Are There Some People We Shouldn’t Trust Again?
Are There Some People We Shouldn’t Trust Again?
Can I trust this person? This is a big question, especially after a betrayal has occurred.
The deeper the wound, the longer the repair will take. But not all repairs are equal. You see, there is a difference between wise trust and blind trust. Of course, there is space for grace in relationships, but it shouldn’t be sloppy grace where deceptions and dysfunctions are glossed over.
In this episode, Lysa, Jim and Joel will help you see that rebuilding trust requires a combination of three crucial things.
Related Resources:
welcome back to another episode of therapy and Theology of course we’ve been in this series all about trust trust issues and a lot of information from my book I want to trust you but I don’t today I want to open by reading something from my book that I think is not only written from the place where my heart had been so broken by betrayal but also with the hope of knowing that we’ve got more help than there are issues trust is the oxygen of all human relationships a relationship without trust is a relationship without
vulnerability and depth a relationship without trust is void of the kind of love we were meant to give and receive a relationship without trust is one with very little vibrancy and eventually no life at all I’m not just talking about romantic love I’m talking about all relationships where we want deep connection that is both safe and Lasting when I feel that kind of warmth with a close friend or a loved one that’s home to me when that same trust is violated that’s hell to me it feels like my safe
space just became a house of horrors the shock of broken trust makes life feel painfully slow and uncomfortably fast all at the same time the disbelief that this is your reality makes everything grind to a halt but the reality of jobs and bills and kids that need a ride to school all feels unrealistically normal and normal feels too fast for a brain that cannot process what’s happening that’s why I wrote this book because I now fear the risk all relationships require and I wonder who else is eventually going to betray me
that’s what I wanted to discuss today what do I do with my busted up trust and of course we want to not only establish the issue and how deep the feelings are of broken trust and betrayal but we also want to know is it possible to repair broken trust and if it is possible if it’s a scenario where we do feel like the other person is receptive and they are humble enough to want to walk through the process what is the process of repairing broken trust Jim I know you’ve told me many times and and especially the first time you said this
I was in such a challenging place where I wanted to rebuild trust but I was not sure at all how to do it and you said something to me like every rip needs a repair MH and that made so much sense to me because I was looking for one blanket answer like one big activity we could do to repair trust but what you were saying is no you really need to look at and examine the rips that were there and seek to repair each of those rips comment a little bit about that yeah and I would you you’ve heard me me say often
if it’s hysterical it’s historical it’s not just the rips that a spouse or partner or someone who may be dating there’s infidelity and betrayal there it’s not just those rips in that immediate relationship but I would then go through that doorway and look at rips that need to be repaired uh from your whole life history and not in an obsessive way but in a way that begins to what I simply call do your story work I I’m not so much amazed anymore at Lisa and Joel but but I still am paused by people I meet wherever it
might be might be at Starbucks or somewhere or could be at church or what have you and they’ve not done their story work and as you know as I teach to explore the facts and the impact and then even the track it spells fit fit which we’ve talked about here before of their story so here’s a a crisis maybe it’s a 911 that’s happened of infidelity and relationship to explore all of that and why rips can be repaired trust as we’ve said will be repaired and rebuilt over time plus provable reliable
experience not quickly well the 911 in the relationship happened very quickly instantly through Discovery or disclosure but the repair takes time and then to look back again at what other repairs might I need to seek or try to repair I Believe In Christ in our relationship with God the Father the Son the Holy Spirit I can go vertical and repair things with people who who may be dead people who have hurt me in my past that I may never physically encounter again it’s a strange thing that sometimes INF infidelity and betrayal
can be a doorway in which I can look at other repairs historically in my life and I think it’s important to state that sometimes repair and Reconciliation is possible other times it’s not that’s right and you know I you mentioned two words that we’ve talked about before but disclosure and Discovery right I found that a disclosure where someone comes to you and honestly owns what they’ve done and says hey I need to be honest with you I need to admit what’s happened and I I just want to come clean that kind of
disclosure while it’s still incredibly painful yes it is is setting that relationship up for a much quicker and maybe even a higher possib ability of repair whereas if it’s Discovery then you’re always kind of wondering what else is there or if they hadn’t been discovered like a Perpetual child with a hand in the cookie jar if you didn’t get busted would you have come forward and owned what you need to own so I believe although it is rare I’ve done a lot of work in this area as you both know uh
Discovery is usually how it happens how the the news gets it’s broken uh rarely is it disclosure so I encourage people I work with typically it seems a lot of men statistically more men are Unfaithful um and with that is to say Rush run do not pass go do not collect $200 get right to disclosure and what I teach and you know this is to do that appropriately with a therapist especially one who is trained in infidelity and that infidelity recovery because there are therapists there are church leaders naming not blaming who
would say you know brother that’s under the blood you just need to move on and forgive him let alone the bad advice of you know just go home maybe you need to start having sex with him again uh not knowing if he’s been unfaithful in a way you could get an STI or an STD I mean Alert warning or you need to go back and just forgive and move on and uh I think that I don’t think I’m confident that’s more trauma and I would argue and posit more abuse to someone who’s been betrayed to tell them just to kind of
hijack or Hotwire connection and sweep it under the rug and move on especially if you dare to name it put it under the blood of Christ um you didn’t ask for this but I believe that’s spiritual abuse as well that’s good and I do think also that if there’s a discovery and you find that there’s a pattern of they will only admit or own what you have proof for like what you’ve discovered but they will never come clean about a little bit more chances are each Discovery you make is going to make the chances of repair
and restoration of that relationship more and more and more unlikely because you can’t repair trust that keeps getting broken and each Discovery without an admission beforehand is is going to be another betrayal and another betrayal and that’s really hard Joel what do you have to say about some of what Jim just said because I think those are some important points yeah I mean actually there’s a funny little illustration story to to draw out maybe even here that happened to me just the other day um I think that Discovery and
that disclosure is so important because um for the disclosure side people are going to discover right so you think oh man I got this hidden I’m good and yet there are like there’s um there’s abnormal abnormalities that are taking place all so here’s the story I had just gone back from a trip and uh laying down in bed Brit and I are you know watching the show and all of a sudden love confession time I know it’s like my jam yeah it’s just so good keep going but this is not my confession it’s my daughter’s
confession oh oh wow she signed a release for you to uh do this confession of hers does she have to she’s a minor probably I guess I guess and you you need to give her any royalties that you know you might receive that girl gets all my royalties let me just tell you that right now there ain’t no doubt about that she’s getting all my shoes she’s getting everything my boys are not happy with me at least we probably just need to address cuz people probably just heard some sound over here uh happening
out here is we’re actually at the proverbs 31 Ministries office in front of our staff right so hey Steph you guys say hi really quick hi there you go so now everyone will know yes you hear a lot of female voices there there are some there are some males that work for us too that’s right um and and they are treasured employ they really really are but also they are working with a lot of women as are you every day every day what a gift yes you’re a blessed man yes uh it actually has equipped me for this
next story so there we go um so laying in bed and then all of a sudden we hear these little feet pattering you know that’s happening and um it’s like clearly it’s little feet my my boys have gotten bigger and it’s like little soft petite little feet patterings and I’m like oh that’s MJ she has gotten up she should not be up right now and so then she uh goes and it’s like quiet for a little while and then she comes back and she’s passing by our bedroom trying to go back up the stairs and so we yell out
Emmy is that you and she goes yeah we’re like em come in here and she’s like no I was like no no no em you need to come in here what were you doing and she comes in she she opens up the door it’s kind of dark cuz we’re watching our show she crawls into bed and and some of you that have been with me you know tour life there is a specific snack that I love that I hide you know what snack that is besides Taco Bell once Lisa once Lisa has actually called me out on a stage in front of a whole bunch of
people for how I eat Oreos yes so all of a sudden my sweet daughter crawls into bed and I smell the Oreos all over the place and and I was like and Brit’s laughing already and I’m like am did you eat Daddy’s Oreos and she goes no I’m like sis look you’ve got Oreos on your face you’ve got Oreos on your breath you you getting a TCT high from her Oreo breath I don’t know what it was but maybe but but it was just an interesting thing cuz she was just ad of no no no and then finally I was just
like Emmy I see the Oreos on you and then finally she was like so Discovery and then finally disclosure right yeah D I did now what was interesting here is that once we unraveled the story we actually found out that she had an accomplice oh wow because my Oreos are hidden very high up to a place that she cannot get to and so then we find out that actually Luke and Levi have all helped her out by going up and grabbing the Oreos and bringing them down and so it’s like and and so but the discovering the disclosure thing is like man it
would have been so much better for M to just come in and been like Hey Dad yeah I took the Oreos and you know she might have snitched on her brothers and like yeah my brothers were were involved in it but I think the reason why I want to draw this out is that the discovery and the disclosure thing is so important um because often we think it’s a onetoone situation um and anytime we’ve been sinned again and this is this is the this is the impact of sin in general sin is never individualistic sin is telling us all
the time it’s just me myself and I like you’re the only one who’s going to be impacted that is not the nature of sin sin is always corporate it’s always communal sin always has an impact it’s never just you and there are innocent people on the outside that are going to get hurt and so it’s like Discovery disclosure I think that the beauty of the disclosure piece is that we can start to at least deal with the communal impact of it so it doesn’t go out of control that’s so good Joel also maybe
we need to do a whole therapy and theology about around like the hidden meaning behind Joel hiding food in his house oh my go you do know that’s adct that’s addict Behavior oh no that’s your stash we’ll talk about later is it addict or survival well he pick I don’t know I’m not touching that one with the 10 foot pole um Jim you mentioned that it’s important to do our story work I listed out in my book things that can affect us there’s so many personal factors that make the severity of broken
trust unique to you so before we get into list of how to repair broken trust I think it’s important to consider these personal factors that really determine how severe broken trust is affecting you and impacting you um your family of origin which you already mentioned previous rejections you’ve experienced we can’t negate that because compounded rejections can start to feel like a line of rejection was spoken over you and then if you hang on to that line and it starts to become part of The Narrative of what you
believe about yourself then that line can become a lie you believe and that lie you believe can soon become a liability in all future relationships so previous rejections definitely impact us as well personal insecurities that’s a big one mhm how sentimental you are what your priorities are in relationships how much this broken trust cost you and there’s always a cost that’s part of the impact how close you are to this person you know if it’s an acquaintance broken trust is not going to impact you nearly
as much as if it’s a very close friend how much it changed the circumstances of your life you know did it cause a blip on the screen or did it become one of those Monumental betrayals that you think about and will think about for a really long time your tolerance level for poor choices this person made and whether or not you believe this breach of trust is a deal breaker or not some people have a different tolerance level for different kinds of broken trust and to some people a small breach of trust can sometimes be a deal breaker in a
relationship based on so much other history that they’ve experienced or some people have a tolerance for severe breaches of trust that maybe you and I wouldn’t have so I think those are are important to consider as well um I want to go ahead and step into the repair work because the very first thing on my list and I want to say this too this is a list that’s uniquely mine and this is talking about a big betrayal a big trust issue so I encourage anyone listening and certainly anyone that reads I want
to trust you but I don’t to take this list and scale it according to to what kind of broken trust there is there’s a big different there’s a big difference between someone who lets you down and disappoints you maybe they said they would do something and they didn’t do it in the time they promised to do it there’s a big difference between that and infidelity in your marriage so this list is for the Big T trauma of broken trust so obviously make it your own according to what you need and also
according to how severe the broken trust is the first thing on my list is to fully disclose what they did whether it is Discovery or disclosure that fully disclose is important so that more discoveries aren’t made later which again just compounds the broken trust now I do want to say that Jim taught me something really important here details are not always helpful we don’t want to go shopping for pain and and if we need a detail then fine ask for it but I found the details just compounded my hurt I didn’t need the full scope but I
did need a full disclosure and be honest about what you need disclosed information is so much better than continuously making discoveries of what else happened so that’s step number one to even see if repair is possible and of course at this step you’re going to start to see there’s two types of people and how they receive this the one type of person is based on their reaction they’re going to be humble they they are obviously probably going to have to process a little shock of its Discovery because no
one likes to get caught doing something they shouldn’t have done but watching their reaction will determine so much about how this process is going to go from here and if their reaction is that they’re able to self-regulate they are able to not immediately accuse you of being crazy or blame you or deny it when you have undeniable proof that reaction is crucial so if they’re gentle and humble it’s going to go One Direction and if they’re not that reaction that harsh reaction is going to let you know
this may not be likely and I think that’s important to state so the second thing that needs to happen is they need to take responsibility for what they’ve done and obviously if it’s a situation where it’s a compounded um situation like if I’ve also done something and they’ve done something then a discussion can be had about what you’ve each done but it’s important for the person who has betrayed not to automatically go back in history and pull proof of how you also are not so that’s a quid pro quo that’s
a defensiveness one of the four horsemen that gotman found uh of the a merital or any intimate relationship a killer of Rel that’s one of the ones I probably I bet I’ve seen more than anything else so it is okay to make the request can we stick with this topic at hand can we stick with this offense at hand it may be that we need to talk about other offenses but for the purpose of this discussion let’s stick with this one offense and I think that’s important so will they take responsibility for what
they’ve done and then will they seek to understand how this impacted you yeah for me this is one of the most significant parts of repairing broken trust because I need to know that at least you will acknowledge that this wasn’t just about the act of betrayal this is about the fact of what it’s now cost me of what it’s done to me inside and so a response that I love is I recognize how much this has hurt you and I recognize as a result that you’re going to be hesitant to trust me and I want to say of course you’re going to be
hesitant to trust me you know and so when the person is that gentle and really does seek to understand how this impacted you not just what they did but how it affected you is really important um and right along with that acknowledge what this cost you because there’s a cost every time that’s the impact piece the cost is this a $5 debt or is this a $5 million debt what does it cost you I want to add to it again back to the person’s story not just what does it cost you in the moment you’ve discovered
this has gone on or I’ve disclosed it but where has it impacted you was Daddy Unfaithful was were you abused back here in childhood just to think in these categories versus this linear or myopic thing well I did this and let’s keep it on me I take all couples back through where did this also like because we know post-traumatic stress happens a lot Discovery or disclosure but really looking at the person’s story that’s layers of impact I also in the book reveal that I went and got my brain scanned because I wanted to know not
just the emotional Fallout and not just the physical Fallout which there were physical ramifications for deep betrayal there just were and there was a lot of emotional Fallout like triggers and you know things like that but there was also something shifted in my brain and I wanted to know what the cost was to me from a brain health standpoint and it was fascinating to me as I stood with Dr Daniel aan who scanned my brain he put up a picture of a healthy brain and then he put a picture up of my brain and what
he indicated is there were four anxiety centers that were lit up whether I was at rest or whether I was active and those four anxiety centers formed what he called the trauma diamond and he could literally point to the cause and effect of broken trust and betrayal and the impact that this had on me the top part of the diamond was PTSD wow and then one of the other parts of the diamond that anxiety Center being lit up is it made so much sense when he explained it that that is where you can get um you can start that process of
thought spiraling and another part of it was you misread cues from other people you think they look Shifty and they were just like you know looking up at the light above and so you can E when you’ve been hurt and betrayed and you’ve experienced trauma and and I mean again it doesn’t just have to be in romantic relationships it can be in work relationships it can be in organizational relationships it can be with um family members with friendships there’s so many friendship breakups that happen that leave people traumatized
Yeah so basically when I looked at the four anxiety centers and realized that this didn’t just impact me and my emotions that this had a cost to the way my brain now functions now the good news is through EMDR through Bible studies through counseling through intensives that I’ve done with you Jim and also intensives that I’ve done with you Joel studying the theology behind where to go from here and what beliefs I need to carry that are solid theology that he can also see that my brain is healing
praise and so it it is it it was a sobering exercise but it was also a hope-filled exercise that there is help for some of the the damages that we could see that actually occurred in my brain so we don’t want to underestimate the cost there is a cost to this depending on how big the Betrayal and broken trust was um next step in repairing they need to welcome your questions and desire for clarification oh yeah I would love for you to comment about what you’ve seen in your office Jim because you have seen this and
walked people through this so many times on my desk in my office is a small little beach ball and beside it I use all the time is a full military hand grenade it’s been gutted but it’s there and you know that in a swimming pool when you hold down a beach ball it’s going to come up with Force but not just like the beach ball I believe it comes up like that grenade so I watch people somatically if you will in their body men especially where it’s like this tick tick tick and they’re just getting more
upset like how I mean how long can you can you build trust or how long is it going to be before we can have sex again or whatever those are called resentments and and I watched those begin to build up just looking at their eyes their face or some of the nomenclature or wording they will use and I’m I began to step in on that pretty early how long will this take that was the big cry in the Old Testament right how long oh Lord as long as it takes trust again rebuild over time plus provable reliable experience
what I want for these guys and and women have been unfaithful too but for especially the men I work with is I want the Law of Attraction not the law of promotion that really comes out of the 12 Steps in other words the law of promotion is but don’t you trust me yet and can’t you see I mean I mean how much more how much more therapy do you have to do I’ve see it all the time that’s the law of promotion the law of attraction is I want to go dad used to tell me son as I took my Bible to public school he said
son you’re the best Bible that people will ever read and a person says you know honey you’re different I begin to share something or we’ve had a stretch of two months where it has been almost honeymoon and then a movie comes up or something else comes up or coming into the fall maybe just The Season’s changing something and I feel like I’m just forlorn in my face or I’m upset and or a friend or another Pastor has fallen in sexual disgrace or infidelity and they are triggered these days we usually
use the word they’re activated and then the the husband can be over like really I mean I didn’t even do anything this time I always guide them my guiding principle is Psalm 51 we all know it but listen a broken and contr tried heart God will not despise yay God forgave David that baby died conceived and he prayed hard for that baby and then Nathan said FYI buddy the sword will never depart your house and when you’re bored read about David’s Sons let alone absum that whole story around that and
then Solomon how Solomon died first Kings 91011 and how Solomon’s Sons were so I don’t put that as a necessarily a curse upon David but there is a reality you choose your behavior but the world chooses the consequences right and I want a willingness a Brokenness humility with the guy and one more thing we’ve talked about rip and repair he’s going to have a bad day he’s going to one day say oh man I’m so frustrated does he ground himself and say babe I’m sorry that’s my crap that’s my stuff I mean
I’m sorry I and he can repair it this is not Perfection yeah and there is a big difference between a mistake and a pattern of behavior with that Joel I want to get your thoughts but let me go go through a couple more of these um just for the sake of time so after they welcome your questions and desire for clarification it’s important for them to give you space and time to grieve if you need to without making you feel guilty annoying or weak I cannot emphasize that one enough um next is ask for forgiveness
with a truly repentant heart I would love Joel for you just to quickly comment on how do we know like from a theological standpoint how do we know that it’s a truly repentant heart I mean we can feel it we can sense it but is there anything from a Biblical standpoint that can go okay the Bible says this about a truly repentant heart yeah I mean I’ll pull from um my scholar therapist Theologian friend Jim Crest who what uh who says for uh trust to be rebuilt to takes time plus believable behavior um from a
