How do you go about regaining someone's trust, when you (unintentionally) hurt them?

share a secret, that way they can hurt you back.. kind of like a security

Be honest, be humble, be patient. Having someone play with your trust hurts a lot regardless of whether it was unintentional or not. Assure them that you are sorry and that you really want to make things right. But don’t annoy them about it all the time either. Say what you need to say, be sincere about it. If you are genuinely sorry, it will show. Say that you will be there for them and are willing to do whatever to make it right. And then back off. Let them take their time to feel sad/angry and get over it. Depending on the person, they might start to trust you soon or they might take a long time. Whichever is the case, you’ll just have to suck it up and accept what happens. Hope things work out.

I agree with Pnl. I think being patient is very important, because once a trust has been broken, it will take quite some time to build it back up.

slowly regain his or her trust. that is all you can do.

SRM

When it comes right down to it, after sincerely apologizing, there is not much that you can do—it is in their hands. Make certain that when you apologized you told them why and how you went wrong and how you are certain that it will not happen again.

When or if the trust breach can be healed is up to them at that point. It depends on the severity of what you did and who they are as a person (how easy it is for them to trust).

Time can be a factor. As time passes and you show yourself trustworthy in little day-to-day matters, they may begin to regain their trust in you.

You need to be patient and trustworthy. Good luck.

It really depends on exactly what it is yo did to break trust. Telling a friend something she assumed she told you in confidence can be tough if it resulted in her embarrassment. Cheating is a tough one. If it was something less hurtful like forgetting to take the garbage out. that’s a little easier. The question can’t really be addressed without more information.

@judi: You nailed it.

I recently went through a horrible breach of trust involving my best friend and the guy I was sleeping with (you can all guess what happened there) and neither of them has regained my trust. It wasn’t for lack of trying, but it was simply a situation where I could never trust either of them again. Sometimes the only thing you can do is to let that person go. If you keep bugging him/her about he/she will never trust you again definitely. However, if what happened was the kind of thing that can be forgiven, let the other person come to you. Say your piece and leave it alone. Oh, and when you approach this person to say what you have to say, do so directly. Do not write a letter, do not go through a friend, do not do it online. Talk face to face or on the phone and then leave it alone.

I strongly agree with Katawa that the initial apology must be in person. That is an absolute must. If there’s no in-person apology, whatever happens after that is shit. It doesn’t matter. It’s completely useless.

After that, I wouldn’t bring up the issue, but I would definitely reach out to them. Wait a little while, then ask the person to dinner, a party, anything. When I’ve been hurt, I’m NOT going to reach out to the person who hurt me. I might consider hanging out with them, but I’m absolutely not going to call them up, and ask them to do stuff.

And because of that, if you don’t reach out, the relationship just might fall apart for sheer lack of contact.

I had a similar experience to Katawa (sorry that happened, Katawa!). Except for me it wasn’t just someone I was sleeping with, it was the love of my life.

I haven’t been able to forgive either of them. A big sore point that remains is that they’re still fucking, I mean, in a relationship.

@jmah, why don’t you tell us what happened?