For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Matthew 6:14-15
(This is a generalized blog post. I am not a professional counselor or therapist, I speak from my own personal experiences only. If you are experiencing abuse, please seek help immediately! If you have trauma or need extra help healing yourself or your marriage, please seek help from a professional.)
Trust is built in drops and lost in buckets. -Kevin Plank
If you have ever had something happen in your marriage that has hindered the trust, you know it’s a bumpy and hard road to walk. There’s nothing fun about it but yet we choose to rebuild it anyway because we know our marriage is worth it!
We do it because we want our marriage to work not only for us but for our kids and for the glory of God. So we press on, you deal with the triggers, the heartache, the tears, the fights and the worry. The road is long but can be so rewarding in the end.
After trust was broken in our marriage I was lost as to how to fix it but over the years I have slowly figured out how I wish I would have handled it from the beginning. But please remember, nothing would have been mended in my marriage if I never put God first and leaned on Him to get through it. So as you walk this road, lean on Him for He will sustain you!
Here are three of the steps that I wish I would have used from day one.
Forgiveness
Forgiveness is SO important but before you lock up on me and think forgiveness means forgetting, it doesn’t! As Lysa TerKeurst said it in her book Forgiving What You Can’t Forget: “Forgiveness releases to the Lord your need for them to be punished or corrected, giving it to the only One who can do this with right measures of justice and mercy.”
Staying stuck in un-forgiveness only creates more pain for us but giving forgiveness helps heal us and releases justice to God, who is perfect!
Forgiveness helps us let go of anger just as we are called to do in Ephesians 4:31-32 says “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”
Letting go of all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, slander and malice can seem so hard but if we ask God to help us, He will! And on the flip side of it, He will also help us with kindness and forgiveness.
When we stop thinking about the want or need to be angry with someone we can free up our heart and mind to show love and forgives. This changes US so much!
If you want a dive deeper into forgiveness Forgiving What You Can’t Forget by Lysa TerKeurst* and the Forgiving What You Can’t Forget Bible Study Guide*
*Amazon Affiliate Links
Boundaries
Boundaries are always important within the marriage relationship but when trust is broken they need to be reimplemented and most likely need to be a bit stronger for a while.
I have heard too many times of someone telling their spouse that they trust them and they aren’t worried about who they talk to or what they do. That, in my opinion, is setting yourself and your spouse up for failure. Wishy washy boundaries aren’t good enough for such an important relationship!
You should be so invested in your marriage that you want what is best for it, even if that means sacrificing outside relationships and activities to protect it. If you wouldn’t tell your children that you don’t care who their friends are or what they’re doing, don’t do it to your spouse.
With love and respect set boundaries and check in with one another about what is going on in your lives. It’s important to have each other to rely on if something where to go wrong whether thats in our marriage or other friendships.
When setting boundaries be open minded and listen to what each other is comfortable with. Hear them with a heart of love and understanding. Your marriage and rebuilding a trusting relationship is worth that.
Open Communication/Healing
If you and your husband don’t have open communication about everything and anything, that really needs to be implicated. Each of you should be able to ask anything at any point and be answered honestly. When rebuilding trust asking questions should be welcomed with open minds, but asked and answered with respect.
But on the flip side of that, please don’t pester your spouse with the same questions over and over that they have already answered many times. This is something I did, I wanted apologies and conformation about things that he already has given me but thats was never enough for me because I wasn’t giving my pain to God and working on healing myself. This is why forgiveness is so important!
We must allow ourselves to heal without getting all the answers and apologies. But in healing our marriage we should also have respectful communication together.
You aren’t alone!
Healing broken trust isn’t an easy road, but if you put in the work and put God first in your life and marriage it is doable. Remember you aren’t alone, you aren’t the only one going through this kind of pain even though it can feel like a very lonely road. Seek help on this journey, please!
I will be opening coaching in the near future for anyone who wants help but doesn’t know where to turn.
I hope this post has given you some encouragement and peace on this journey, please feel free to reach out to me if you have questions or need to chat.
Other blog posts you might enjoy:
THE BONDAGE OF HIDDEN STRUGGLES
COMPARISON WILL ONLY TAKE YOUR JOY
THE MOM BOD.
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