If your girlfriend or wife doesn’t trust you, what should you do? This article will show you how to fix this problem and get the trust back in the relationship.
1. Understand why she doesn’t trust you
2. Understand that trust will always be broken at some point
3. Talk about the issue once and resolve it
4. If necessary, apologize once and one time only
5. Own your behavior and actions (good or bad)
6. Be willing to walk away if she can’t get over her “trust issues”
If you’re reading this article, there’s a good chance that the woman you’re in a relationship with keeps telling you that she doesn’t trust you.
Trust is a huge issue for women and just about every woman will keep harping on about trust and honesty until the day they die.
Now before we attempt to fix this problem, it’s important to understand why women lose trust in relationships and why trust is so important to them.
There are obvious situations where trust is broken in a relationship. The two most common issues are: (a) you cheated or (b) you lied.
If you got caught cheating or you told a lie and got caught out, then it’s no surprise that your girlfriend or wife doesn’t trust you anymore.
You Cheated or Lied
If you cheated or lied to your partner, it’s tempting to keep apologizing for your mistake to make the problem go away and resolve the situation as fast as possible.
Men tend to avoid conflict, especially conflict with women.
Conflict with women is never a simple case of talking about a problem and resolving it because you can’t use reason or logic to disarm a woman and put her mind at ease.
In fact, the more you try to apologize and fix the situation, the more resistance you’ll encounter and the more resentment you’ll stir up.
It also doesn’t matter if you lied or cheated last week or twenty years ago. If you cheated or lied to your wife at the beginning of your relationship, she will still accuse you of cheating/lying twenty years later.
For the man who finds himself in this situation, the woman’s inability to “let things go and move on” is eternally frustrating.
You could spend all your energy trying to convince a woman that you’re trustworthy and faithful, but it doesn’t matter… all the talking and apologizing in the world won’t change the fact that you transgressed at some point in time.
(As an aside, the reason why women are unable to let past situations go stems from the way women process memories in the brain. A woman’s memories are tied to her emotions. If you make a woman feel a negative emotion in the present, this negative emotion will trigger other negative memories from the past, hence the reason why she struggles to let past issues go… including issues that happened thirty years ago.)
So what should you do in this situation to get the trust back in your relationship and stop those annoying: “I don’t trust you” accusations?
Case Study: Lies, Lies, Lies
When a woman doesn’t trust you, you only have two choices: (1) keep apologizing and defending your position, or (2) own your actions and assume an indifferent attitude where you’re prepared to walk away if she doesn’t stop talking about the issue.
Peter lied to his girlfriend, Jane, five years ago when they first got together. Peter frequently told Jane that he never ate junk food. To make matters worse, he also told Jane that she shouldn’t eat junk food too.
Within the space of a month, Jane discovered that Peter did eat junk food. She found an empty Snickers wrapper in his gym bag.
Jane also noticed a receipt in the trash (as only a woman does), which showed what Peter had ordered for lunch: a pizza and a can of coke.
Why the lies? Jane thought. Why the big cover up?
The fact that Jane decided to stay with Peter didn’t mean that the issue was dead and buried. Jane proceeded to spend the next five years telling Peter that she didn’t trust him anymore.
These accusations drove Peter crazy. Whenever Jane brought up the reason why she wasn’t attracted to Peter or was acting cold citing: “a lack of trust in the relationship”—Peter would fly into a blind panic.
Terrified that he would lose Jane, Peter would spend hours begging for forgiveness.
He promised Jane that he had changed. He told her that he was 100% loyal and committed in the relationship. He told her that she could trust his word and he didn’t eat junk food anymore.
“I don’t care if you eat junk food,” Jane replied. “It’s the fact that you lied and felt like you had to cover it up. What else are you lying about?”
Peter explained that he would never betray her trust again and would do anything to win her trust back.
The more Peter tried to convince Jane to trust him, the more she grew to resent him and the more difficult she became.
The relationship was broken, all because Peter felt the need to conceal his desire for junk food. The “trust was gone,” Jane told Peter repeatedly.
And even though they stayed in their fractured relationship together, Jane would always bring up the issue of trust again and again. Her attraction and love for Peter was slowly fading..
What Jane couldn’t stand about Peter wasn’t that she couldn’t trust him, it was how pathetic his behavior was.
If he was going to lie about such a small thing, he should at least have the balls to own his own actions, Jane thought, instead of apologizing for his behavior and trying to cover it up.
Six months later, Jane was in a relationship with Paul. At the beginning of the relationship, Jane discovered that Paul had lied to her.
Paul had told Jane that he was going to spend the weekend with his parents, when, in fact, he had gone to Vegas with his friends. The moment Jane found out she was furious.
“Why did you lie to me?” She screamed at Paul. “I had that in my last relationship, I hate it when people lie to me.. Why did you say you were going to see your parents when you went to Vegas? Why did you lie to me?”
“I don’t know,” Paul responded. “It didn’t seem like a big deal. I was thinking about seeing my parents… then the Vegas thing kind of happened so I went there instead. I didn’t lie, I just didn’t tell you.”
“You’re lying,” Jane replied. “You didn’t tell me for a reason. Maybe you’re cheating on me, or you didn’t go to Vegas with your friends…. you went to see some other women–“
“No,” Paul cut her off. “I didn’t. Anyway, I didn’t tell you because I don’t feel like I need to explain my actions to you. I don’t want to keep talking about this again and again so let it go.”
True to form, and not to let the issue go that easily, Jane brought the issue up again six months later. She told Paul that she still didn’t trust him after the “Vegas incident.”
“I don’t care if you trust me or not—that’s your problem,” Paul said. Jane went quiet. She wasn’t expecting that response.
Whenever Jane told her ex, Peter, that she didn’t trust him, he would always beg for forgiveness and try to placate her.
Paul was different. He didn’t seem to care at all. Even if he did lie or omit the truth, at least he wasn’t afraid to own his actions. And he wasn’t trying to beg for forgiveness.
During an argument over text message a couple of months later, Jane, once more attacked Paul with accusations of trust. “You lied to me before. How can I trust you again?” She said.
“Lied about what?” Paul said.
“About going to Vegas,” Jane replied.
Paul didn’t respond. There was no point. He had already closed the issue on this months ago and here she was bringing up the trust issue again.
Screw this, Paul thought, if she doesn’t trust me and she’s going to keep bringing it up, I’m better off without her.
Jane sensed Paul’s distance and his emotional withdrawal. This made her question her actions and her behavior.
I really should stop talking about this otherwise I might lose him, Jane reasoned in a moment of unusual clarity.
Jane picked up her phone and sent Paul a message: “I’m sorry, honey. What time will I see you tonight?”
Apologizing Doesn’t Build Trust
It’s natural to assume that apologizing to a woman will restore trust and fix the problem—it doesn’t. In fact, somewhat counter-intuitively, the more you apologize, the more guilty, weak and untrustworthy you appear in a woman’s eyes.
Research into conflict resolution has found that apologies are often accompanied by a loss of face and a loss of respect and status.
This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t apologize if you cheated or lied. It means that you should only apologize once and one time only.
It’s impossible to have a relationship without breaking trust at some point. Maybe you cheated. Maybe you lied. Maybe you came home late. Maybe you didn’t respond to her messages one evening.
There are literally a thousand reasons why a woman might say she doesn’t trust you. Most of them are irrelevant. I’m yet to see a man (even the most honorable and honest of men) date a woman and not have to deal with trust issues at some point.
Most Women Have Trust Issues
I often hear the same tiresome refrain sung by women: “I have trust issues. My daddy never cared for me or supported me” or “I have trust issues. My ex boyfriend cheated on me.”
None of this is your problem; it’s her problem. If she brings trust issues with her into the relationship, that’s not something you have to deal with.
Trying to talk about this or reason with a woman to fix her trust issues is a recipe for disaster. You don’t need to say anything and you don’t need to fix her emotional problems.
Sure, you can listen to your girlfriend or wife if she wants to talk about a certain issue, but it would be foolish to try to convince her to feel a different way about you… to somehow prove that you are different and worthy of her trust.
You don’t need to prove yourself to anyone, especially not your partner. Instead, it’s always more effective to listen, acknowledge the issue, and not say anything at all.
Don’t engage a woman head on and try to help her resolve her trust issues. I’ve seen too many men walk this path with disastrous consequences.
Instead, if a girl tells you that she doesn’t trust you, you can respond in one of the following ways:
1. “I don’t care if you trust me or not.” (Why should you care if you didn’t do anything wrong)
2. Tell her: “That’s okay, it’s impossible to make you feel safe all the time.”
3. Say nothing at all.
4. If you did something to break her trust—you cheated or told a major lie—apologize once and that’s all. If she continues to press the issue, simply tell her: “We’ve already talked about this. I did it. I apologized. If you can’t let it go, I’ll have to let you go.”
While these responses might appear cold and indifferent, that’s the whole point. You want to appear emotionally unaffected by what she says so she can trust your inner-strength and mental fortitude.
To Trust You, She Must Test You
One subtle and often overlooked aspect of the “trust” situation is that women often test men for emotional stability and strength.
In this situation I like to use the analogy of a bank.
If you told a bank manager that you wanted to deposit all of your money into their bank, and the manager said: “That’s awesome, but just to let you know… we don’t have locks, we don’t have safes, and we don’t have any security” how safe would you feel depositing your money in the bank?
You wouldn’t feel safe at all. The same applies to women.
If a woman tells you that she has trust issues there’s a good chance that you didn’t even do anything wrong, and a higher probability that she is simply testing you.
Maybe she didn’t trust her own father. Maybe she didn’t trust her ex boyfriend.
Whatever the reason, women will often say that they “don’t trust you” as a way to test you and get under your skin.
Remember, women only test men they are attracted to. And they test men to find out if the man is emotionally stable and can own his own actions and behavior.
If you try to change to please the woman; if you try to beg for forgiveness; if you try to reason with her and beg her to trust you; if you get angry and defensive; if you do any of these things, you fail the test.
You fail the test because you prove to the woman that you’re emotionally unstable and not in control of yourself.
Now, in the same way that you don’t feel safe depositing your money into a bank with no security, the woman doesn’t feel safe investing her emotions into you.
This explains why “trust” will become even more of an issue the more you defend yourself.
Win Her Trust
If, on the other hand, you respond with indifference and an unaffected attitude, you immediately neutralize the woman’s ability to attack you or make you feel guilty.
She can feel your strength. She can see that she is unable to affect you emotionality and this is attractive. You resonate confidence and emotional stability, which women crave.
When a woman’s own mind is so chaotic and flooded with erratic emotions, you must be her rock. Her source of strength.
If you become emotionally affected and unhinged by every little thing she says or does, you will appear weak and emotionally vulnerable.
She will be unable to trust you and you will only stir up resentment and exacerbate any pre-existing trust issues that she already has.
Like so many aspects of dating and relationships, to be successful you must do what is counter-intuitive. You must embrace tension and uncertainty. You must do what feels unnatural.
If your partner doesn’t trust you, the natural inclination is to fight her, to defend yourself, to become angry, to change her mind, to win her over, to beg for her trust… all of these paths lead to failure.
Instead, if your partner doesn’t trust you, you must deflect her accusations with indifference and a “who cares” attitude.
You know better than to argue with a woman and use logic and reason to win her over.
You can’t fight emotion with logic and reason. The only way to gain a woman’s trust and resolve the problem is to let her know that you aren’t affected by her actions.
It’s not what you say that wins a woman over and calms her mind, it’s how you react to the situation and respond to her behavior that ultimately wins the day.