Last spring, I sat across from a woman at a meditation retreat in Sedona who told me she’d checked her husband’s phone eleven times that morning — before breakfast. She wasn’t proud of it. Her hands were shaking when she said it, and she kept pulling at the hem of her sleeve like she was trying to hold herself together. She loved him. That was the part that made her voice crack. She loved him, and she still couldn’t stop. Rebuilding trust in relationships, she told me, felt like trying to fill a bathtub with no plug. You keep pouring, and it keeps draining.
I recognized that feeling. Not from the outside looking in — from the inside, where the water’s cold and you’re the one on your knees trying to hold the drain shut with both hands.
Rebuilding Trust in Relationships Starts Before Your Partner Does Anything
This is the part nobody warns you about. We assume trust is something two people build together, like assembling furniture. But the foundation — the part that actually holds weight — is the relationship you have with yourself. And most of us skip that entirely.
I used to make promises to myself constantly. I’ll meditate every morning. I’ll stop reading into his texts. I’ll go to bed before midnight. And I’d break them just as fast. Every broken self-promise was a tiny erosion. Not of my partner’s trust in me, but of my own sense that I could count on myself.
There’s a line I wrote in Relationship Anxiety that still stops me when I reread it: “When you keep telling yourself you are going to wake up at 5 a.m. and go to the gym, but you never do, you are not going to trust anything you say.” It sounds like it’s about fitness. It’s not. It’s about the quiet way we teach ourselves we’re unreliable.
So before we talk about trusting your partner again, I want you to pause. Take a slow breath in through your nose — four counts. Hold for two. Exhale through your mouth for six. And ask yourself honestly: do you trust your own word?
If the answer is no, or even “not really,” that’s not a failure. That’s information. And it’s the actual starting point for rebuilding trust in relationships. Not couples therapy, not shared phone passwords. You. Your word to yourself.
Start absurdly small. Ten sit-ups instead of a hundred. One page of reading instead of a chapter. Keep the promise. Then keep another one. (I started with flossing every night, which felt almost embarrassingly small, but after two weeks of actually doing it I noticed something shift.) The point isn’t discipline — it’s showing yourself you mean what you say.
The Attachment Style Nobody Talks About at Dinner Parties
Disorganized attachment is the attachment style most likely to create complex trust issues — and it’s the one most people have never heard of. People with this style were often raised in households where their caregiver was both the source of comfort and the source of fear.
Dr. Sue Johnson, in her 2026 work on Emotionally Focused Therapy, describes how this creates an impossible bind: the child needs comfort from the very person causing distress. That wiring doesn’t just disappear when you grow up and fall in love.
What it looks like in adult relationships is jarring. Everything feels like rejection. A partner coming home late isn’t traffic — it’s abandonment. A disagreement isn’t a disagreement — it’s proof the relationship is over. And instead of talking about it, someone with disorganized attachment will often just… vanish. Block you on everything. No discussion. Gone.
I’ve seen this in my own life. Years ago, after my first marriage ended — my husband filed for divorce after years of trying to weather my accusations and insecurities — I didn’t sit down and reflect. I didn’t consider that something in me needed attention. I just repeated the pattern. Married someone exactly like me. We were both drowning in relationship anxiety, and neither of us knew how to swim.
If you recognize yourself in any of this, the first step isn’t fixing the relationship. It’s identifying your attachment style. Not as a label, but as a map. A map that shows you where the broken bridges are so you can stop falling into the same river.
A Quick Self-Check (Not a Diagnosis)
Ask yourself these questions — and be honest, not aspirational:
- When your partner doesn’t respond to a text within an hour, what’s your first thought? Curiosity, or catastrophe?
- When conflict arises, do you move toward your partner, pull away, or freeze entirely?
- Do you find yourself monitoring your partner’s behavior — checking their phone, tracking their location, scanning for “evidence”?
- When someone gets close to you emotionally, does it feel warm or threatening?
There’s no score. But your gut reactions to those questions will tell you more than most online quizzes. And if you want to go deeper, the questionnaire in Chapter 2 of my book walks you through a more detailed self-assessment.
Why Forgiveness Isn’t What You Think It Is
Okay, this is where I might lose some people. But I need to say it because I spent years getting this wrong.
Forgiveness is not a feeling. It’s not a warm wave that washes over you one Tuesday afternoon while you’re doing laundry. It’s a decision — and honestly, it’s a brutal one. Because real forgiveness means you throw the thing into what I call the sea of forgetfulness. You don’t bring it up in the next argument. You don’t use it as ammunition when you’re hurt. You don’t replay it in your head at 2 a.m.
That last part — refusing to mentally revisit the event — is the hardest. Your brain wants to go back. It’s like a dog returning to the same spot in the yard, digging at the same hole. You have to redirect yourself, over and over, until the grass grows back.
A 2016 study by Loren Toussaint and colleagues, published in the Annals of Behavioral Medicine, found that forgiveness was significantly associated with reduced stress and better mental health outcomes — but only when it was genuine and not performative. Saying “I forgive you” while mentally keeping a ledger doesn’t count. Your body knows the difference, even if your words don’t.
I want to be careful here, though. Forgiveness doesn’t mean tolerating ongoing harm. It doesn’t mean staying in a relationship where trust is being actively destroyed. There are situations where the most self-loving thing you can do is leave. Forgiveness and boundaries aren’t opposites — they’re companions.
Trust Issues in Relationships Often Wear a Disguise
Something I’ve noticed — in my own life and in conversations with readers — is that trust issues rarely announce themselves clearly. They show up wearing costumes.
They look like canceling plans at the last minute because you “don’t feel well” (but really you can’t handle the anxiety of your partner being out without you). They look like saying “I’m fine” when your chest is tight and your mind is spinning. They look like people-pleasing — saying yes to everything your partner wants because you’re terrified that one “no” will be the reason they leave.
There’s a scenario I describe in my book that still makes me wince because I lived some version of it more times than I’d like to admit. It’s date night. Your partner cancels because their mom fell and broke her leg. Instead of compassion, your first reaction is suspicion. Are they lying? Are they with someone else? You can’t reach them by phone — not because they’re cheating, but because hospital reception is terrible. By the time they leave the hospital, their phone is full of accusatory messages from you.
And the cruel irony? Your anxiety just created the exact problem you were afraid of. Your partner pulls away — not because they don’t love you, but because they’re exhausted. And you interpret their distance as confirmation of your fears.
This cycle is what makes trust issues in relationships so stubborn. The fear makes you act a certain way, and the way you act creates exactly the evidence your fear was looking for. It feeds itself. You can’t think your way out of that loop. You have to notice your way out — catch it happening in real time, which is harder than it sounds.
The Pause That Changes Everything
Next time you feel that surge — the tightening in your chest, the urge to check their phone, the impulse to send that third text — try this. Don’t act for ninety seconds. Just ninety. Place your hand on your stomach. Feel it rise and fall. Notice the physical sensation of anxiety without attaching a story to it.
This isn’t about suppressing the feeling. It’s about creating a gap between the feeling and your reaction. Ninety seconds is roughly how long the initial neurochemical surge of an emotion takes to move through your body, as neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor described in My Stroke of Insight. After that, you’re choosing to re-trigger it — or not.
If you’ve been working on decluttering your mind from overthinking, you’ll recognize this principle. The thoughts aren’t the problem. It’s the way we chase them that keeps us stuck.
How to Trust Your Partner Again (Without Becoming Naive)
There’s a counterargument I find partially convincing, and I want to name it: some people will tell you that if trust is broken, you should just leave. Start fresh. And honestly? Sometimes that’s the right call. I’m not going to pretend every relationship deserves saving, because that would be dishonest.
But if you’ve decided to stay — if both of you have decided this is worth the work — then here’s what I’ve learned actually helps. Not in theory. In practice.
1. Radical transparency, with an expiration date. In the early stages of rebuilding, your partner might need access to your phone, your emails, your schedule. That feels invasive, and it is. But it’s temporary scaffolding while the building gets repaired. The key is that as trust grows, these measures should naturally fall away. If they don’t — if years pass and the surveillance hasn’t eased — that’s a different conversation.
2. Take responsibility without keeping score. Trading accusations back and forth is the fastest way to destroy whatever fragile trust you’re trying to rebuild. Personal accountability means asking yourself: How can I make better decisions? What can I change? Not as self-punishment, but as genuine ownership. This frees you from the victim mentality, which — I’ll be honest — felt like home to me for a long time.
3. Let vulnerability be gradual. Trust is only built by giving your partner the chance to let you down — and they don’t. You can’t test this all at once. Share something small. Something that scares you a little. See what happens. Then share something slightly bigger. It’s less like a trust fall and more like wading into cold water one inch at a time.
4. Respect each other’s pace. Healing doesn’t follow a schedule. If your partner is still processing something from six months ago, saying “Why are you still hung up over this?” is like pulling a plant out of the soil to check if the roots are growing. You will kill the thing you’re trying to nurture.
The Conversation Most Couples Skip
Boundaries. Not the Instagram-infographic version of boundaries — the real, uncomfortable, specific kind.
Most couples never sit down and explicitly say: Here’s how I need to be respected. Here’s what feels like a violation to me. Here’s what happened in my past that makes this particular thing a sore spot.
Without that conversation, you’re both moving through a minefield blindfolded. And when someone inevitably steps on something, the explosion feels intentional even when it wasn’t.
I learned this the hard way. For years, I withdrew when I felt my boundaries had been crossed — but I’d never actually articulated what those boundaries were. I expected my partner to just know. (Okay, that’s a little embarrassing to admit, but it’s true.) The withdrawal led to bitterness, and the bitterness made it impossible to resolve anything.
What helped was something deceptively simple: regular open discussions. Not crisis conversations — just check-ins. “How are we doing? Is there anything I’m doing that doesn’t feel right? Is there something you need that you haven’t asked for?” These conversations need to happen when things are calm, not when someone’s already hurt. If you’re looking for ways to bring more emotional intelligence into your conversations, this is where it starts — with the willingness to ask and actually listen.
There’s No Finish Line for Trust — Here’s What I Believe Now
I used to believe there was a cure for relationship anxiety. That if you did enough inner work, read enough books, meditated enough mornings, you’d arrive at some permanent state of security. A finish line.
I don’t believe that anymore. Life keeps presenting circumstances that trigger anxiety. A partner’s offhand comment. A text that reads differently than it was intended. A friend’s divorce that makes you wonder about your own relationship. The triggers don’t stop. What changes is how you respond to them.
The seven steps I outline in my book aren’t a one-time fix. They’re more like a daily practice — something you revisit, the way you’d return to your yoga mat or your meditation cushion. Not because you failed, but because that’s how practice works. You don’t stop brushing your teeth because your mouth was clean yesterday.
I described it once as the “paired figure skating effect” — when you and your partner are so in sync that whether you’re holding hands or on opposite sides of the rink, you’re moving to the same rhythm. That doesn’t happen by accident. It happens because you practiced the choreography until it became second nature.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you rebuild trust after someone has lied to you?
Yes, but it requires both people to commit fully. The person who lied needs to take responsibility without deflecting, and the person who was lied to needs to eventually — on their own timeline — release the incident rather than weaponizing it. It’s possible. It’s also genuinely hard.
How long does it take to rebuild trust in a relationship?
There’s no universal timeline. I’ve seen couples make meaningful progress in a few months; others need a year or more. The speed depends less on the severity of the breach and more on the consistency of the repair efforts. Small, daily acts of reliability matter more than grand gestures.
What if I have trust issues but my partner hasn’t actually done anything wrong?
This is more common than people realize. If your trust issues stem from childhood attachment patterns rather than your partner’s behavior, the work is primarily internal. Understanding your attachment style — and possibly working with a therapist who specializes in attachment — can help you separate past wounds from present reality.
Is checking my partner’s phone a sign of trust issues?
Usually, yes. Occasional transparency is one thing — especially if you’ve both agreed to it during a rebuilding phase. But compulsive checking, especially in secret, is typically anxiety driving the bus. The relief you feel after checking is temporary; the underlying fear stays intact.
When should I consider leaving instead of trying to rebuild trust?
If trust is being actively and repeatedly destroyed — through ongoing deception, abuse, or a refusal to take responsibility — rebuilding may not be possible or healthy. Forgiveness doesn’t require you to stay. Sometimes the most loving thing you can do for yourself is walk away.
That woman in Sedona — the one who checked her husband’s phone eleven times before breakfast — she emailed me four months later. She said she’d started with the smallest promise she could think of: drinking one full glass of water every morning before reaching for her phone. She kept that promise for a week. Then two. Then she added another small one. She told me she hadn’t stopped feeling anxious entirely. But she’d started trusting herself again, just a little. And that little bit of self-trust had changed the way she reached for her husband’s phone. She still wanted to check sometimes. But more often than not, she’d pause, feel her feet on the floor, and choose differently.
I’d love to tell you I’m always that grounded. Last Tuesday I almost sent a text I would have regretted — fingers hovering, chest tight, the whole thing. I put the phone down. Not gracefully. But I put it down.
If you’d like to work through these steps in more detail, my book Relationship Anxiety walks you through all seven — along with the attachment style questionnaire I mentioned earlier. You can find it there.
Last updated: June 2025
