would like to believe it would be stronger than before as it's a difficult time for both parties.

 

[Jane.l]

I am guessing this isn't what you want to hear but for me once I am gone - I am gone - that's it emotional shut down barriers up but everyone is different and every situation is different . I am very black and white i have to be to function effectively .

 

[Echo]

I don't think it has to do with therapy. It has to do with the realisation that triggers relate to past events. It will depend on whether the person involved agrees to be sensitive to the behaviour that causes the trigger (which is involuntary and therefore cannot be helped) and help the sufferer avoid any possible repeat. Being retraumatised causes further brain injury damage (which can be reversed/healed eventually). It really depends on the circumstances.

In my case, my ex's running away for weeks and then wanting back into my life repeatedly caused me such anguish (due to abandonment issues AND issues related to withholding of love, playing mind games and effectively emotional abuse), that it made me very unwell now that I have CPTSD (in part triggered by these behaviours). I believe it is likely that he, too, has deep unresolved issues (fear of intimacy, possible CPTSD also). I don't know if he could resolve these things if he won't have therapy, but even if he did agree to it, I think we are probably a bad match at the moment, and I need to protect myself from the possibility of any repeat if I am going to get well and be available for any future relationship.

 

[arfie]

Yes, I have rebuilt trust after it has been shattered. Even without the added challenges of mental illness, 34 years of marriage requires periods of damage control. Learning to open myself to trusting less than perfect humans was a major point of therapy for me. My successes are not fairy tale perfection, but I feel like each bit of progress is a major contributor to my healing. To this day I cannot blindly trust, but I do not believe trust should be blind nor fenced in by unnaturally straight and rigid lines. It is not about being perfect. It is about working it out.

And the rebuilding was contrary to the advice of my paid therapists. They thought I should dump the chump. Divorce and family estrangement were popular themes among my own pros in the 80s and 90s. I have wondered what we would find if we surveyed the families of psych pros...

 

[Al_Lurker]

@Jane.l What I want to hear is your honest opinion... I'm old enough to know I have preconceived notions and also to know that I don't assume to know what's in another's mind. I do have a motive for asking the question if that's what you mean but it's to help me educate myself about PTSD and to heal myself after exposure to it in a close relationship. I also hope that my knowledge of it may help someone else down the road. I've already discovered that I have one friend who suffers from it and I've known him for 30 years so even though the original relationship that brought me here may never be reconciled I hope to be able to better able to handle the others that I still have. I also have a granddaughter who was badly burned and I wish to be able to support her and her mother should the time come.

That you all for sharing what you have, it all has meaning and is helpful to me.

 

[Never Give Up]

I am going to approach your question from a different angle which might not be popular with some of you. From a spiritual perspective, I have seen God work in the my marriage over the past few months like never before. I have a wife who was so determined to get a divorce after 21 years. A divorce that had no biblical faults other than she felt tired and didn't want to keep up anymore. She is a recent breast cancer survivor and along with 3 family deaths which included a father she was attached to.

I seem to ramble in these forums. I think you can reestablish, rebuild and repair trust. It has to take time, it has to be genuine. The sufferer has to want and accept and process the trust. A willingness for forgiveness has to start. I know for me I am so frustrated with everything happening that I hope I can hit rock bottom soon and at least look up and see the improvements start to happen.

My life feels like it has been put on hold and the wife who I love and thought I knew is just any empty shell of herself.

 

[Tinyflame]

I can't speak specifically as regards 'supporters', but I think forgiveness can be attained, but perhaps it's an incomplete forgiveness, because I don't think (I don't know that) trust can be rebuilt. I would not say full trust, not in one's heart of hearts. But then again, everyone is different.

I think it would also depend on whether it's intentional, whether it's an isolated incident or repeated, how much history there is, how much confidence in the other person's veracity there is, how much both parties are considerate and thoughtful of one another, how much value is put on each other's feelings or the relationship.

 

[fly away home]

Appropriate timing for me. I will be watching this thread with interest.

I feel like I cannot return to trusting and therefore to be hurt again. The cold had set in.

 

[Justmehere]

There is one supporter relationship in my life that was rebuilt when my trust was completely gone. It was not someone I love, but actually someone in a helping professional role with me. (Not a therapist.) I was so hurt and so devastated by something they did that I fired them. Angrily.

They responded by saying, "you are right, I dropped the ball. I screwed up. I'm still on your side. I support your right to fire me. I still want to help, but if you thought this through, and this is what you want to do, I will support your decision." It was a response that stopped me in my tracks.

I had put my future in their hands and it was a pretty major thing they did. Not intentional, but she knew how much I needed her to come through and she just spaced it, and I was hurt. Because it wasn't malicious and because she owned her humanity and her mistake, I hung in. It did take time and for awhile, my lack of trust was hard for her - like she would say, "I am working for you, I know you don't trust me, and that's ok, I just want to show you that I am working for you. I got this."

I didn't feel trusting of her for a long time, but I kept taking small risks and she kept handling it well - not perfectly, but her intent was pretty clear. She was pretty enduring in working in through with me.

After awhile, I did trust her again. She couldn't tell - she would say, "I hope you can keep trying to trust me." My trust was there in my heart, but I had a hard time knowing what trust even looked like.

By the end of what she was helping me with, I did trust her really deeply.

It wasn't the same trust as before, but in this experience, it was almost just as good and it was so worth it. I never did trust that she wouldn't drop the ball again... I trusted that she was human, and I did come to trust so much more deeply that I did initially that she really was on my side.

I had some therapy in the past before this, but it was bad therapy that decreased my trust in helping professionals in huge ways. In this non-therapy setting, I learned a lot about trust. There were times this person had to trust me or it wouldn't have worked.

Working on my own healing and recovery was KEY to the supporter being able to rebuild trust with me. If I had not been trying to do relationships different and heal from the past, there would have been nothing she could have done to rebuild trust with me.

Her combination of humility with the strength to not also be a doormat really helped too. It was actually humbling for me and rather life changing.

There are a couple of relationships I have not been able to rebuild trust - and it is partly because they never tried to change or own their part. Sometimes it's hard to own my own part - rebuilding trust is hard and humbling to do!

Therapy can help someone work through forgiveness. Someone once told me that not forgiving is like drinking posion and hoping it hurts someone else. I think that is true for me (maybe not for others, it probably varies a lot). I find it hard to forgive, and yet it's painful to stay scared and angry. I don't think forgiving always means reconciliation or being able to trust the person again. Sometimes it can't mean that or shouldn't mean that.

 

[arfie]

@fly away home
Wishing you a warm front. Trust does not have to be all or nothing, lay your heart on the chopping block proposition. I started with trusting people to be human enough to make mistakes and have problems of their own.

 

[fly away home]

Thanks @arfie . After 13 years of ignoring the warnings and bracing for the unpredictable forecasts I don't think I can live in climate change denial anymore.