The Open Window

Trust

Can Trust Come Back?

Yes, and almost never through the grand gesture. It returns in small, boring moments that add up.

4 min read

Six months after the worst day of their marriage, Imran is stuck behind a lorry on the flyover.

He calls Nisha. “I am going to be twenty minutes late. I have shared my location. Do you need anything from the shop?”

It is the least romantic phone call imaginable. Nisha, standing at the stove, notices her shoulders come down from around her ears. She had not known they were up there.

Later she will say that this call did more than the bouquet, the long letter and the weekend away put together. Why would that be?

Why the grand gesture falls flat

The psychologist Shirley Glass explains it with an image anyone can follow.1 Someone hands you a cheque and it bounces. They hand you a second and swear it is good. It bounces too. When the third arrives, you do not take their word for it. You phone the bank. You will keep phoning the bank for a long time.

Trust is rebuilt by cheques that clear. Many of them, small ones, over months.

A row of cheques. The first two bounce. After that the bank is phoned every time, and trust returns only through many small cheques that clear, over months. bounced bounced Promises Phone the bank checking many small cheques that clear Discovery Months later
Glass’s bounced-cheque picture. In one couple she describes, it took eight months of steady accountability before the betrayed wife began to relax.1

Trust has three layers

Psychologists John Rempel, John Holmes and Mark Zanna described trust in three parts.2 Predictability: they do what they say. Dependability: you can count on the kind of person they are. Faith: you feel sure about the future together.

A betrayal knocks down all three. They come back in order, from the bottom. Imran’s phone call is a predictability brick. Nobody can skip to faith.

Three layers of trust stacked like a pyramid. At the base, predictability: they do what they say. In the middle, dependability: I can count on who they are. At the top, faith: I feel sure about our future.Built from the bottom up ↑ Faith I feel sure about us, even when the future is unclear. Dependability I can count on the kind of person they are. Predictability They do what they said, again and again.
Rempel, Holmes and Zanna’s three parts of trust.2 After a betrayal, it is rebuilt from the bottom: predictable actions first, faith last.

The account is overdrawn

Glass pictures every relationship as holding a reserve of goodwill, like a joint account. Kindness is a deposit. Hurt is a withdrawal. An affair empties it.

She draws on two findings worth knowing whether or not you are in crisis. John Gottman, studying more than 2,000 couples, found that satisfied couples kept about five positive moments for every negative one. And the researchers Cliff Notarius and Howard Markman found that a single cutting remark can wipe out twenty acts of kindness.

Two rows of coins. Satisfied couples keep about five positive moments for every negative one. And one cutting remark can wipe out about twenty acts of kindness.Satisfied couples: about 5 good moments for every bad one 5 : 1 One cutting remark can cancel about 20 kindnesses ! 20 : 1
The joint account. Gottman’s five-to-one, and Notarius and Markman’s twenty-to-one, both as cited by Glass.1

The arithmetic is plain. Many small deposits. No cutting remarks. The researcher Brené Brown uses a similar image, a jar that slowly fills with marbles, one small trustworthy act at a time.3

Give what they want, not what you would want

Most of us give what we would like to receive. The person who loves words writes long messages. The person who loves practical help fixes the tap. Each feels unappreciated.

Glass rewrote the golden rule for couples: give to your partner in the way your partner likes to give to you. She calls a gift that lands exactly where it is wanted bullseye caring.

A target. Your own favourite way of giving lands on the outer ring. Bullseye caring is giving in the way your partner likes to receive. What you like to give Long messages, a fixed tap What they want Ask, or find out with the guess list below
Bullseye caring: give to your partner in the way your partner likes to give to you.1

Do it before you feel it

Many of us wait to feel loving before we act lovingly. Glass reverses the order. Do the loving thing, and the feeling often follows. She also warns against keeping score. “I will be kind when you are” is a way of never beginning.

Listen the way a stranger did

People in affairs often say the other person understood them. What does that usually mean? That the other person listened well. This is a skill, and it can come home.

Three steps of listening when she says she panics when his phone buzzes at night: reflect it back, show it makes sense, and name the feeling. Saying “don’t worry” is crossed out. Nisha “I panic every time your phone buzzes at night.” 1. Reflect “When my phone goes off at night, you panic.” 2. Validate “That makes sense. Late messages were part of how I deceived you.” 3. Empathise “It must feel as though it could all be starting again.” “Don’t worry.” Cheerleading at a funeral
Listening the way a stranger did. Glass compares “don’t worry” to cheerleading at a funeral.1

Make room for the ordinary

A husband in Glass’s book describes picking up a table tennis bat with his wife, months after his affair. Within minutes they were laughing as they had years before. That was when he knew he could not leave.

Recovery needs these islands: time together when the affair is not mentioned at all. A walk. A meal. At dinner, try a ritual Glass borrows from a film. Each person shares the high point and the low point of their day.

When this is not enough. Rebuilding trust is hard to do alone. If months pass with no change, or every attempt ends in a fight, a couples therapist can help. If you are afraid of your partner, call the Women Helpline on 181 or emergency services on 112. Need to talk to someone now? Tele MANAS is free, day and night, on 14416.

Inat Therapy · Anahita Tanwar, Clinical Psychologist · online sessions across India

These pages are for reflection and self-help. They are not therapy and do not replace a doctor, counsellor or lawyer. If you are struggling, Tele MANAS offers free support day and night on 14416. In an emergency, call 112.

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