Dating Advice: Regaining Lost Trust

Many things can damage a relationship but few are more lethal than broken trust. If you’ve broken your partner’s trust in a moment of foolishness, how do you go about winning it back?

Rena from Denver, CO writes:
I got mad and made a threat to this guy I was dating. I know this makes me look bad, but things just happened between us and before I knew it we were dating. I threatened to tell his family about us when we got in a fight one day. I’m a very temperamental person and I keep escalating the situation until it blows up in my face. now he wont talk to me at all. He said that once I made the threat he shut me out. I really like this guy and I realize I have anger problems and I work hard to resolve them. but he doesn’t understand this his lack of communication led to me being angry in the first place. I’ve apologized many times, I don’t know what else to do. Is there anything else I can do?

I do think this situation is resolvable, but it’s going to take you reaching out to him first. I know he isn’t talking to you for the moment, which is tough on its own to fix. Have you tried reaching him through a mutual friend? That can be a good approach since not only will it get your message delivered, but it will also give him the benefit of the mutual friend’s good opinion of you. If that doesn’t work, I’d suggest a hand-written letter since that that shows effort and also tends to catch a person off-guard; people seldom receive hand-written letters anymore and there’s a good chance if he gets one from you he’ll read the contents. Just don’t deliver it to his house—make sure to send it to the office, or even walk up to him in person and hand it to him yourself.

I don’t think the reason that he shut you out is your anger so much as the breach of trust you created when you threatened him. I understand that you are frustrated with his situation with his family and want him to make a decision sooner or later about who he really wants to be with. These things do take time though; this is a major life change, and it is important for him to have the chance to tell his family his decision in his own way. The way in which he tells them could determine how he feels about that choice for the rest of his life. If he chooses to be with you but the way in which his family finds out is destructive, he may regret his choice, even if it was the “right” one. What you’re dealing with is hopefully the protective urge that caused him to start a family in the first place and not shame. That’s a good trait. If he finds a constructive way to tell them about you (especially if children are involved), then there will be fewer emotional scars all around, including for you.

That being said, how do you win back his trust? My suggestion is to give him some collateral. If you trust him, then think of something you don’t want anyone to know about you, something of equal proportion if you can, and tell him that thing. 

That way you’ll be standing on equal ground. If he feels that you no longer have the advantage on him, and sees that you are willing to trust him with something sensitive, then he may finally feel ready to open up to you again. Let him know that you are very sorry for breaking his trust (not just for your anger management issues), and that you understand the importance of him being able to choose the way in which he communicates his choice to his family. But don’t let him put it off forever—figure out how long you’re willing to wait on him and explain that you are looking for more communication, and that you need him to make up his mind. You deserve to be treated with fairness and respect in this situation, just as he does, and that will need to come from him as much as from you. Let us know how things work out.