How can you regain trust in a relationship?

In my past experiences with this, you just try to bury it and move on. When one partner began to think about the past and bring it up, the other would point out that they had been forgiven and could no longer be blamed for that past discretion or what have you.

But in the end it didn’t work in my case. Any relationships I’ve had with issues such as this have failed in the long run, at least partially due to those issues.

It kind of depends upon what the “mistakes” were. Cheating, IMO is not a mistake, it’s a conscious decision to do something wrong (assuming that you are not in an open marriage).

But let’s say it was cheating and that you want to keep the relationship together. I think it’s crucial to get couples counseling to sort it all out and get to the root of the problem and for the cheating partner to be made clearly aware that what he/she has done to the cheeted upon partner has created pain and uncertainty and loss of trust.

Then, I think it is crucial for the cheating partner to become more accountable than he/she was before. The cheater needs to make sure that the cheated upon partner is made to feel comfortable. They need to make sure they tell the cheated upon partner where they are going to be, to call if they are going to be late or go someplace else, and make sure that the cheated upon partner is OK with that. It’s not fun for the cheater, but I think it’s necessary, otherwise it will be business as usual, and the cheating is much more likely to happen again.

The cheater must also realize that the pain and uncertainty will never completely go away, and so they cheater must actively decide that he/she won’t tell the cheated upon partner to “get over it” or become resentful, they need to go above and beyond the call of duty to fix the relationship or call it quits.

But the cheated upon person must also do their part to not bring up the subject constantly.

And the cheated upon person must be given a lot of leeway regarding “checking up” on the person. The cheater should allow open access to e-mail, FB and phone messages. It sounds harsh, and maybe unfair, but unless a couple is open and honest, there is a pretty good chance that the cheating will happen again.

If you are talking about other kinds of mistakes, please give us some examples, the advice might be different.

Making the right choices over time until the other person regains faith in you.

Where I’m at the trust was damaged to the extent that we broke up/put us on hiatus. Maybe trust will bloom again and we’ll be back together someday, sometime down the road. Maybe it won’t.

I like to think that you have to make a decision if you can get over what it may be that the trust was broken in the first place. If you can’t then sorry to saybut it won’t work. But if you can and want to try, don’t keep bring “it” up and before you do that have a conversation with the person first and make sure everything is out before you try and let it go.

You don’t. I thought I could, and tried, but I never trusted him again no matter how much time passed.

It depends what kind of mistake. Without that info I don’t know if it can be answered.

Some things are just so bad the relationship is gone, period. Some things are worse than having affairs.

Maybe the OP can come back and give us a better idea of the mistakes she’s referring to. Otherwise, we’re all just spinning our wheels trying to guess.

I see your statement “You know you are both sorry for what happened…” How can the person who is hurt be sorry? If we take cheating as an example some cheaters make the cheated on feel that the cheatee is partly responsible. This is an unequal and unheathy relashinship. And Imagine if the cheater and gave the partner the HPV virus that led to cancer!

How many people call things like what Chris Brown did to Rihanna a mistake? Imagine, they got back together or something like that. What a horrible message. Some things are not excusable.

@flo So right. That was not a mistake, what Chris Brown did, it was a crime! Too bad everybody thinks he is their little darling these days. They let him go on Dancing With the Stars right after the incident and everybody cheered him on. It sickens me.

@Kardamom there is so much message that says that women are just not worthwhile at all.